James Coburn was born 93 years ago today.
A film and television actor, Coburn appeared in nearly 70 films and made over 100 television appearances during his 45-year career, and played a wide range of roles and won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction.
A capable, rough-hewn leading man, his toothy grin and lanky body made him a perfect tough-guy in numerous leading and supporting roles in Westerns and action films, such as The Magnificent Seven, Hell Is for Heroes, The Great Escape, Major Dundee, Our Man Flint, Duck, You Sucker, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and Cross of Iron.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s, he would cultivate an image synonymous with "cool,” and along with such contemporaries as Lee Marvin, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson, became one of the prominent "tough-guy" actors of his day.
British Film critic David Thomson called Coburn “a modern rarity: an actor who projects lazy, humorous sexuality. It is the lack of neurosis, an impression of an amiable monkey, that makes him seem rather dated: a more perceptive Gable, perhaps, or even a loping Midwest Grant.
He has made a variety of flawed, pleasurable films, the merits of which invariably depend on his laconic presence. Increasingly, he was the best thing in his movies, smiling privately, seeming to suggest that he was in contact with some profound source of amusement.”
I spent a wonderful afternoon talking with Coburn at a friend’s wedding in the 1980s. He was a joyous, funny and charming man who could make a perfect stranger feel completely comfortable. I became a lifelong fan after that memorable day.
Coburn died of a heart attack on November 18, 2002, while listening to music in his Beverly Hills home. He was 74.
James Coburn, director John Sturges, Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson on location in Bavaria while shooting, The Great Escape, 1963