Career: In Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Fonda landed his first professional role in the University Players production of The Jest. It wasn't long before he headed to New York. Along with roommate James Stewart, he developed his acting skills on Broadway and appeared in a number of stage productions between 1926 and 1934. Fonda got his big break when he made his first film appearance in The Farmer Takes a Wife (1935). His movie career took off and in 1936 he starred in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, the first Technicolor movie filmed outdoors. He went on to star in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Rings On Her Fingers (1942), and The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). He served in the Navy during the Second World War. In 1948, Fonda won a Tony Award for playing the title role in Mister Roberts, a role he would later play on the big screen in 1955. He went on to star in War in Peace (1956), The Wrong Man (1956), 12 Angry Men (1957), How the West Was Won (1962) and Spencer's Mountain (1963). Fonda continued to act throughout his final years and he won his only Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in On Golden Pond (1981). He died a year later in Los Angeles at the age of 77.

Career: In 1950, Bronson married and moved to Hollywood, where he took acting classes and began landing small roles. He made several TV guest appearances during the 1950s in the likes of The Doctor, Waterfront, Treasury Men in Action, The Sheriff of Cochise, and US Marshall. His profile increased when he was cast as one of the seven gunfighters in the movie The Magnificent Seven (1960). Prominent films after that included The Great Escape (1963), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). In 1974, he made the film he is most associated with, Death Wish. It was a box-office hit and led to four sequels. After his health deteriorated, he retired from acting in 1998. He suffered from Alzheimer's in his final years and died of pneumonia on August 30, 2003, at the age of 81.