Remembrance of actor –

“ James Coburn.”

An American actor who appeared in more than 70 films—mostly in action roles—and 100 television shows over the course of a 45-year career was James Harrison Coburn III.

James Harrison Coburn III, the son of James Harrison Coburn II and Mylet S. Coburn, was born on August 31, 1928, in Laurel, Nebraska. His mother was a Swedish immigrant, while his father was of Scots-Irish origin. The Great Depression devastated his father's garage company in Laurel. Coburn was born and reared in Compton, California, and went to Compton Junior College there.

Coburn was enlisted in the US Army in 1950 and worked as a truck driver and on occasion as a disc jockey on an Army radio station in Texas. In Mainz, West Germany, he voiced Army training videos as well. He studied acting at Los Angeles City College under the supervision of Stella Adler alongside future actor Jeff Corey and later had his stage debut in Billy Budd at the La Jolla Playhouse.

In a number of leading and supporting parts in Westerns and action movies, Coburn was a competent, rough-hewn leading man whose toothy grin and lanky stature made him the ideal tough guy.

In 1953, Coburn made his first appearance on television on Four Star Playhouse.

Coburn made his movie debut in 1959 as Pernell Roberts' sidekick in the Randolph Scott western Ride Lonesome. He quickly secured a role in Face of a Fugitive, another Western in 1959.

In addition, he played a variety of characters on television, including Roberts in multiple Bonanza episodes for NBC. He made two separate appearances on two different NBC Westerns: Tales of Wells Fargo with Dale Robertson, in which he played Butch Cassidy in one episode; and The Restless Gun with John Payne, in which he co-starred with Bonanza's Dan Blocker in "The Pawn" and "The Way Back." In 1958, "Butch Cassidy" first aired.

As the knife-wielding Britt in The Magnificent Seven (1960), directed by John Sturges for the Mirisch Company, Coburn had a significant breakthrough in his third movie.

Coburn co-starred in the 1960–1961 season of the NBC drama/adventure series Klondike, which was based in the Alaskan gold rush town of Skagway and starring Ralph Taeger and Joi Lansing.

In the episodes "The Case of the Envious Editor" and "The Case of the Angry Astronaut," Coburn also had two cameo appearances on Perry Mason on CBS, both times as the murder victim. He played Col. Briscoe in the CBS television series Rawhide's "Hostage Child" in 1962.

In the 1962 war film, Hell Is for Heroes starring Steve McQueen, Coburn had a commendable role. In 1963's The Great Escape, a war movie starring McQueen and directed by Sturges for the Mirisches, Coburn played an Australian. Coburn narrated Kings of the Sun for the Mirisches in 1963.

In the 1963 film Charade starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, Coburn played one of the villains. Then, in Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily, he was cast to play a brash naval commander, taking James Garner's place who had been promoted to the lead role after William Holden withdrew. As a result, Coburn and 20th Century Fox agreed to a seven-year contract.

In the 1965 Sam Peckinpah film Major Dundee with Charlton Heston and Coburn, Coburn played a one-armed Indian tracker and delivered another outstanding supporting performance.

He acted alongside Anthony Quinn in the 1965 pirate movie A High Wind in Jamaica for Fox. Following the 1966 release of Fox's James Bond parody movie Our Man Flint, in which Coburn played super agent Derek Flint, Coburn rose to fame. The movie did well at the box office.

The second Flint movie Coburn produced while working for Fox, In Like Flint, was a hit, but Coburn had no interest in continuing the series. He went to Paramount in 1967 to do the political satire The President's Analyst and the Western comedy Waterhole No. 3. Although neither did exceptionally well at the box office, The President's Analyst has gained cult status over time. Coburn was ranked as the 12th-biggest celebrity in Hollywood in 1967.

He was one of many celebrities who made a brief appearance in Candy in 1968 before starring as a hitman in Fox's disastrous 1969 film Hard Contract.

Last of the Mobile Hot Shots, a 1970 Sidney Lumet-directed version of a Tennessee Williams play, was Coburn's attempt at a change of pace, but the movie failed to find an audience.

Coburn played an Irish explosives expert and revolutionary who escaped to Mexico during the early 20th-century Mexican Revolution in the Sergio Leone-directed Zapata Western Duck, You Sucker!, which also starred Rod Steiger. Although Leone's fifth Western, Duck You Sucker, also known as A Fistful of Dynamite, was not as well received as his other four Westerns.

In 1972, he returned to the US and collaborated with Blake Edwards on another movie, the thriller The Carey Treatment. The Honkers, in which Coburn portrayed a rodeo rider, was also released in 1972.

