James Coburn, 1928 - 2002.

James Coburn has died.

His death was one that I really felt more than any others in years, because he was too young to die. He was old, but too young to die. He's only 6 years older than my dad. Plus he'd been more active in the last few years than ever before.

Lame as it seems, I feel more comfortable with my relationships with actors on the screen than real-life, tangible people.

Sure Coburn lived hard in the old days, and he was crippled by arthritis in the early 80s. He was a big man. In the 60s he was thin and wiry. Later he was imposing.

I'll include an obit from some source later, but now I'll just reminisce. Off the top of my head, or thereabouts..

I saw Coburn on Letterman, or some show, a couple of years ago, and he said that back when Lee Marvin was alive, the two would often get asked for the other's autograph. They were similar types, and both's (is both's a word?) stardom peaked in the late 60s. Marvin died at 63 in 1987. But he never quit drinking. Coburn had been trying to keep things a little healthier (I think).

Coburn is wonderful in a supporting role in Charade (1963) co-starring with Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Walter Matthau and George Kennedy. Several men are after a fortune in stolen loot that Hepburn's recently deceased husband had made off with. Coburn plays the good-natured (compared to Kennedy at least) Tex Panthollow. He's very funny here and at the end we feel some sympathy for him.

He has two scenes that I've always remembered. One is where he continually flicks lighted matches onto a cornered Audrey Hepburn. The other is near the end, Coburn is the first to figure out a certain mystery, then he takes off running. There's this moment where he sort of sidesteps, and sort of jumps, over a puddle -- the way he did it, it was just such a great bit of physical acting.

Coburn made his first film in 1959, one of the great Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott westerns, Ride Lonesome (1959). In 1960 Coburn left an impression on audiences as the knife-wielding Britt in The Magnificent Seven. This also would be the first of three films Coburn would make with Steve McQueen (Hell Is for Heroes [1962], The Great Escape [1963]); and the first of three with Charles Bronson (The Great Escape [1963]), Hard Times [1975]).

In 1962 Coburn played sort of nerdy soldier in Don Siegel's disturbing war film, Hell Is for Heroes. In 1963 was Charade, and Coburn played an Australian in the POW camp in The Great Escape, which co-starred James Garner. In 1964 Coburn and Garner re-teamed for the satiric The Americanization of Emily (1964).

In 1965 Coburn starred with Anthony Quinn in an adaptation of Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica. Also in 1965 was Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee, which was destroyed by studio bosses before it's release. Coburn would work with Peckinpah again, on what is possibly Coburn's best film. He also had a small role in The Loved One (1965).

In 1966 Coburn struck box-office gold, as they say, with Our Man Flint. As international super spy Derek Flint, in one of the many James Bond satires of the 60s. After Blake Edwards' What Did You Do in the War, Daddy? (1966) and Harrison Ford's film debut, Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round (1966) was a successful sequel to Our Man Flint, called In Like Flint (1967). The Flint films were made around the same time as Dean Martin's Matt Helm films. In Austin Powers 2, Austin claims that In Like Flint is his favorite movie.

In 1967 there was also Teddy Flicker's very funny satire The President's Analyst. This was also Coburn at his commercial peak. Next came the comedy-western Waterhole #3 (1967); kicking around the Mediterranean as Duffy (1968) -- also his first of three films with James Mason; the goofy psychedelic cult film Candy (1968); Sidney Lumet's bizarre Last of the Mobile Hot Shots (1969); the forgotten Hard Contract (1969); Sergio Leone's comedy-western of sorts, Fistful of Dynamite aka Duck, You Sucker (1971), co-starring that ham Rod Steiger; Blake Edwards' so-so mystery The Carey Treatment (1972); Steve Ihnat's rodeo picture, The Honkers (1972); and the spaghetti western Una Ragione per vivere e una per morire (1972).

In 1973 was Sam Peckinpah's greatest masterpiece, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. This film was butchered by the studio upon it's initial release and flopped critically and commercially. The restored version is available on video today, and it's reputation has grown.

Writer David Thomson on Peckinpah and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid: "And there are times -- in Pat Garrett above all -- where the beauty redeems the boorish attitudes and, like a flooding river, breaks their banks. Moreover, it was in looking that Peckinpah seemed most open or uncertain; he looked to see -- whereas Ford looked to discover what he knew already.

