Elvis Presley starred in 31  movies, often appearing in multiple movies per year during the late 1950s through the early 1970s. 

Some of the most recognizable actors, some  practically unknown, would later become major names in the Hollywood industry.

Some of these actors included Walter Matthau, Donna Douglas, Charles Bronson, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Stanwyck, Dick Sargeant, Jackie Coogan, Lee Majors, Vincent Price, and Raquel Welch. 

Two notable actors, featured in this article, include Charles Bronson and Kurt Russell.

Bronson teamed up with Elvis Presley for the musical sports drama Kid Galahad in 1962.

In 1963, Kurt Russell made his film debut in the Elvis Presley movie It Happened at the World’s Fair where he played an uncredited extra who kicked Mike Edwards, played by Presley, in the shin. 

In 1979, 16 years after punting him in the shin, Russell was cast as Elvis Presley for John Carpenter’s Elvis biopic, charting the performer’s early childhood and rise to international fame.

Russell actually married his costar, Season Hubley, who played Priscilla Presley, soon after the movie was released. 

They had a son together named Boston, but ended up divorced and Russell has been with Goldie Hawn now for decades.

In 1994’s Forrest Gump, Russell voiced a young Elvis in a cameo, and in 2001, he plays an Elvis impersonator in 3000 Miles to Graceland. In a full circle moment, a kid kicks him in the film as he did Presley back in 1962.

Back to the time just after his first appearance with Presley, a young Russell worked with Charles Bronson in Guns of Diablo, a 1963 Western.

During shooting, Russell found out it was Charles Bronson’s birthday. So he got his older co-star a gift, a gas powered model airplane.  Bronson looked at it, took it… then walked out of the room, without saying a word. Russell was terrified, worried he had insulted the man.

A little while later, Russell was called to the dressing room of Bronson. Bronson was silent, looked down and said to the child actor:

“No one has ever given me a birthday gift before…”

The actor, born Charles Dennis Buchinsky, on November 3 1921, had a tough upbringing. His Lithuanian father Valteris died when he was only 10, killed by “black lung” poisoning after years down the mines in Ehrenfeld, Pennsylvania.

This desolate coal camp, known by locals as ‘Scooptown’, was where Bronson, the 11th of 15 children, grew up. By 16, he was already toiling down the mines, earning one dollar for every ton of coal he dug. 

It was his military service during World War II that helped Bronson escape the coal mines. His life had left little room for the luxuries or even the small pleasures, such as receiving a birthday gift. He never completed schooling or barely ever heard a kind word, but only knew the hard work of a coal miner.

Of his first 20 films, he was either uncredited or billed as Charles Buchinsky. His first listing as Charles Bronson was in 1954’s Drum Beat, alongside Alan Ladd.

He adopted the name after seeing a street sign for Bronson Avenue, near Hollywood’s Paramount Studios, believing his new surname would remove the stigma of having an Eastern European name in an era when communist associations were damaging.

One of his most enjoyable roles was playing Vincent Price’s deaf mute henchman Igor in the 1953 3D horror film House of Wax. Bronson kept the wax model of his own head from the movie and stored it in a closet, bringing it out to scare guests.

An opportunity came from director John Sturges, who cast him as gunslinger Bernardo O’Reilly, one of The Magnificent Seven (alongside Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Horst Buchholz, Robert Vaughn, Brad Dexter and James Coburn), in a film that was a smash hit.

Three years later, Sturges reunited Bronson, McQueen and Coburn in the prisoner-of-war drama The Great Escape. Bronson played Flight Lieutenant Danny ‘Tunnel King’ Velinski.

Both Bronson’s and Russell’s careers flourished, but they never forgot the day, months after the elder’s birthday surprise, that Bronson made sure to return the favor to Russell.

On his 13th birthday, a smiling Bronson gave him a state-of-the-art skateboard. When Bronson found out that a security guard had banned Russell from using it on the MGM lot, he marched with Russell straight to the studio boss, telling him forcefully: “We’re both gonna be skateboarding around the lot.”

The two men remained lifelong friends.

☆☆☆☆☆

IN GOD WE TRUST

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