In 1973, Coburn returned to Italy to begin filming A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die, also known as the Massacre at Fort Holman. He later worked with director Sam Peckinpah once more, portraying Pat Garrett in the 1973 movie Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He was ranked as the 23rd most popular Hollywood star in 1973.

On the cover of Paul McCartney and his band Wings' 1973 album Band on the Run, Coburn was one of the famous people wearing jail garb. Along with Bruce Lee's brothers, Steve McQueen, Robert Lee, Peter Chin, Danny Inosanto, and Taky Kimura, Coburn served as a pallbearer during his funeral. Coburn delivered a speech "Goodbye, Brother. It has been a pleasure to spend this time and space with you. You have been a friend and a teacher to me, and you have united my psychological, spiritual, and physical identities. I'm grateful. May you live in harmony."

Coburn was one of many well-known actors that appeared in The Last of Sheila in 1973. After that, he appeared in other suspenseful movies, including The Internecine Project in 1975 and Harry in Your Pocket in 1974.

Hard Times, Walter Hill's directorial debut, paired him alongside Charles Bronson, but it was really Bronson's movie. The movie was well-liked.

Coburn played the main character in the action movie Sky Riders in 1976 before portraying Charlton Heston's adversary in The Last Hard Men. He played a German soldier in the lead part of Sam Peckinpah's Cross of Iron in 1977 after being one of the numerous stars in Midway in 1976. This highly regarded military epic did poorly domestically but did exceptionally well abroad. Up to Peckinpah's passing in 1984, Coburn and Peckinpah were close friends.

In 1978, Coburn made a comeback on television as the lead in The Dain Curse, a three-part miniseries adaptation of a Dashiell Hammett detective novel. Coburn made his character resemble the author physically. The same year as a spokesperson for the Joseph Schlitz Brewing Company in exchange for using just two words to sell their new product on television: "Schlitz. Light." His muscular image was so alluring in Japan that he became an icon for the country's top-selling cigarette brand. Later on, he continued to support himself by sending expensive cars to Japan. He collected sacred Buddhist art and had a profound interest in Tibetan and Zen Buddhism. The Lion's Roar, a movie on the 16th Karmapa, was narrated by him.

Coburn starred in Firepower in 1979 with Sophia Loren, replacing Charles Bronson when the latter pulled out. He made a brief appearance in The Muppet Movie in 1979, and he played the lead in The Baltimore Bullet and Goldengirl in 1980. He played the lead in the 1980 Canadian film Crossover and starred as Shirley MacLaine's spouse in Loving Couples.

Coburn largely transitioned into supporting roles in 1981, such as that of the antagonists in High Risk and Looker 1981. In 1981 and 1982, he served as the host of the horror-anthology television program Darkroom. He endorsed Walter Mondale's presidential campaign in 1984. Coburn additionally played Dwight Owen Barnes in the computer game C.E.O., which Artdink created as a prequel to its a-Train series.

Despite continuing to work until his last years, Coburn starred in very few movies throughout the 1980s due to his severe rheumatoid arthritis. Coburn's physique was in pain and distorted as a result of this illness. Coburn tried a variety of conventional and non-traditional treatments for 20 years, but none of them were successful. Every time he got up he would break out in a cold sweat due to the excruciating discomfort. Then, in 1996, Coburn experimented with MSM, a sulfur molecule that is often sold in health food stores. Coburn's arthritis was not cured by the MSM, but it did help to lessen his pain, allowing him to walk more easily and restart his career.

Beginning in the late 1970s, Coburn had a four-year romance with British singer-songwriter Lynsey de Paul. On her album Tigers and Fireflies, they co-wrote the songs "Losin' the Blues for You" and "Melancholy Melon." As a supporting actor in Young Guns 11, Hudson Hawk, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Maverick, Eraser, The Nutty Professor, Affliction, and Payback, Coburn restarted his acting career in the 1990s. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Glen Whitehouse in Affliction. Additionally, he provided Henry J. Waternoose III's voice for the Pixar animated movie Monsters, Inc.

Coburn had two marriages. In 1959, he married Beverly Kelly, with whom he had two children. After 20 years of marriage, the pair were divorced in 1979.

On October 22, 1993, in Versailles, France, he wed actress Paula Murad Coburn; they remained married until Coburn's death in 2002. The James and Paula Coburn Foundation was established by the couple.

At the age of 74, Coburn passed away from a heart attack at his Beverly Hills residence on November 18, 2002. Paula, his wife, claimed that he passed away in her arms. Less than two years later, on July 30, 2004, Paula Coburn, then 48, passed away from cancer.

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