Oscar-winning actor James Coburn dead at 74
Coburn, 74, who battled rheumatoid arthritis for more than two decades, was struck by a massive coronary about 4:30 p.m. Monday, said his manager, Hillard Elkins.
At the time, Coburn was listening to music with his wife in their Beverly Hills home.
"He died happy," Elkins said.
Born in Laurel, Neb., Coburn began his big-screen career in 1959 with what would be a long string of Westerns: "Ride Lonesome."
But moviegoers didn’t take much notice of Coburn until his breakthrough role as Britt, a knife-throwing tough guy in 1960’s "The Magnificent Seven."
"He didn’t have many lines, but his physical appearance spoke volumes," film critic Leonard Maltin wrote.
Seldom cast as the leading man, Coburn often won kudos for his performances as sidekicks and villains.
In the late 1960s, he showed a more humorous side in the James Bond spoofs "Our Man Flint" and "In Like Flint."
He was praised for his performance as Dr. Sidney Schaefer in the 1967 comedy "The President’s Analyst," which he also produced.
He is currently in theaters playing a terminally ill novelist in "The Man From Elysian Fields," an independent film also starring Andy Garcia and Mick Jagger.
After developing painful arthritis, Coburn all but disappeared from the screen in the ‘80s and ‘90s. He said he found a cure by taking pills made from sulfur.
His knuckles remained gnarled — his left hand practically crippled — but the actor recovered enough to play a bitter, abusive father in the critically acclaimed film "Affliction" alongside Nick Nolte and Sissy Spacek.
The role won him his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
"Some of them you do for money, some of them you do for love," Coburn said in his acceptance speech. "This is a love child."
He is survived by his wife, Paula, two children, Lisa and James Jr., and two grandchildren.