Star of the Month-James Coburn

 

JAMES COBURN

BIRTH: August 31, 1928

DEATH: November 18, 2002

AGED: 74 yrs

DIED FROM: Heart Attack, had Rheumatoid Arthritis 

MARRIED: 2 times

AFFAIRS: Lynsey De Paul plys many affairs during first marriage

CHILDREN: 2 kids

FAMOUS FRIENDS: Bruce Lee, Robert Vaughn, Sam Pekinpah

OSCAR WINS: 1 Best Supporting Actor for "Affliction"

TALENT: Played the flute. Songer and song writer with Lynsey De Paul- "Tigers and Fireflies"

KNOWN FOR: his bright and big teeth when he smiled. Card playing. Car racing, in fact, he owned a Ferrari Spyder that later was restored and sold for $10,894,400. Was a student of Bruce Lee in Martial Arts and was a pall bearer at Lee's funeral. Loved Tobetan Buddhism.

I always liked James Coburn who was a big star  for a brief time in the 1960s, but when he developed rheumatoid arthritis, the studios didn’t want to insure the actor or hire him. He started off in TV and had a very good career in TV before starring in film and came back to TV later on in his life. He could play a hard nosed cowboy as well as a hard nosed soldier but had fun playing a parody of James Bond in the 2 Flint movies ( based on the saying “In like Flynn” which was based on Errol Flynn’s sexual conquests). When he was married to his 1st wife, he did whore around and she took it until he asked for a divorce. Hell hath no fury and she took him for everything she could, I can’t really blame her to be honest. 

When he was going through this ugly divorce, the rheumatoid arthritis reared its ugly head and stress is one of the reasons for this arthritis to appear or become worse, not the only reason, but a big contributing factor. He suffered for years and was on many medications until he took MSM, an herbal supplement which severely curtailed his pain. At this time, no one wanted to hire him but Angela Lansbury came to his rescue and hired him. He often said, on talk shows, that she saved him in so many ways and he got his 2nd career back. He was, now, a character actor but this is when he won the Oscar and was doing really well since marrying a 2nd time. His wife stated he was playing the flute while they listened to music, when he suffered a major heart  attack and died in her arms ( she died 2 years later of cancer at just 48). He loved his cigars, but Rheumatoid Arthritis is known to attack other organs like the heart.  It came out later that he did partake in pot on a regular basis ( plus LSD and even, Cocaine on 1 occasion) and loved wearing those loosey caftans and liked to meditate and chill out. Quite a cool dude.

FILMS-I'm choosing my favourites first followed by some others

1. The Magnificent Seven-1960

2. Americanization of Emily-1964

3. A Fistful of Dynamite or Duck! You Sucker-1971

4. Maverick-1994

5. The Great Escape-1963 ( love this movie but he is supporting but love the character..maybe this should be #2)

6. Our Man Flint-1966

7. In Like Flint- 1967

8 . Cross of Iron-1977

9. Affliction-1997

10. A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die- 1972