Sunday, July 20, 2014

TMZ: Actor James Garner of 'The Rockford Files' dead

"Law enforcement sources tell us an ambulance was dispatched to the actor's home in Los Angeles around 8PM Saturday evening ... and he was dead when they arrived on scene."



 
USA Today: "I'm a Spencer Tracy-type actor," Garner once said. "His idea was to be on time, know your words, hit your marks and tell the truth. Most every actor tries to make it something it isn't [or] looks for the easy way out. I don't think acting is that difficult if you can put yourself aside and do what the writer wrote."

65 comments:

Guildofcannonballs said...

Sad. The Rockford Files was a great show. Garner had to use his wits instead of Hollywood Magic.

He was always assuming titles and identities to get information to complete his job.

The fights were good too, not too much melodrama.

I liked Maverick the film also, wasn't around for the TV show.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I don't recall having seen James Garner in much of anything. Not on purpose. Nothing against the guy. Just sort of worked out that way.

I remember seeing him in Grand Prix. Some Japanese car company wanted him for its racing team so they made a car specially for him with a bigger cockpit.

I think Garner might have gone out on a date with the wife of one of the other drivers he hung out with: "Take those sunglasses off your head, you look ridiculous."

A negging POA way ahead of his time, baby!

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Jessica Walter before she became "Gangie," back in the days when she had moisture to spare.

edutcher said...

Rockford Files, Hell!

Brother Bret.

And, yes, he was quite the Lefty.

Chip S. said...

Americanization of Emily is a minor masterpiece.

Trooper York said...

He was excellent in an offbeat little Western series called "Nichols" with a young and sultry Margot Kidder before she went crazy. It was set in 1914 in a different sort of Western era.

Great guest stars like Jack Elam and Joyce Van Patten.

A really cool show.

Trooper York said...

It was a shame that he was such a commie but your creative types often are so you have to look past their politics if you to enjoy them in their roles on TV.

Leland said...

I like that quote via USA Today. I remember Billy Bob Thornton talking about he liked his characters to have some sort of disability, because he thought made the acting more of a challenge. I kept thinking, it just distracts from the actual story, which typically has nothing to do with the characters disability. Thornton isn't the only actor who does this. We need more actors like Garner.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Victor Victoria.

He was a good actor.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Moisture to spare.

I'm sure nobody's going to get that. It's a reference to "Arrested Development." Jessica Walter plays the elderly Lucille ("Gangie" to her grandchildren) Bluth who visits her estranged husband in prison for a conjugal visit.

They go into the conjugal trailer, and her husband thanks her for doing him this favor, and he starts telling her how beautiful she is and how happy he is to see her.

She wipes away a little tear from her eye and says, "Stop it, I can't spare the moisture."

Funny stuff.

edutcher said...

Trooper York said...

He was excellent in an offbeat little Western series called "Nichols" with a young and sultry Margot Kidder before she went crazy. It was set in 1914 in a different sort of Western era.

Great guest stars like Jack Elam and Joyce Van Patten.

A really cool show.


"Nichols" never really knew what it wanted to be.

Troop must have been one of the few that liked it.

And 1914 was considered a cool period in the early 70s.

Trooper York said...

"Nichols" was the natural outgrowth of "Support Your Local Sheriff" where Garner played a Sheriff who just didn't want to shoot it up like old school types like the rifleman. It was a good natured fun Western in a slightly different really under used period in American History. The days right before World War One.

Trooper York said...

Margot Kidder was very cute in the series.

It was ahead of it's time.

edutcher said...

See, that was where they lost me.

"Support Your Local Sheriff" was, of course, a riff on a couple of old "Maverick" scripts.

"Nichols" was never that much fun or funny, but it never got serious, either.

As I say, it always seemed they really didn't know what to do.

edutcher said...

Which, of course, is why they have vanilla, chocolate, and rocky road.

Not to mention spouse like a house.

Fr Martin Fox said...

There was also "Support your local gunfighter," which either came out before or after "Support...sheriff," and they were very similar to each other. But very funny.

I always liked Garner; he reminds me of my brother, for what it's worth. I like that he wasn't full of himself as so many in that business can be.

But I didn't know he was a war veteran, injured twice in the Korean War. Blessings upon him.

virgil xenophon said...

I'm with Troop all the way about Nichols. FWIW, FYI Garner is on record as saying that Nichols was always his favorite series and he always wished he could have done more with it, but it never found an audience.

deborah said...

I liked the Rockford Files a lot. Remember Huggy Bear lol.

