James Garner was the actor who breathed new life into the Western genre and excelled as the hero of The Rockford Files
James Garner, the actor and producer who has died aged 86, made his reputation in the late 1950s as the shrewd, anti-heroic gambler Bret Maverick in the iconoclastic Western series of the same name — and sealed it as the 1970s private investigator Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files.
Garner’s relaxed, shambling good looks made him an ideal leading man, equally at home opposite Doris Day in romantic screen comedies such as Move Over Darling or in action blockbusters such as The Great Escape (both 1963).
At his best in what he described as “off-centre” roles, Garner was likened to Cary Grant for his ability to charm the audience no matter what part he was playing. As Jim Rockford, he portrayed a genial detective who broke with all the traditions of the private eye. Rockford lived with his father in a dilapidated mobile home by the sea and used an answering machine rather than employ a secretary. “He was the sort of character who runs credit checks on his clients,” recalled the series writer Stephen Cannell, “and uses elaborate billing systems, a kind of Jack Benny of detectives.”
James Garner as Bret Maverick
Garner had much in common with the characters he played. He was physically brave (he won two Purple Hearts in Korea), but he was also pragmatic, and took a Machiavellian delight in studio politics. He left Warner Brothers after extended and bitter legal struggles after he complained that he was not receiving a high enough salary for Maverick.
“It cost me $100,000 to get out of the show,” he claimed. “I only made $90,000 during the five-year run.” Nine years later Garner returned to Warner Brothers to make the ill-fated series Nichols. “I got back all the money I never got in Maverick in one day on Nichols,” he remembered, “but the series only lasted a season.”
Despite Garner’s obvious screen charisma, close friends and family admitted that he was prone to hypochondria and occasional displays of bad temper. “He’s a bit of a sissy when it comes to pain,” Garner’s closest friend, Bill Saxon, observed. “I once hit him by mistake with my golf club and he went down like a ton of concrete. Just dropped in front of several hundred people and lay there.” Garner’s anxiety about his health was such that on one occasion he delayed having a heart operation until he had saved enough of his own blood to avoid any risk of Aids contamination from a possible transfusion.
James Garner was born James Scott Bumgarner at Norman, Oklahoma, on April 7 1928, the son of Weldon and Mildred Bumgarner. After his mother’s death, when he was five, his father, an upholsterer, remarried a woman whom Garner later described as the “archetypal wicked stepmother”. He described his childhood as unhappy. “My stepmother used to beat me and my brothers all the time,” he recalled, “and she was crazy, she made me wear a dress and called me Louise.” Asked by his brother what he would do if he ever met his stepmother again, Garner replied: “I guess I’d kill her.”
After his father left the family, James ran away from home, and at 14 travelled to California, where he worked in a series of part-time jobs, including as a janitor in a boarding house. Aged 16 he joined the Merchant Marines, but discovered that he suffered from sea sickness; he was discharged after a year.
A promising career as a professional footballer was cut short when Garner suffered a series of knee injuries, and he returned to California to join his father in a carpeting business. “It was a bad career move,” Garner remembered. “My knees were already shot after my footballing injuries, kneeling down to lay carpet all day didn’t help.”
In 1950 Garner became the first Oklahoman to be drafted for the Korean War. On his second day in action he won his first Purple Heart after being wounded in a bombing raid. “I was hit in the backside,” he recalled. “I dived into my foxhole, but I wasn’t quick enough and I got it in the butt.” Garner described his second wound as “a lot more serious”: during an attack in which two-thirds of his battalion were killed, he was hit in the back and had to spend several months recuperating.
After receiving his discharge in 1952, Garner returned to Norman and went to the University of Oklahoma to study Business Administration. He had passed his high school diploma by taking correspondence courses while in the Army, but dropped out of university after only one semester. “My knees never recovered,” he remembered, “and I had the wound in my back. I spent most of my time playing pool instead of studying.”
