Hargrett Manuscript Notable Collection

Charles Coburn Collection

Films

Celebrity Photographs

Born in Macon, Georgia in 1877, Charles Coburn was an actor whose talents allowed him to star on the stage, in motion pictures, and on radio and television. At age fourteen, when only a Program Boy at the Savannah Theater, Coburn began his love affair with acting. He eagerly accumulated valuable theater experience as an usher, doorman, treasurer, and finally at age eighteen, the theater manager. By twenty one, Coburn was regularly working as an actor in stock companies. He and his wife, Ivah Wills, formed their own successful touring company, The Coburn Players, in 1905 specializing in Shakespearian plays.

Coburn left the stage in grief following the death of his wife in 1937 and was persuaded to try out for character roles in motion pictures. Performing in over forty films between 1938 and 1959, Coburn received critical acclaim and in 1943 was awarded an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in The More the Merrier. He also starred in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Monkey Business with Marilyn Monroe, and King's Row with Ronald Reagan. He also worked with Henry Fonda in The Lady Eve, and Bing Crosby in Mr. Music and Gregory Peck in The Paradine Case.

Coburn was particularly proud of being a Georgian, and he regularly visited the University of Georgia Library. Before his death in 1961, Coburn bequeathed to the Library all of his theatrical library and vast papers including scripts, scrapbooks, celebrity photographs, publicity photographs and motion picture stills.

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All images in these collections are either protected by copyright law, or are the property of the University of Georgia Libraries, Hargrett Library. Permission to publish MUST be obtained from both the Hargrett Library, and/or the legal copyright holder.

For more information, please contact the Hargrett Library at:
Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library
University of Georgia Libraries
Athens, GA 30602-1641

For further information about this collection, please contact: Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library: Phone: (706) 542-7123 / FAX: (706)
542-0672 / Email: hargrett@uga.edu