Actor / Director Profile

A solid, reliable working actor since the early 70s, Frederick Coffin was born January 16, 1943 to actress Winnie Collins, as one of five siblings. Educated at Western Reserve Academy, in Hudson, Ohio, Coffin was both an excellent athlete and student. It was at WRA that he first began theater studies; he graduated in 1961 with a BA in theater. He enrolled at the University of Michigan in 1962 intending to play football, but changed his focus to acting after deciding to perform in a musical. He would graduate from the U of M with a Masters in Theater. In the early 70s, he would begin to perform in plays including "Much Ado About Nothing", "As You Like It", and "King Lear". He would also start doing guest shots on TV series around this time, amassing a great many credits in the medium, appearing on such shows as "Kojak" (1973), "Hill Street Blues" (1981), "Moonlighting" (1985), "The Twilight Zone" (1985), "Dallas" (1978), "Hunter" (1984) and "L.A. Law" (1986) - to name only several. In the late 70s, he would start to lend his engaging, professional, stolid presence to such features as King of the Gypsies (1978), Mother's Day (1980) (in which he was billed as 'Holden McGuire') and Alone in the Dark (1982), graduating to major supporting parts in films such as The Bedroom Window (1987), Shoot to Kill (1988), Hard to Kill (1990) (in which he was particularly fine as Steven Seagals old friend), Wayne's World (1992) and Identity (2003), which would sadly turn out to be his final feature film. He would die on July 31, 2003 in Los Angeles of lung cancer, survived by wife Barbara Monte-Britton, whom he married in 1977, and by his three brothers.