It’s 1947 and a young couple are on their first date.

 The girl, 18 year old Harriet Tendler from a wealthy family, had met 26 year old Charlie Buchinsky, extremely poor, just a couple of days before. He was so poor he only turned up with 4 cents in his pocket. Harriet told this story decades later in her charming autobiography, Charlie & Me (published 2011).

She considered their meeting pure gold. Both were wannabe actors and had met at an acting class. Harriet was new, obviously lost, then she heard a low voice. ‘C’mere.’ Perhaps not much of a pickup line. But she was intrigued enough to go over and have a chat.

They set up a date.

“He had four cents in his pocket. That was it. Four cents. We walked all over Philadelphia that night, talking, laughing, looking in store windows. When we finally said goodnight, he still had the four cents. He told me later he was too proud to spend them on a cup of coffee—he wanted to save them in case he needed carfare home. I thought that was the sweetest thing I’d ever heard. I didn’t care about money. I cared about the way he looked at me—like I was the only person in the world. That night, something just clicked. I knew I was going to marry him.”

Over the following days they fell in love and married in 1949. He later credited Harriet’'s encouragement for pushing him toward Hollywood. They had two children together: daughter Suzanne (born 1950) and son Tony (born 1954, later known as Charles Jr.). During this time of course he changed his last name to Bronson and became a star.

The pressures of fame and Hollywood and the same story of absences and diverging paths meant they split after 16 years. It was an amicable divorce and Harriet only had good things to say about her ex-husband. She had given up her acting career to raise a family and then turning to sculpting, writing and real estate. She passed away in 2020 at age 90 never remarrying.