- This article is about the American actor. For the New Hampshire politician and businessman, see Jim Coburn.
| James Coburn | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Coburn in Charade, 1963 |
||||||
| Birth name | James Harrison Coburn Jr. | |||||
| Born | August 31 1928 Laurel, Nebraska U.S. |
|||||
| Died | November 18 2002 (aged 74) Beverly Hills, California U.S. |
|||||
| Years active | 1958 – 2002 | |||||
| Spouse(s) | Beverly Kelly (1959–1979) Paula Murad (1993–2002) |
|||||
|
||||||
James Harrison Coburn, Jr.[1] (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an Academy Award-winning American actor.
Contents |
Biography
Early life
Coburn was born in Laurel, Nebraska, the son of Mylet S. (née Johnson) and James Harrison Coburn, Sr., a garage mechanic. His maternal grandparents were immigrants from Sweden.[1] He grew up in Compton, California and acted in college, eventually making his stage debut at the La Jolla Playhouse.[2]
Career
Coburn became famous in the 1960s and 1970s as the "tough guy" in a variety of films, first mostly with his friends Steve McQueen, Robert Vaughn and Charles Bronson (with whom he co-starred in The Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape). A villainous part in the hugely successful Charade (1963) and a character role as a one-armed Indian tracker in Major Dundee (1965) gained him much notice. In 1966, he finally became a bona-fide star with the release of Our Man Flint, a James Bond spoof released by 20th Century Fox as competition. After a sequel, he decided to branch off into the independent film world. Due to his interests in karate (which he discovered by training with Bruce Lee), Buddhism, and gong-playing, the remainder of the decade (which included less-than-memorable films) proved uneventful to him. In 1971, he starred in the western A Fistful of Dynamite, directed by Sergio Leone, where he plays as an Irish dynamite expert and revolutionary who has fled to Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution in the early part of the 20th century. In 1973 he teamed up with radical director Sam Peckinpah for the film Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (they had first worked together in 1965 on Major Dundee). But an MGM producer tried to sabotage the production causing the film to be drastically edited when it opened. Both Peckinpah and Coburn were disappointed and delved into Cross of Iron, a critically-acclaimed war epic which performed poorly in the US but was a huge hit in Europe. The two remained good friends until the legendary director's death in 1984 of a stroke. Due to severe rheumatoid arthritis, he featured in very few films during the 1980s and spent time writing songs with his partner at that time, British singer-songwriter Lynsey De Paul. He claimed to have healed himself with pills containing a sulfur-containing compound, and returned to screen in the 1990s. He then appeared in films such as Young Guns II (1990), Sister Act 2 (1993), Maverick (1994), The Nutty Professor (1996), and Payback (1999), mostly in small but memorable roles. For appearing as the abusive father of protagonist Nick Nolte in Affliction, he received an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1998.
Death
He died suddenly on November 18, 2002 at the age of 74, of cardiac arrest, while listening to the radio. He was survived by his wife Paula Murad, a son, and a stepdaughter. At the time of his death, he was the instantly-recognizable commercial voice for Chevrolet trucks' "Like a Rock" television ad campaign. Actor James Garner replaced Coburn's voice for the remainder of the campaign. Paula Murad would later die of cancer on July 30, 2004, at the age of 49.
Filmography
Films
|
|
Television
|
|
References
External links
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Robin Williams for Good Will Hunting |
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor 1998 for Affliction |
Succeeded by Michael Caine for The Cider House Rules |
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Coburn, James |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 31, 1928 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Laurel, Nebraska |
| DATE OF DEATH | November 18, 2002 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | Beverly Hills, California |
