Arness (or Aurness before he started acting) enrolled in the U.S. James Arness played Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke over five decades, as the show spanned from 1955 to 1975 and then there were five more made-for-TV movie follow-ups shot in the 1980s and '90s.
After the war was over, he was awarded a Purple Heart for an injury he received in the service and used the GI Bill to study acting, which eventually helped him become the action hero we are all familiar with. In 1943, Charles enlisted in the Army Air Corps where he started out working as a truck driver, but eventually became a tail gunner in a B-29. You know Charles Bronson from his roles in Once Upon a Time in the West, The Magnificent Seven, The Dirty Dozen and Death Wish, but did you know he probably never would have become an actor if it weren’t for the military? Bronson, whose last name was Buchinsky before he changed it, was so poor as a child that he once had to wear his sister’s dress to school because there were literally no other clothes for him in the house. Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