"That is why Pat Garrett is one of the great American films, entrancing, perplexing, and -- may I add -- growing: only recently, a letter-boxed videotape came my way with a long, bitter scene between Garrett and his wife that changes my sense of the film (yet again). For there are versions of Pat Garrett and there is a Peckinpah cult that delivers Sam's real or deepest wishes long after his death. Why not? So many of his films were butchered, adding confusion to plot lines that are often cryptic and episodic."

Also, check out this essay on Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

The Last of Sheila (1973) was a cute murder mystery and a second film with James Mason; mediocre crime film Harry in Your Pocket (1973); Bite the Bullet (1975) and Hard Times (1975) were enjoyable adventures; dull action of Last Hard Men, The (1976) and Sky Riders (1976); lost among the all-star cast of the bloated Midway (1976); third and last film with James Mason and third and last film with Sam Peckinpah, Cross of Iron (1977).

A return to television is always a bad sign, the tacky miniseries version of Hammett's "The Dain Curse" (1978). Then he was lost in a muddle of film and TV work including: Firepower (1979), The Muppet Movie (1979), Goldengirl (1979), Loving Couples (1980), The Baltimore Bullet (1980), Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls for TV (1981), High Risk (1981), Looker (1981), Malibu (1983) also for TV, and opposite Kirk Douglas in a made for cable western, Draw! (1984).

But by this time Coburn's arthritis was horribly debilitating. He couldn't work, except for occasional TV commercial voice-overs. He began various forms of therapy, and later credited MSM -- Methyl Sulfonyl Methane with saving his career.

His comeback was slow. He was John Chisum in Young Guns II (1990) (Barry Sullivan played Chisum in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid; William L. Petersen plays Garrett here); as George Kaplan (the character Cary Grant is mistaken for in North By Northwest), among a rogues gallery of villains, in Hudson Hawk (1991); briefly as himself in Robert Altman's The Player (1992); Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit (1993); his third and final film with friend James Garner, Maverick (1994) -- although Coburn did direct an episode of Rockford Files in the 70s; wasted in the Eddie Murphy vehicle The Nutty Professor (1996); in Schwarzenegger's Eraser (1996); and in the neo-noir Keys to Tulsa (1997).

In 1997 he began "hosting" the Winning Strategies Series of made-for-video programs on how to win at gambling. Titles include: Slots & Video Poker, Slots with Video Poker, Blackjack, and Craps. All very sad. If it hadn't been for Nick Nolte and director Paul Schrader offering him the role of Glen Whitehouse in Affliction (1997). Nolte and Schrader knew they needed someone who was big enough to still frighten Nolte's character (Coburn's son). Coburn is so good in this; at times scary, funny, pathetic, mean -- Coburn is really brilliant when letting us see the old man's mind clouding from years of hard living, hard drinking and just spending so much time in the freezing snow.

Of course he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor. This punched up his career a bit. He was very funny in a small role as Justin Fairfax in Payback. Payback was a remake of John Boorman's masterpiece, Point Blank (1967) with Lee Marvin. Payback is actually a pretty good film. Coburn has the old Carroll O'Connor role, and also in a small part is Kris Kristofferson (Coburn's old buddy from Pat Garrett).

He was actually kept very busy working post-Affliction but with few worthwhile parts: in a short film with Ione Skye, The Good Doctor (2000); narrating Steve Miner's Texas Rangers (2001); supplying the voice of CEO Henry J. Waternoose III in the wildly successful Monsters, Inc. (2001); a short film directed by Faye Dunaway, Yellow Bird (2001); as old-timer Thunder Jack in the successful children's film Snow Dogs (2002), and most recently in George Hickenlooper's The Man from Elysian Fields co-starring with Mick Jagger, Andy Garcia, Olivia Williams, Julianna Margulies, Anjelica Huston, Michael Des Barres, Joe Santos (from The Rockford Files), Maureen McCormick (TV's Marcia Brady), Rosalind Chao, Xander Berkeley, and Tracey Walter.

In American Gun (2002), Coburn plays a man whose daughter is shot just before Christmas. Martin Tillman (Coburn) journeys across the US using the gun's serial number to track down the truth behind Penny's killing... Written and directed by Alan Jacobs; with Virginia Madsen, Barbara Bain, Alexandra Holden. This film has been playing some of the film festivals, it is unknown if and/or when it will see a theatrical release nationwide.

AP Obit? Here it is!

Ap article on Coburn's Versatility -- here IT is.