And No mention of The Great Escape!
Philistines!
Aw… merde. 
Tuckerfan said:
I can. I think they’ve been mentioned, but if you haven’t seen 'em, run, do not walk, to the video store of your choice:
The Magnificent Seven
The Great Escape
Affliction
There were other really good ones too (like the Flint movies) but these stand out.
I was always fond of his performance in Sergio Leone’s 1971 western Duck, You Sucker, in which he starred as an IRA explosives expert on the run in revolutionary Mexico. His Irish accent was awful, but he was very enjoyable nonetheless.
Wow, he had a heart attack while listening to music with his wife.
I wonder if it was the same song Nelson Rockefeller or John Garfield was listening to?
didn’t he have some primo babe for a wife? way to go, james! r.i.p.
She’s not too shabby, though it’s not a particularly flattering photo of her.
Damn, hate that. Another one of the “men’s men.” RIP.
No one has mentioned him in The Americanization of Emily yet. There too was an under-rated film. He was a very good actor., but yes, he was in some other great films. For God’s sake, One of the best war movies ever, The Great Escape, perhaps the greatest western ever Magnificant Seven, and two of the best send ups of the James Bond concept Our Man Flint and In like Flint. This is in addition to such very good films as The President’s Analyst, Affliction and Dead Heat on a Merry-Go-Round.
Yes, I was upset when I saw the story in the paper this morning.
A clip from The President’s Analyst:
JC (a shrink, remember) and good guy Godfrey Cambridge are hiding behind an overturned desk in the midst of a battle (smoke, fire and bullets everywhere) as GC explains the fiendish plot. JC is angry enough to grab up a machine gun, leap on the desk, fire off a few dozen rounds, and shout:
“Take that, you hostile bastards!”
A great line from a great actor.
I don’t think The President’s Analyst was one of the all time greats, but it would have been a shame if it hadn’t been made. “We’re all beautiful, Snow White.” I love that line. I know it wasn’t his. But it does capture what I liked about his humor – as out there as it needed to be.
I’ve watched the Flint movies more times over the years than I can count. My kind of James Bond.
I don’t ever remember him giving a bad performance. How many actors can say that? RIP, old buddy.
And remember, the bad guys with the fiendish plat turned out to be the phone company. Life imitates Art.
Interesting, until eading more comments in this thread, I really hadn’t categorized Coburn as a “tough guy”. More as a very smooth, very together “cool” guy. With some real comic talent.
In retrospect he was more of a “suave” tough guy. Like Pierce Brosnan is supposed to be.
Pierce Brosnan. –shaking head– Man, it’s amazing what we’ll put up with when we’ve forgotten what we’re missing…
I hear ya. I was really hestant to throw out the name, because I don’t think Brosnan is worthy of comparison with Coburn. But the Hollywood image builders want him to be.
But it’s like comparing an apple to a picture of an apple.
Doggone it, I didn’t know that! He was a good actor.
Thanks for this insight, it struck an emotional chord. Coburn was the emotional, human, compassionate being one wishes Bond is. A personal hero, rather than an unstopable force.