Tristram Coffin's Main TV Roles Show Character(s) 26 Men Capt. Tom R… Cowboy G-Men Venner Mr. & Mrs. North Pierce Duncan The Legend of Jesse James Whicher

Main Movie Roles 1964 - Good Neighbor Sam 1956 - Back from Eternity 1956 - The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit 1955 - Creature With the Atom Brain 1954 - A Star Is Born 1953 - Wicked Woman 1953 - Salome 1951 - Rhubarb 1951 - I'll See You in My Dreams 1951 - Flight to Mars 1951 - Sirocco 1950 - Radar Secret Service 1950 - The Damned Don't Cry 1950 - The Baron of Arizona 1949 - The Fountainhead 1949 - Radar Patrol vs. Spy King 1949 - My Dream is Yours 1949 - King of the Rocket Men 1949 - Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc. 1949 - Flamingo Road 1948 - Romance on the High Seas 1948 - The Hunted 1947 - Possessed 1947 - Blackmail 1946 - Dangerous Money 1946 - The Mysterious Mr. Valentine 1942 - The Corpse Vanishes 1941 - A Man Betrayed 1940 - Mysterious Doctor Satan 1940 - Doomed to Die 1939 - The Saint Strikes Back

BIOGRAPHY:

Tristram Coffin was born in a Utah mining community, grew up in Salt Lake City, and started acting while in high school. He later continued acting with traveling stock companies. Having earned a degree in speech at the University of Washington, he worked as a news analyst and sportscaster until a Hollywood talent scout approached him with the idea of putting him in films. Coffin's sinister looks served him well in the roles he played in serials like Perils of Nyoka (1942) and Spy Smasher (1942), but there were occasional hero roles, too, as in the feature The Corpse Vanishes (1942) with Bela Lugosi. He donned the bullet helmet and gadget-laden leather jacket of Rocket Man in the 1949 serial King of the Rocket Men (1949). Baby boomers might remember Coffin best as the Arizona Ranger Captain in the 1950s Western series "26 Men" (1957).


TRIVIA:

• He was the infamous "dead man walking" from early television, an often-told tale about the "corpse" who got up and walked out of a scene on live TV. The incident was so well known that Los Angeles Times ran an article a few days after the incident, saying, "It seems that on the new high-budgeted CBS dramatic series, _"Climax!" (1954)_ (qv), which had its debut on KNXT (2) Thursday night, actor Tristam Coffin was lying under a blanket and Detective 'Dick Powell (I)' (qv) was talking about having the body removed when the actor arose from the dead and strolled off scene. Powell and the other actors went right on talking as if nothing had happened. And the show went on and the private eye finally solved the murder, leaving televiewers a little perplexed. CBS blushingly explained yesterday that Coffin thought the scene was over and that he was off-camera when he took his macabre stroll".