This is James Coburn, pictured with my husband as a boy.
This photo would have been after Jim had become successful as a co-star in films like Charade (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964). It looks like it might have been from around the time of the shoot of A High Wind in Jamaica (1965), in which Jim sported a beard and mustache.
Here is a brief excerpt from the forthcoming biography:
The Coburn family had recently returned from what must have felt
like a vacation, shooting A High Wind in
Jamaica (1965) on location in
Jamaica for two months, with a month in London for the interiors. Coburn had
been to London for tests and rehearsals, then flew into Kingston on June 25 to
be joined by Beverly and the kids about a week later. They then spent July and
August of 1964 enjoying the tropical climate while he portrayed Zac, the
cranky, wily second in command to Anthony Quinn’s Captain Chavez.
At
the time, the shooting location, Rio Bueno, and the nearby beach villages had
only recently been discovered by tourists. The area could certainly be
described as an unspoiled tropical paradise—lush greenery, turquoise waters,
pristine white beaches, and a nearly uninterrupted skyline in every direction.
Most of the structures dated from Colonial times. It was perfect for shooting a
Victorian-era period film.
The
movie was based on a 1929 book, The
Innocent Voyage by Richard Hughes, about a colonist’s wild young children
who, on their way to school in England, accidentally stow away on a pirate
ship. It is often compared as a kind of bookend to William Golding’s 1954 The Lord of the Flies. Both deal with
themes of children as naturally savage beings who need the firm control and
direction of adults to become or remain civilized. According to a 1986
documentary produced by Scottish Television about the director, Alexander
Mackendrick was enthralled by the book, considering the “dark” novel a work of
genius.128
Some years earlier he declared that he “desperately wanted to make this movie.”
After finishing the picture, he was less enthusiastic about the result, having
learned a valuable lesson: “Second-rate books, you can make films of, but true
masterpieces never should be transferred to the screen.” The story had been
considerably lightened and sanitized in an attempt to skew it toward a family
film.
Coburn
was interviewed for the same documentary about his experience working with
Mackendrick. “It was wonderful to watch him. He was producing the thing, helped
build the sets, moving. He was doing more than anybody could ask because he
wanted this thing to be really good. And he was very responsible to it. He’d
dreamed about it, he told me, for twenty years.”
He
went on to speak admiringly of Mackendrick’s ability with the child actors. The
director had often worked with children and “learned more about working with
adult actors from working with children.” He maintained an amazing level of
patience. “He was superb with them. He never raised his voice to them. He would
turn around, after this little girl who kept looking the same all the time, and
[make a face then turn back smiling]. ‘Yes, darling. Just right.’ He would go
after her and just… He knew how to do that. I don’t know how to do that. I
would lose my patience with the children. But he wouldn’t lose his patience with
anybody.”
Working
with Mackendrick reinforced Coburn’s profound commitment to his art form. “I
think he taught me the value of film, of the honor of making film, of dealing
with the magical instrument, the realization of certain visions, the solidifying
of dreams—that responsibility… Ah… I don’t think there’s anything anybody can
do that’s more important than make films.”
A
little hyperbole, perhaps. At the time of the documentary, 1986, Coburn seemed
completely sincere in his beliefs about the cultural value of movies as a force
for social change. It was an idea that had long percolated around in his
thinking, and one that Beverly shared. She had written about it back in
1963—“Movies are the greatest propaganda we have, also the greatest setters of
style and attitude, and I feel we should use the responsibility positively.”129
Back then, as a couple they were discussing ideas that would shortly influence
the next stage of his career. But in the meantime, A High Wind in Jamaica was an opportunity for him to really show
his charisma on screen.
128 “Mackendrick:
The Man Who Walked Away 1/6,” YouTube video, 9:58, from a 1986 Scottish
Television documentary, posted by robinofgray, June 3, 2010, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfeLZYVIGsY.
