He didn't have the look of a matinee idol.
Charles Bronson's face was that of an everyman - emanating machismo and toughness.
His stoic, wrinkled face probably kept him from playing the romantic lead, which typically goes to the actors with distinct jaw lines and perfect cheekbones.
Bronson once remarked, "I guess I look like a rock quarry that someone has dynamited." But he had a distinct look - ethnic and blue-collar - which in the end helped make him one of the greatest action heroes of all time.
Bronson died Saturday from complications of pneumonia in Los Angeles. The actor was 81 years old and left behind a long list of action movies and westerns - some good, some not worth mentioning - but all with his distinctive attitude.
"He is one of the great ones," Michael Doyle, MSU associate professor of agriculture, said of Bronson.
Doyle instructs Agriculture Extension Education 212, which focuses on the western genre of film.
"I think he was stereotyped into that type of role," he said of Bronson's tough-guy image. "I think it was his persona, you wouldn't see him in a light comedy."
Bronson was born in 1921 and grew up in Pennsylvania with 14 siblings. The son of a Lithuanian coal miner, many thought he was destined to spend the rest of his life struggling to make a living as a coal miner. He chose another path.
After serving as tailgunner during World War II, Bronson studied art and later acting in Philadelphia. He then enrolled at the Pasadena Playhouse in California. His work at the playhouse helped him get his first film role in the 1951 movie "You're in the Navy Now."
But it wasn't until the 1960 western "The Magnificent Seven" that Bronson began to form his tough-guy, antihero image. Subsequent roles helped build on his role in that western, but it was as if he were destined to play second banana to Steve McQueen and Lee Marvin.
Bronson managed to build up a reputation as an actor willing to work hard and found himself starring in Sergio Leone's 1968 classic "Once Upon a Time in The West." Bronson plays the character Harmonica who protects a widow from a ruthless gunslinger working for the railroad.
In 1974, Bronson's image was emblazoned on the silver screen for American audiences to watch. The movie "Death Wish," had him playing New York architect Paul Kersey who turns to vigilantism after the murder of his wife and the rape of his daughter.
And while his professional life found success, his personal life was marked by three marriages. His first to Harriet Tendler produced two children and his second to Jill Ireland lasted 22 years until her death in 1990. He married his third wife, Kim Weeks, in 1998.
His recent films have fallen in quality since his 1974 role as the vigilante family man. The "Death Wish" series progressively became worse as he grew older. The last sequel was made in 1994 with television star Lesley-Anne Down playing his love interest. By then his face had grown increasingly wrinkled with his mustache clinging to his face.
But while the movies fell in quality, Bronson didn't seem to care. After all, he had made a pile of money playing a tough guy and had become an international star. Even though Bronson once said he'd like to play a part where he could lean his "elbow against a mantelpiece and have a cocktail," he still couldn't compete with his own tough-guy image.
