The Oscar-winning actor James Coburn died yesterday of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home. He was 74 years old.
After appearing in over 70 movies, Coburn won a belated best supporting actor Oscar for his role as an abusive New England father in Paul Schrader's acclaimed 1997 thriller Affliction. "I finally got one right, I guess," quipped Coburn at the Oscar ceremony.
A cool, rangy presence, Coburn enjoyed his career heyday in the 1960s, when his laconic style upstaged his more illustrious co-stars in The Magnificent Seven. Other notable films include The Great Escape, Major Dundee, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and the voguish Bond spoof Our Man Flint.
In the 1980s, Coburn's career was hampered by rheumatoid arthritis, which he later cured by holistic sulphur pills. In recent years he had enjoyed something of a renaissance, co-starring with Cuba Gooding Jr in the successful family comedy Snow Dogs and providing the voice of the corrupt chief executive in Monsters, Inc. His last role was as a vengeful father, seeking answers to his daughter's murder, in the yet to be released American Gun.
Summing up Coburn's appeal, the actor's manager Hillard Elkins said: "He was a guy who looked like he was so casual, but he studied and he worked and he understood character. He was one hell of an actor, he had a great sense of humour and those performances will be remembered for a long time."
