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What was the ethnic background of Coburn?


A few days ago, I watched In Like Flint, the entertaining and classic spy spoof starring James Coburn. Great humor and action mix. I enjoyed watching it very much, but throughout the movie, I found myself wondering about the ethnic background of Coburn. He was a unique looking man. He had extremely strong facial features, and there is definitely something about him that looked a bit Asian to me. What race was Coburn? Was he part Asian? Perhaps he was mixed with Japanese or Chinese?

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No, his mother was Swedish and his father was of Scots-Irish (Ulster Scots) ancestry. Any kind of Asian ancestry would have been extremely unlikely in a Caucasian-American born in the 1920s like James Coburn.

In Coburn's home state of Nebraska, the anti-miscegenation law was only repealed in 1963. See here for a little more background on that: https://journalstar.com/news/local/state-marriage-ban-did-little-to-deter-love/article_39655f7c-99db-5ed2-ac15-4d09096fb81a.html

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