Did you know Charles Bronson’s movie career almost never happened due to his foreign-sounding real last name? Or that he once topped pop music charts in France with a rap song? In this extensively researched deep dive into the life of cinema’s ultra-masculine archetype, you’ll learn that the man born Charles Buchinsky changed his name to avoid sounding too Eastern European during the Red Scare. He was also known as “Il Brutto” (The Ugly One) in Italy and was a huge star in Europe before gaining fame in the U.S.