More about Randor Guy

Los Angeles. A day in 1949. An unknown young man of twenty-seven with a stunning physique, arrived in the ‘City of Angels’ after a long journey of many days on the famous Twentieth Century Santa Fe Super Chief trains.

(To reach Los Angels from New York one had to take two trains, the first train known as Twentieth Century which chug-chugged her way (trains were then feminine in gender!) from New York to Chicago where one took another train known Santa Fe Super Chief which stopped at Los Angeles. That journey in those days when air travel was not as common as it is today took more than a week! Newcomers and small fry coming by train from New York were treated differently from those who had fame and name already made in New York. The small fry and unknowns had to get off the train at the Union Station in downtown Los Angeles, whereas actors and others with reputations were met with pomp and circumstance at the Pasadena Railway Station some distance away. One of the classic anecdotes is the first visit to Los Angels made by the brilliant actress and star Bette Davis. When she arrived by train she was disappointed that nobody came to receive her as promised. Indeed the studio staffer who had come to welcome her went back alone and reported to the studio bosses that he saw nobody who looked like an actress! Hollywood history is full of such interesting, amazing and incredible anecdotes!)

In the new town the young man knew nobody but he had hopes and dreams, and stars shining in his eyes. One wonders what his thoughts were on that fateful day when he stepped off the train and looked around at what was earlier known as the Wild West! The young man who was christened as Charles Buchinski was the later day Hollywood star, and cinema icon and cult figure, Charles Bronson!

The Buchinski family had migrated from Lithuania looking for new life in the Land of Opportunity and his father and other family members worked in coal mines. This future movie star was born in Ehrenfield, Pennsylvania on November 3, 1920. As first generation immigrants the family could hardly speak English and working in dark cavernous coal mines they were highly insular and rarely mingled with others except their own kith and kin and fellow countrymen. Charles did not speak English well as a kid and this insufficiency created problems for him when he went to school. However he managed to go through school and for sometime he worked along with his father and others in coal mines for long excruciating hours of back-breaking sweat-pouring labor for paltry salaries.

However he was not interested in spending the rest of his life as his father and others and dreamt of a different life in the opportunity-rich America. Working in coal mines and other physical activity had given him an enviable physique and body rippling with muscles and stamina. He was far from handsome in the conventional manner. Indeed he had a craggy face which looked liked carved out of a mountain. Interestingly later when he became a star he was known in France as ‘The Sacred Monument’ because he reminded the French moviegoers of a craggy mountain sculpture like the famous Mount Rushmore Monument in America. ‘Sacred’ because of the ‘family obligation’ roles he played in his famous Death Wish movie series and others which brought him stardom and undying fame.

As a growing young man giving up working in coal mines he joined the US Army in the Second World War (1939-1945) where he worked as truck driver. Here he was bitten by the theater bug and after leaving the army he moved to theatre production in New York doing small jobs, designing sets and also acting in walk-on roles. Drawn to acting he headed west taking the famous trains en route to Los Angeles.

Here he underwent training at the Pasadena PlayHouse, which taught him the tricks of the trade of stage acting, which of course is a different ball game from movie acting.