Tristram Coffin (1909-1990), also known as Tris Coffin, was a movie and TV actor from the late-1930s through the late-1970s, usually in westerns or other action-adventure films.
He is perhaps best known for his role as Jeff King in Republic Studios' King of the Rocket Men, the first of three serials starring the "Rocketman" character, who would later be paid homage to through the character of The Rocketeer, which was adapted into a Disney film in 1992.
He had several guest roles throughout the series Adventures of Superman, sometimes playing a "good guy", sometimes a "bad guy".
He also had a role in the very first TV episode of The Lone Ranger, as Captain Reid of the Texas Rangers, the older brother of the man who would become The Lone Ranger after his brother and four other comrades were murdered by outlaws.
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 Corpse Vanishes, The (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).
