Early Life
Coburn was born in Laurel, Nebraska, the son of James, Jr. and Mylet S. (née Johnson) Coburn. His father had a garage business that was wiped out by the Great Depression. Coburn was of Scottish-Irish and Swedish descent. Coburn was raised in Compton, California, where he attended Compton Junior College and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1950, serving as a truck driver and an occasional disc jockey on an Army radio station in Texas. Coburn also narrated Army training films in Mainz, Germany. Coburn attended Los Angeles City College, where he studied acting alongside Jeff Corey and Stella Adler, then made his stage debut at the La Jolla Playhouse in Billy Budd. Coburn was selected for a Remington Products razor commercial in which he was able to shave off 11 days of beard growth in less than 60 seconds, while joking that he had more teeth to show on camera than the other 12 candidates for the part.
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