Coburn remembered as ‘hippest of hip’
LOS ANGELES (AP) – James Coburn’s intense smile could switch from cheerful to menacing with the slightest narrowing of his eyes. That enabled the gravel-voiced actor, who died of a heart attack Monday at age 74, to play a wide array of characters, from the gruff mountaineer in the kiddie comedy “Snow Dogs” to his Oscar-winning performance as a violent, alcoholic father in “Affliction.”
Coburn’s breakthrough performances came in 1960s action flicks such as “The Magnificent Seven,” “Hell is For Heroes” and “The Great Escape.”
He then changed direction and found what was for decades his greatest fame: portraying tongue-in-cheek secret agent Derek Flint in the late 1960s James Bond spoofs “Our Man Flint” and “In Like Flint.”
But while they remain cult favorites, the “Flint” movies didn’t afford him the status and respect enjoyed by other contemporary “tough guy” actors such as Lee Marvin and Steve McQueen.
His role as Glen Whitehouse, the violent drunk in “Affliction” that Nick Nolte’s small-town cop feared becoming, brought him his only Oscar. “I don’t think anyone could have appreciated an Academy Award more … than Jim did when he won that so late in life,” said actor Robert Vaughn, a friend for 50 years since their days at Los Angeles City College and co-star of “The Magnificent Seven.”
Coburn savored his “Affliction” role after years spent recovering from the near-crippling arthritis that impeded his career.
“He enjoyed every day of it and never complained and always acted like he was the luckiest guy in the world,” said Paul Schrader, the screenwriter and director of “Affliction.”
“Some of them you do for money, some of them you do for love,” Coburn said of the film. “This is a love child.”
Coburn had recently completed two films, “The Man From Elysian Fields” with Andy Garcia, and “American Gun,” in which his character travels the country in search of his daughter’s killer.
Garcia described Coburn as “the personification of class, the hippest of the hip.”
“With an extraordinary level of artistry and a trend-setting flare, I will always look at our time together as a great privilege,” Garcia said.
“He was of that ’50s generation,” Schrader said. “He had that part hipster, part cool-cat aura about him. He was one of those kind of men who were formed by the Playboy/ Rat Pack kind of style.”
Coburn was born in Laurel, Neb., on Aug. 31, 1928, and grew up in Southern California. He made his stage debut opposite Vincent Price in a La Jolla Playhouse production of “Billy Budd.” He appeared regularly throughout the 1950s in such TV Westerns as “Wagon Train,” “The Rifleman” and “Wanted: Dead or Alive.”
His role as knife-throwing Britt in the epic Western “The Magnificent Seven” was his first big breakthrough. Other notable works included “The President’s Analyst” (1967), “Goldengirl” (1979), and the Sam Peckinpah films “Major Dundee” (1965) and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” (1973).
He worked steadily through the ’90s, appearing in such wide-ranging fare as “Young Guns II,” “The Nutty Professor,” “The Cherokee Kid” and “Maverick.” He also provided the voice of corrupt company CEO Henry J. Waternoose III in last year’s popular animated comedy “Monsters Inc.”
Coburn and his wife, Paula, were listening to music at their Beverly Hills home on Monday when he had the heart attack, said Hillard Elkins, the actor’s longtime friend and business manager.
Plans for a memorial service remained incomplete Tuesday.