James Coburn-Career

 

 

 

 

Coburn's film debut was as the sidekick of bad guy Pernell Roberts in the Randolph Scott western Ride Lonesome.

 

Coburn appeared in dozens of television roles including , several episodes of Bonanza. He appeared at least twice on John Payne's NBC western “The Restless Gun” in episodes entitled "The Pawn" and "The Way Back".    Coburn and Ralph Taeger co-starred with Joi Lansing in “Klondike” on NBC in the 1960–1961 season. When “Klondike”, set in the Alaskan gold rush town of Skagway, was cancelled, Taeger and Coburn were regrouped as detectives in Mexico in NBC's equally short-lived “Acapulco”.

 

Coburn became well known in the 1960s and the 1970s for his roles in several action and western films. First primarily with Steve McQueen and Charles Bronson in two John Sturges films: “The Magnificent Seven” and “The Great Escape”.

 

Coburn played the part of a villainous Texan in the hugely successful “Charade”. He Played a glib naval officer in “The Americanization of Emily” and a one-armed Indian tracker in “Major Dundee” gained him much notice.

 

In 1966, Coburn became a bona fide star with the release of Our Man Flint, a James Bond spoof released by 20th Century-Fox. In 1971, he starred in the spaghetti western “Duck, You Sucker!”, directed by Sergio Leone, as an Irish explosives expert and revolutionary who has fled to Mexico during the time of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century.

 

Coburn teamed with director Sam Peckinpah for the 1973 film “Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid”.  Jerry Bresler, took editing responsibilities away from Peckinpah during post-production, resulting in Peckinpah's becoming furious over what he claimed was the producer's deliberate sabotage of his film, and he threatened the studio with a lawsuit. Columbia relented--mainly because of a promise made to them by star Charlton Heston that he would never work for the studio again if they didn't let Peckinpah edit the film the way he wanted--and acceded to some of Peckinpah's demands, but the finished product was still not satisfactory to him and he disowned it).

 

Peckinpah and Coburn were greatly disappointed and turned next to “Cross of Iron”, a critically acclaimed war epic that performed poorly in the U.S. but was a huge hit in Europe. They remained close friends until Peckinpah's death on December 28, 1984. In 1973 Coburn was one of the featured celebrities dressed in prison gear on the cover of the album “Band On The Run” made by Paul McCartney and his band Wings.

 

Coburn returned to television in 1978 to star in a three-part mini-series version of a Dashiell Hammett detective novel, “The Dain Curse”, tailoring his character to bear a physical resemblance to the author. Due to severe rheumatoid arthritis, Coburn appeared in very few films in the 1980s. Although his hands were visibly gnarled in film appearances within the final two decades of his career, Coburn continued working. He spent much of his time writing songs with British singer-songwriter Lynsey De Paul and doing television series as his work on Darkroom. He claimed to have healed himself with pills containing a sulfur-based compound. Coburn returned to film in the 1990s, and appeared in supporting roles in “Young Guns II”, “Hudson Hawk”, “Sister Act 2”, “Maverick”, “Eraser”, “The Nutty Professor”, “Affliction”, and “Payback”. Coburn's performance in ‘Affliction” earned him an Academy Award, and he was also nominated for the Screen Actors Guild and the Independent Spirit Awards.