Garner with Andra Martin in the film 'Up Periscope' (1959)
Garner had already sampled a multitude of casual jobs, including waiter, lifeguard, lorry driver, golf ball retriever dishwasher petrol station attendant and an oilfield hand. He now returned to California, where he came across an old acquaintance whom he found working as a theatrical producer. Through him, Garner was offered a small, non-speaking role in a production of Herman Wouk’s play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, which starred Henry Fonda. Garner formed a lifelong friendship with Fonda and later claimed that he had based all his acting technique on Fonda’s stage performance. “I spent months just watching Henry and not saying anything,” he later recalled. “I tried to be as much like him as possible, quiet and still but the centre of the action.”
After making his film debut in Towards the Unknown in 1957, Garner was offered the lead in a new television Western series, Maverick. He accepted because he was eager to play characters that upset traditional models: “At that time all cowboys were tough and spent their time shooting one another. Maverick was different because he avoided trouble wherever possible. He hardly shot anyone and he was always on the look-out for a fast buck.” The series was an immediate success and prompted one critic to claim that James Garner “defined 'cool’ for a whole generation”.
Throughout the 1960s Garner appeared in numerous films. He was Doris Day’s romantic partner in The Thrill of it All (1963), and the cynical Naval officer in The Americanization of Emily (1964). Although he never received top billing, he was always among the top five names at the box office. “Longevity was my plan,” he said. “I didn’t care if I was number one, I just wanted to be consistent and in work.”
James Garner and Bruce Willis in 'Sunset' (1988)
Garner’s relaxed approach to acting made him popular both with technical crews, who always found him cooperative, and with producers, who appreciated the fact that Garner rarely argued and was happy to take direction. “I’ve done a lot of casual work,” Garner recalled, “and acting is a lot easier than laying carpets.”
From 1974 he co-produced and starred in The Rockford Files, one of NBC’s most successful series. Technicians who worked on the series recalled that the atmosphere was extremely friendly and professional, and — more unusually — that shooting always finished on time and within budget. “Jim was the ramrod of the set,” recalled one of the writers. “It was his presence and attitude that made the set go.”
In 1981, after six series of The Rockford Files, Garner decided that he wanted to retire. He complained that working on the series had exacerbated his earlier injuries and that he was suffering from stress, knee problems and back pain. Universal had Garner under contract for a further year and was unwilling to release him from the programme. In a move typical of Maverick or Rockford, Garner sold his share of the series to NBC and promised them a further television series after his contract with Universal ended, thus setting NBC and Universal at odds.
Universal then asked Garner to continue for 12 more months making hour-long episodes of The Rockford Files. “I’ve saved them millions by bringing the show in on time,” he recalled. “I’m too exhausted to do any more, but if they make me do it, I can waste in three months all the money I’ve saved them. What do I care? I don’t own any of it any more.”
James Garner (left) in 'The Rockford Files' with Joe Santos
In 1984 Garner gave what was arguably his best performance, in Heartsounds, a television film documenting the death of a doctor after a series of debilitating heart attacks. Garner, who aged visibly during the film, surprised his fans by accepting a role which portrayed physical infirmity and death. “I’m too old for all the macho stuff these days,” he said. “I’m at the stage where nobody is going to believe I’m the hero type.”
Garner was nominated for an Oscar for his role in Murphy’s Romance (1985), a comedy in which he co-starred with Sally Field.
In 1988 Garner suffered a heart attack and underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Doctors claimed that he had endangered his life by delaying the operation for five months to accumulate enough of his own blood to for a transfusion.
After his operation Garner accepted fewer screen roles, insisting that he wanted to stop work and spend time watching television with his wife and family. Despite claiming that he wanted to retire, he continued to read scripts and to consider advertising, films and television work. In 1988 he starred opposite Bruce Willis in the forgettable Blake Edwards film Sunset, and appeared in a popular series of Kodak advertisements screened in the United States. When asked why he continued to make commercials instead of concentrating on film roles Garner replied: “I’m an actor, I hire out.”
He continued to take roles in television series (he reprised Rockford for several small-screen movies in the late 1990s) and in feature films, among them My Fellow Americans (1996), alongside Jack Lemmon; Space Cowboys (2000), with Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland; and The Notebook (2004), starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.
In 2005 he received a Screen Actors Guild Lifetime Achievement Award.
James Garner married, in 1956 after a two-week courtship, Lois Clarke, a former television actress. He had a daughter and a stepdaughter
James Garner, born April 7 1928, died July 19 2014
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