James Coburn

Remembering the life of James Coburn for his Birthday! Lanky, charismatic and versatile actor with an amazing grin that put everyone at ease, James Coburn studied acting at UCLA, and then moved to New York to study under noted acting coach Stella Adler. After being noticed in several stage productions, Coburn appeared in a handful of minor westerns before being cast as the knife-throwing, quick-shooting Britt in the John Sturges mega-hit The Magnificent Seven (1960). Sturges remembered Coburn's talents when he cast his next major film project, The Great Escape (1963), where Coburn played the Australian POW Sedgwick. Regular work now came thick and fast for Coburn, including appearing in Charade (1963 with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and Major Dundee (1965), the first of several films he appeared in directed by Hollywood enfant terrible Sam Peckinpah. Coburn was then cast and gave an especially fine performance as Lt. Commander Paul Cummings in Arthur Hiller's The Americanization of Emily (1964), where he demonstrated a flair for writer Paddy Chayefsky's subtle, ironic comedy that would define his performances for the rest of his career. The next few years were a key period for Coburn, with his performances in the wonderful 007 spy spoof Our Man Flint (1966), the black satire of The Loved One (1965), What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966), a wartime comedy from Blake Edwards and the eerie Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966). Coburn followed up in 1967 with a Flint sequel, In Like Flint (1967), and the much-underappreciated political satire The President's Analyst (1967). The remainder of the 1960s, with the exception of a cameo in the cult classic Candy (1968), were rather uneventful for Coburn. However, he became associated with martial arts legend Bruce Lee and the two trained together, traveled extensively and even visited India scouting locations for a proposed film project, but Lee's untimely death (Coburn, along with Steve McQueen, was a pallbearer at Lee's funeral) put an end to that. Coburn tried a change of pace, an adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play, Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1970) directed by Sidney Lumet, but the film was not popular. In 1971, Coburn starred in the Zapata Western Duck, You Sucker!, with Rod Steiger and directed by Sergio Leone, as an Irish explosives expert and revolutionary who has fled to Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. In 1964 Coburn said he would do A Fistful of Dollars if they paid him $25,000, which was too expensive for the production's tiny budget. Duck You Sucker, also called A Fistful of Dynamite, was not as highly regarded as Leone's four previous Westerns but was hugely popular in Europe, especially France. Back in the US he made another film with Blake Edwards, the thriller The Carey Treatment (1972). It was badly cut by MGM and was commercially unsuccessful. So too was The Honkers (1972), in which Coburn played a rodeo rider. He then re-teamed with director Sam Peckinpah for the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, in which he played Pat Garrett. In 1973 Coburn was voted the 23rd most popular star in Hollywood. In 1973, Coburn was among the featured celebrities dressed in prison gear on the cover of the album Band on the Run made by Paul McCartney and his band Wings. He was in the all-star cast of the whodunnit The Last of Sheila (1973) written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim.

He then starred in a series of thrillers: Harry in Your Pocket (1974) and The Internecine Project (1975). Neither was widely seen. Coburn began to drop back down the credit list: he was third billed in writer-director Richard Brooks' film Bite the Bullet (1975) behind Gene Hackman and Candice Bergen. He co-starred with Charles Bronson in Hard Times (1975), the directorial debut of Walter Hill. The movie was a hit. Coburn played the lead in the action film Sky Riders (1976) then played Charlton Heston's antagonist in The Last Hard Men (1976). He was one of the many stars in Midway (1976), then had the star role in Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron (1977) playing a German soldier. This critically acclaimed war epic performed poorly in the United States but was a huge hit in Europe and has since become a cult film. Peckinpah and Coburn remained close friends until Peckinpah's death in 1984. Coburn turned to television in 1978 to star in a three-part mini-series version of a Dashiell Hammett detective novel, The Dain Curse, tailoring his character to bear a physical resemblance to the author. During that same year as a spokesman for the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company, he was paid $500,000 to promote its new product in television advertisements by saying only two words: "Schlitz. Light." His other TV work includes guest roles in Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, The Rifleman, Tales of Wells Fargo, The Millionaire, Bat Masterson, Wanted: Dead or Alive, Peter Gunn, Richard Diamond, Private Detective, The Untouchables, Perry Mason, Route 66, The Rockford Files, The Muppet Show and he was the host of Darkroom a horror-anthology series. Back in films Coburn starred in Firepower (1979) with Sophia Loren, replacing Charles Bronson when the latter pulled out. He had a cameo in The Muppet Movie (1979) and had leading roles in Goldengirl (1980) and The Baltimore Bullet (1980) both forgettable flops. He was Shirley MacLaine's husband in Loving Couples (1980) and had the lead in a Canadian film, Crossover (1980). In 1981, Coburn moved almost entirely into supporting roles such as those of the villains in both High Risk (1981) and Looker (1981). Because of his severe rheumatoid arthritis, Coburn appeared in very few films during the 1980s, (the TV miniseries Malibu and Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls being some exceptions), This disease had left Coburn's body deformed and in pain. He told ABC News in a 1999 interview: "You start to turn to stone. See, my hand is twisted now because tendons have shortened." For twenty years, Coburn tried a host of both conventional and unconventional treatments, but none of them worked. "There was so much pain that...every time I stood up, I would break into a sweat," he recalled. Then, in 1996, Coburn tried methylsulfonylmethane (MSM), a sulfur compound available at most health food stores. The result, he said, was nothing short of miraculous. "You take this stuff, and it starts right away," said Coburn. "Everyone I've given it to has had a positive response." Though the MSM did not cure Coburn's arthritis, it did relieve his pain, allowing him to move more freely and resume his career. Coburn resumed his film career in the 1990s, where he appeared in supporting roles in Young Guns II (1990), Hudson Hawk (1991), Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993), Maverick (1994), Eraser (1996), The Nutty Professor (1996), Affliction (1997), and Payback (1999). His performance as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also provided the voice of Henry J. Waternoose III in the Pixar animated film Monsters, Inc. (2001), His films in the 2000's include The Man from Elysian Fields (2001), Snow Dogs (2002) and his final film American Gun (2002). On television he was in the main cast of Streak (1991–1998), the horror miniseries Mr. Murder (1998) based on Dean Koontz novel and guest starring roles in Murder, She Wrote, Picket Fences and his final role in Arliss. He also supported himself in later years by exporting rare automobiles to Japan, Coburn was married twice. His first marriage was to Beverly Kelly, in 1959; they had two children together. The couple divorced in 1979 after twenty years of marriage. He later married actress Paula Murad Coburn, on October 22, 1993, in Versailles, France; they remained married until Coburn's death in 2002.The couple set up "The James and Paula Coburn (charitable) Foundation" Coburn died of a heart attack at the age of 74 on November 18, 2002, while listening to music with his wife Paula at his Beverly Hills home. She later said he literally died in her arms. Less than two years later, Paula died of cancer on July 30, 2004, at age 48