Barry Corbin Honored at Estes Park Film Festival

If Barry Corbin knows one thing now, it's that 50 years busting your ass acting in Hollywood, television, on stage and at the Rodeo, will get you a weekend stay in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado. Though, Corbin's career has amassed to much more than that, as revealed by the Estes Park Film Festival, who awarded him their Lifetime Achievement Award.

Personally, I remember Corbin most for his role as General Beringer in the 1983 movie, "WarGames" with Matthew Broderick. Corbin emulated a Strangelovian character, as an unorthodox general trying to take the bull by its horns in the War room at NORAD. It's Strangelovian because it channels George C. Scott's General Buck Turgidson in Kubrick's "Dr. Strangelove." Corbin said of filming "Wargames" that he adlibbed several lines, leaving a trail of Texan zingers like, "I'd Piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good."

Though, in the land of coach potatoes, Barry Corbin is known for his role in the series, "Northern Exposure" as the astronaut billionaire who pulls the strings in a small Alaskan town. With Corbin's cowboy persona, it was difficult not to see him like Peter Griffin in the "Family Guy" Episode where Peter goes to his High School Reunion pretending to be a Billionaire Cowboy Astronaut. Though, Corbin was a fixture on Television long before even "Northern Exposure" with major roles on "Dallas" and in the mini series productions of "The Thorn Birds" and "Lonesome Dove." Corbin popped everywhere on TV in the 80s, whenever a brawny, straight shootin sheriff, rancher, coach or general was needed.

Corbin had an equally ubiquitous presence as a character actor in films too, starring with John Travolta in "Urban Cowboy," Clint Eastwood in "Any Which Way You Can," Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor in "Stir Crazy," John Candy in "Who's Harry Crumb?," Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," and "WarGames." Recently Corbin got big kudos for his role in a scene with Tommy Lee Jones, as a sagacious, but decrepit retired sheriff in the Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men."

After viewing the retrospective reel of Corbin's career, put together by the Estes Park Film Festival, the actor commented on seeing the "No Country for Old Men" scene: "I actually look like that…it's depressing." He immediately established his modesty with the cozy audience at the History Park Theater that had gathered to celebrate Corbin. He sat calmly on stage, cracking good ole boy jokes, his big black cowboy hat sheltering him in a humble glow.

Corbin is entirely genuine and seemingly modest, bust his voice still commands room and his art of storytelling is one obviously seasoned with years on screen and stage. One aspiring actor from the audience asked Corbin how he's managed to stay working; what's his advice to young actors? Being one of the most successful character actors of the last 30 years, he offered: "Find your voice. Actors are salesmen, you've gotta believe in your product.

His words of wisdom, where sprinkled with hilarious anecdotes no less, such as being nominated for an Emmy Award for his role on "Northern Exposure." The show's producers refused to fly him out to LA for the ceremony, so Corbin did it his way. While limos lined up at the red carpet that evening, Corbin strode up with his signature black hat, saddled up on a stallion. While Corbin didn't walk away that night with the Emmy, his horse left a parting-gift on the Red Carpet.

While antics like this might make producers jittery, Corbin is well respected. He described working with the Coen Brothers, as Joel and Ethan would whisper to each other between takes, leaving him and Tommy Lee to just exchange glances of uncertain confusion. Corbin eventually asked Joel Coen, "don't you guys direct anyone?" Joel's response affirmed how Corbin had come to this role, in a soon to be Best Picture Oscar winner, "if we cast right, we don't have to."

This may be actor who was inducted into the Texas Cowboy Hall of Fame, but he got his start as Shakespearean Thespian, even making his way out to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. The audience couldn't help but ask if he did Shakespeare with his Texas accent. Corbin complied by standing gracefully, bowing his hat and captivating the theater with Shakespeare's "All the Worlds a Stage…" monologue from "As You Like It." It rolled off his tongue like a pure bred thespian, and Texas was nowhere to be found in the horizon of his pronounced words.

He's written scripts, raises goats, brands cattle, travels inexhaustibly helping charities and continues to find roles on major Television shows and independent short films (one that was awarded Best Drama Short in a previous Estes Park Film Festival). This is a man who has lunch with Ernest Borgnine, another inexhaustible actor whose career has spanned decades. Lunch that is, after filming a short film styled like a western, but stars Corbin and Borgnine as two wheelchair bound elders who duke it out at the senior center. At this lunch Borgnine tells Corbin, that just before John Wayne died he asked Borgnine, "here we are 2 guys who have been doing this for years, why haven't we ever worked together Ernie." Borgnine responded, "Well, Duke, you're afraid to work with a good actor."

Barry Corbin, you've got a pretty good life, if you can hang out with Ernie Borgnine, who tells you stories about John Wayne, if you're still getting gigs in Coen Brothers Movies, can recite Shakespeare at the drop of a hat and you find the time to do charity for Autistic Kids. That's a life time of achievement indeed.