James Coburn Biography

MARITAL STATUS
Professions Actor , Executive producer
Birth name James Harrison
Nationality American
Birth August 31, 1928 (Laurel, Nebraska – United States)
Death November 18, 2002  (Beverly Hills, Los Angeles – United States)
BIOGRAPHY
Coming from a modest home, James Coburn took theater classes at City College of Los Angeles, before landing his first film role in 1959 in The Ride of Vengeance , a western by Budd Boetticher . The following year, he played Britt, the knife thrower of The Mercenaries Seven ( John Sturges -1960), alongside, among others, Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson . Already very popular, Don Siegel hired him in 1962 to play in Hell Is for Heroes , the story of an American patrol surrounded at the front by the Germans during the Second World War. Often appearing in prestigious castings, Coburn found John Sturges on The Great Escape (1963), where he attempted, along with Steve McQueen and James Garner , to escape from German prison.

Far from confining himself to a single style of film, Coburn also tried his hand at comedy, first with the Flint series, the charming and ephemeral spy rival of James Bond (Our Man Flint, F for Flint ) , then by integrating the burlesque universe of Blake Edwards in What Did You Do in the War, Dad? (1967). Nevertheless, due to his rather tall and virile figure, Coburn remains a regular in westerns, working with the most illustrious representatives of this genre such as Sam Peckinpah ( Major Dundee , Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid ), Sergio Leone ( Once upon a time there was a revolution ) or even Richard Brooks ( The Wild Ride ). He also appeared in many war films such as The Battle of Midway ( Jack Smight -1976) and Iron Cross (Sam Peckinpah-1977).

Less present on the big screen during the 1980s, he made a notable return to the cinema in 1990 in Young Guns 2 , then in Hudson Hawk (1991), two films in which he played the bad guys on duty. After starring opposite Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2 (1993) and Eddie Murphy in Professor Folding (1996), in 1998 he won the Oscar for best actor for his role as an aging, cruel and alcoholic father in Affliction by Paul Schrader. At 73, he lends his voice to one of the characters in Monsters & Co , the animated film by David Silverman .