A stage star before entering films in his sixties with the title role in "Boss Tweed" (1933). Coburn subsequently became one of Hollywood's most beloved character actors, most typically playing sharp, crusty patriarchal figures, usually sympathetic, very occasionally not. He won a 1943 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in "The More the Merrier".
Companion
WIFE: Ivah Wills. Actor. Died in 1937.
WIFE: Winifred Natzka.
Milestone
1897: Moved to New York to pursue acting career
1899: First acting job, "Quo Vadis" in Ames, Iowa
Travelled with various theatrical troupes
1901: Broadway debut
1905: Met Ivah Wills
1906: Founded Coburn Shakespeare Players with Ivah Wills
1910: Appeared at the White House before President Taft
1937: Moved to Hollywood
1938: Feature film acting debut, "Lord Jeff"
Charles Douville Coburn (June 19, 1877 – August 30, 1961) was an Academy Award-winning American film and theater actor.
He was born in Savannah, Georgia and was an only child. He married two times. His first wife was Ivah Wills Coburn (c. 1882-1937), an American actress and theatrical producer. In 1959, Coburn married Winifred Natzka, who was forty-one years his junior and the former wife of Oscar Natzka, an opera singer.
Coburn was a theater manager by the age of 17. He later moved on to acting and made his debut on Broadway in 1901. Coburn formed an acting company with his wife Ivah in 1906. In addition to managing the company, the couple performed frequently on Broadway. After his wife's death in 1937, Coburn relocated to Los Angeles, California and began acting in films.
He won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The More the Merrier in 1943. He was also nominated for The Devil and Miss Jones in 1941 and The Green Years in 1946. Other notable film credits include Of Human Hearts (1938), The Lady Eve (1941), Kings Row (1942), The Constant Nymph (1943), Heaven Can Wait (1943), Wilson (1944), Impact (1949), The Paradine Case (1947), Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and John Paul Jones (1959).
Coburn has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contributions to motion pictures at 6240 Hollywood Boulevard.
In the 1940s, Coburn served as vice-president of the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, a right-wing group opposed to Communists in Hollywood. His leadership of the Hollywood blacklist of anyone with any connection to Communism, supported by such luminaries as John Wayne, Hedda Hopper, Adolphe Menjou, Ward Bond, Robert Taylor, Ronald Reagan and Ginger Rogers, to name a few, led to a myriad of talented actors, writers and directors being driven out of Hollywood and deprived of their livelihood.
He died from a heart attack on August 30, 1961 in New York, New York, aged 84.
-- Submitted by: albatros1
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