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 Nyoka - Herrin der Beduinen (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 Der König der Raketenmänner (1949). Baby boomers might remember
Coffin best as the Arizona Ranger Captain in the 1950s Western series
26 Men (1957).
