Movies

James Harrison Coburn III (August 31, 1928 – November 18, 2002) was an American film and television actor who was featured in more than 70 films, largely action roles, and made 100 television appearances during a 45-year career.

Coburn was a capable, rough-hewn leading man, whose toothy grin and lanky physique 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, Charade, Our Man Flint, In Like Flint, The President's Analyst, Hard Times, Duck, You Sucker!, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, and Cross of Iron. In 1998, Coburn won an Academy Award for his supporting role as Glen Whitehouse in Affliction. In 2002, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Miniseries nomination for producing The Mists of Avalon.

During the New Hollywood era, he cultivated an image synonymous with "cool".

Early life
James Harrison Coburn III was born in Laurel, Nebraska, on August 31, 1928, the son of James Harrison Coburn II and Mylet S. Coburn (née Johnson). His father and namesake was of Scots-Irish ancestry and his mother was an immigrant from Sweden. His father had a garage business in Laurel that was destroyed by the Great Depression. Coburn was raised in Compton, California, where he attended Compton Junior College.

In 1950, Coburn was drafted in the United States Army, where he served as a truck driver and occasionally a disc jockey on an Army radio station in Texas. He also narrated Army training films in Mainz, West Germany.

He attended Los Angeles City College, where he studied acting with fellow future actor Jeff Corey under Stella Adler’s tutelage, and later made his stage debut at the La Jolla Playhouse in Herman Melville's Billy Budd.