Charles Bukowski | Celebrity Net Worth 2026

Early Life and Education

Charles Bukowski was born Heinrich Karl Bukowski on August 16, 1920 in Andernach, Prussia, Germany to Katharina and Henry. His father was an American of German descent who remained in Germany after serving in the US Army there in the wake of World War I. Bukowski's father subsequently became a building contractor and moved the family to Pfaffendorf. However, due to Germany's postwar economic woes, the family moved to the United States in 1923, settling in Baltimore, Maryland. The family moved again in 1930, this time to Los Angeles, California. Bukowski had a rough childhood in the United States marked by physical abuse from his father and bullying from his peers. As a teenager, he found relief in alcohol.

Bukowski attended Susan Miller Dorsey High School for a year before transferring to Los Angeles High School. After graduating in 1939, he attended Los Angeles City College for two years. Bukowski dropped out of college during the advent of World War II and moved to New York City. He later moved to Philadelphia, where he was arrested by the FBI in 1944 on suspicion of evading the draft. His German birth also troubled authorities, and he was held for 17 days in Moyamensing Prison. After that, Bukowski failed a psychological examination and was deemed unfit for military service.

Work in the 1940s and '50s

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In the 1940s, Bukowski began publishing his writing in minor literary magazines and with small presses. Among his notable early works were the short stories "Aftermath of a Lengthy Rejection Slip" and "20 Tanks from Kasseldown." However, Bukowski quickly became disenchanted with the world of literary publishing and fell into alcoholism. He mostly quit writing for close to a decade, and wandered the United States as a nomad. In the early 1950s, he worked as a fill-in mailman at the United States Post Office Department in Los Angeles. After surviving a near-fatal bleeding ulcer in 1954, Bukowski began writing poetry. Many of his poems were later published in the small literary magazines Gallows and Nomad.

Work in the 1960s and '70s

By the 1960s, Bukowski had returned to the US Post Office Department in Los Angeles. He continued writing poetry during this time and had his first poetry collection, "Flower, Fist, and Bestial Wail," published in 1960. This marked the start of Bukowski's prolific partnership with Hearse Press. In 1967, he gained notoriety when he began writing the column "Notes of a Dirty Old Man" for the LA underground newspaper Open City. Bukowski's columns were collated and published in a collection in 1969. Also that year, Bukowski and fellow poet Neeli Cherkovski launched the mimeographed literary magazine Laugh Literary and Man the Humping Guns, which published three issues between 1969 and 1971.

At the end of the 1960s, Bukowski quit his post office job and became a full-time writer with Black Sparrow Press. His time at the post office became the basis for his first novel, "Post Office," which was published in 1971. It introduced Bukowski's literary alter-ego Henry Chinaski. Bukowski's second novel, "Factotum" (1975), served as a prequel to his first. He published his third novel, "Women," in 1978, continuing to chart the semi-autobiographical journey of Henry Chinaski. Bukowski also continued publishing poetry and short story collections throughout the decade, with titles including "Fire Station," "Mockingbird Wish Me Luck," "Maybe Tomorrow," and "Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions, and General Tales of Ordinary Madness."

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Late Career

In 1982, Bukowski published his novel "Ham on Rye." The following year, he published multiple short story collections, including "Hot Water Music" and "The Most Beautiful Woman in Town & Other Stories." Bukowski's poetry collections during the decade included "You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense" and "The Roominghouse Madrigals." Also in the 1980s, he collaborated with famed cartoonist Robert Crumb on a series of comic books and wrote the screenplay to the semi-autobiographical film "Barfly," directed by Barbet Schroeder and starring Faye Dunaway and Mickey Rourke. Bukowski's final novel, "Pulp," was published shortly before his death in 1994. Since then, he has had numerous poetry collections published posthumously. These collections have been criticized in some circles for editing Bukowski's writing to an unusually high degree.

Personal Life and Death

In the 1950s, Bukowski was briefly married to Texas poet Barbara Frye. He later began a relationship with poet Frances Smith, with whom he had his only child, Marina, in 1964. Bukowski had a long series of dalliances over the ensuing years, providing inspiration for his writing in the process. In 1976, he met restaurateur and heiress Linda Beighle, whom he later married in 1985.

On March 9, 1994, Bukowski died from leukemia. His body was interred at Green Hills Memorial Park in Rancho Palos Verdes, California.

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