Love was the answer for hipster cowboy James Coburn

‘Love is an action. It’s not something you get. It’s something you do, and it manifests into something greater than you are. Which is perfect.’ Robyn Coburn, the 1999 Academy Award victor’s daughter-in-law, untethers a wealth of absorbing nuggets from ‘Dervish Dust.’

A bewhiskered James Coburn is dashing, disciplined, and on the cusp of stardom in a still from Alexander Mackendrick’s “A High Wind in Jamaica,” in theaters on May 26, 1965. Coburn depicted “Zac, the cranky, wily second-in-command to Anthony Quinn’s Captain Chavez” in this pirate adventure involving a quintet of children inadvertently kidnapped. Biographer Robyn Coburn ranks “A High Wind” among her top three favorite Coburn films. Image Credit: Kobal / Shutterstock

Affectionately tagged “the philosopher” by martial arts master Bruce Lee, James Coburn shot to fame as ladykiller spy Derek Flint in two tongue-in-cheek action movies in the swinging ’60s and counted Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Sam Peckinpah as mates. Equally at home on the range — The Magnificent Seven, Sergio Leone’s Duck, You Sucker! and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid are archetypal westerns — by the late ’80s the cool cat was in danger of fading from memory because of debilitating rheumatoid arthritis, a rancorous divorce, and questionable celluloid choices. Relegated to supporting turns as “the man in the suit,” Raging Bull scriptwriter Paul Schrader cast Coburn as an alcoholic grump antagonizing son Nick Nolte in Affliction. Then the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences acknowledged what fans had long known — Coburn could act. Robyn Coburn, who penned the estate-blessed Dervish Dust: The Life and…