By Hans Vennevertloo
With his cat-like grin and lean figure, James Coburn was an immediately recognisable presence in Hollywood films of the sixties and seventies, and the personification of cool. A good friend of both Steve McQueen and Bruce Lee (Coburn was a karate student of Lee), Coburn belonged to a group of tough manly actors of the era like McQueen, Clint Eastwood and Charles Bronson, although Coburn always seemed more peaceful and balanced than the others. His popularity in the seventies resulted even in an appearance on the cover of Paul McCartney & Wings most successful album Band on the Run in 1973.
Coburn’s breakthrough was a role as one of the seven gunslingers (or knife thrower in his case) in The Magnificent Seven by John Sturges in 1960, when he was already thirty-two. He also appeared in Sturges’ all-star follow-up and film classic The Great Escape. These were followed by roles in other films like Hell is for Heroes, Major Dundee, and A Fistful of Dynamite, an underrated western Sergio Leone directed after Once Upon a Time in the West.
Mostly acting in action films, Coburn was also capable of turning in the occasional comical role. He might be regarded as the proto-Austin Powers for his performance as the spy Derek Flint in Our Man Flint and In Like Flint, two successful James Bond parodies from the sixties (Austin Powers even calls In Like Flint his favourite movie in The Spy Who Shagged Me). Not a stereotypical hunk, his calm appearance was also ideal for the films of Sam Peckinpah, with their focus on tough but struggling men. He shone as the traitorous Pat Garrett with Kris Kristofferson in Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid in 1972, a film butchered by its studio upon release and only released as originally envisioned in the eighties. Five years later he took on a controversial role as a sympathetic German sergeant in Cross of Iron, a film about the eastern front in the second world war. Although not a huge success, Coburn’s performance was praised.
In the late seventies Coburn started to work less and disappeared for a while from the big screen as he struggled with arthritis. He had to pass for the role of Hannibal in the A-Team, and was unable to return to acting until the early nineties. At that point, his roles had become smaller, but the biggest reward of his career also came in this period. For his role as an alcoholic father in Paul Schrader’s Affliction he won a best supporting actor Oscar in 1997. He also could be heard as Henry J. Waternoose III in Pixar’s Monsters, Inc. in 2001. One year later he died of a heart attack in his home.
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