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Harriett Tendler was 18, the only child of a widowed Jewish farmer, when she enrolled at the Bessie V. Hicks School of Stage, Screen, and Radio in Philadelphia in 1947. It was there she fell in love with Charles Buchinsky, a fellow student eight years her senior. Charles was part of a large Lithuanian family from an impoverished coal mining town in Pennsylvania. He had served in WWII as a tail gunner and was using the GI bill to study art and acting. Harriett and Charles were married in 1949 and two years later, Charles was cast in his first film. In 1953 he changed his last name to Bronson and found work as a solid character actor with a rugged face, muscular physique and everyman ethnicity that kept him busy in supporting roles as indians, convicts, cowboys, boxers, and gangsters. Life was good for the Bronsons and they had a daughter and then a son.

Jack Warden, the prolific character actor who received Oscar nominations for Shampoo and Heaven Can Wait as well as an Emmy award for Brian's Song, died Wednesday in New York; he was 85. Known for playing men who were tough on the outside but softies inside, Warden was a boxer before he became an actor. Fighting under the name "Johnny Costello," Warden turned professional after being expelled from high school, but found only intermittent success first in boxing and then as a bouncer. After serving in both the Navy and the Army during World War II, Warden moved to New York to take acting classes, making his Broadway debut in Clifford Odets' Golden Boy in 1952 and later in Arthur Miller's A View From the Bridge. A year earlier, Warden had (along with fellow veteran Lee Marvin) made his screen debut in You're in the Navy Now. After a small part in the Oscar-winning From Here to Eternity, he embarked on a successful and lengthy TV career, but also found time for movies, with 1957's Twelve Angry Men considered his breakthrough role. Warden appeared in innumerable TV shows through the 50s and 60s, and in 1971 won an Emmy for his role as coach George Halas in the acclaimed football tearjerker Brian's Song. The 70s also saw Warden collaborate with actor-director Warren Beatty on Shampoo (1976) and Heaven Can Wait (1978), earning Best Supporting Actor nominations for both films (he later appeared in Beatty's 1998 film Bulworth as well). Notable films through from the 70s through the 90s included All the President's Men, Being There, The Verdict, The Presidio, Bullets Over Broadway, While You Were Sleeping, and Mighty Aphrodite. Warden also starred in the TV mystery series Crazy Like a Fox, for which he received two Emmy nominations. His last film appearance was in the 2000 football comedy-drama The Replacements. opposite Keanu Reeves. --Mark Englehart, IMDb staff...