I like that quote too, Leland. Reminds me of what one actor once said about another, 'he doesn't act lighting a cigarette, he lights a cigarette. I'm thinking it was said about James Dean.

Murphy's Romance, with Sally Field, is a cute little movie.

The Dude said...

David Chase directed a number of Rockford Files epis - they are precursors of The Sopranos, only usually less coherent. Jim Rockford was no Tony Soprano, just sayin'...

virgil xenophon said...

BTW, my most favorite film of Garners was the B&W 1964 comedy The Americanization of Emily he did with James Coburn about D-Day. (Had a great cast, too, with Melvyn Douglas, Keenan Wynn, and Sharon Tate (uncredited) among others.) Don't know if it is on netflicks, but check it out. A superb comedy.

Trooper York said...

"Nichols" incorporated some of the ideas and settings of "Big Jake" a John Wayne vehicle of the time set in the same era. The idea of the sheriff on a motorcycle and the use of new gadgets like phones and motor cars were direct rip offs of the Duke's movie.

Unfortunately most of the viewing public were imagination deficit morons like ed who couldn't understand anything that was not a cliché that they had seen a million times before.

Chip S. said...

Rockford is available on netflix. A nice fallback when the pickings are slim.

Does everyone have one friend like Angel?

Trooper York said...

I also really enjoyed the series "Bret Maverick" which Garner made in 1981-1982. A sequel to his original hit Maverick it also had some interesting elements. Specifically country singer Ed Bruce as the Sheriff and the always perky and reliable Darleen Carr.

Chip S. said...

To Virgil's list of good things about Emily I'll add that the theme became a modern jazz standard.

YoungHegelian said...

Garner was one of my favorites. What I always like about "Rockford Files" was that one of the uncredited characters was 1970's LA & its cast of miscreants.

Garner may have been liberal, but his body of work shows no sympathy for the usual lefty "postures". Could you imagine how a self-proclaimed ovo-lacto vegan would have been portrayed in an episode of the Rockford Files?

rcocean said...

Loved him as an ACTOR. Rockford was pretty good. Best as a light Comedian although he very good in War/Suspense movie called "36 hours" and the "Great Escape".

Too bad I read his autobiography. What a swellheaded, arrogant, Lefty. Seems he was much smarter and educated than that dummy Ronald Reagan. The failure of the world to recognize that fact, puzzled Garner.

rcocean said...

Haven't had a chance to watch any of his TV shows except "Rockford". Every time a "Maverick" rerun is on, its with some other guy (not Roger Moore) who isn't very good.

edutcher said...

Trooper York said...

"Nichols" incorporated some of the ideas and settings of "Big Jake" a John Wayne vehicle of the time set in the same era. The idea of the sheriff on a motorcycle and the use of new gadgets like phones and motor cars were direct rip offs of the Duke's movie.

Unfortunately most of the viewing public were imagination deficit morons like ed who couldn't understand anything that was not a cliché that they had seen a million times before.


Sorry, "Big Jake" had some good moments.

"Nichols" was boring.

edutcher said...

rcocean said...

Haven't had a chance to watch any of his TV shows except "Rockford". Every time a "Maverick" rerun is on, its with some other guy (not Roger Moore) who isn't very good

If you mean Jack Kelly, he was very good. He had a 20 year career in TV where the shelf life, if you were lucky, was 10.

Maybe you're watching "Nichols".

virgil xenophon said...

Does anybody here know that "Angel" of the Rockford Files produced a similar show on CBC TV called "Stone Undercover" in which Tom Stone is an ex-RCMP guy sent to jail and comes out, lives in a trailer outside Saskatchewan (like Rockford) and is used as an undercover operative specializing in white collar crime by a local police Sgt who is played by Margo Kidders younger sister. And, like Rockford, "Angel" plays the smarmy wheeler-dealer land and oil speculator who some-times helps out with his contacts and at others gets everyone into trouble. A GREAT series but, alas, only lasted two yrs, iirc.

Amartel said...

A gracious gentleman and one of the few decent people in Hollywood. He also paid out of his own pocket to keep Rockford Files on the air. RIP.

Amartel said...

Deborah - Huggy Bear was on Starsky & Hutch, not Rockford.
(Unless there was a Very Special Episode that I missed.)

edutcher said...

virgil xenophon said...

Does anybody here know that "Angel" of the Rockford Files produced a similar show on CBC TV called "Stone Undercover" in which Tom Stone is an ex-RCMP guy sent to jail and comes out, lives in a trailer outside Saskatchewan (like Rockford) and is used as an undercover operative specializing in white collar crime by a local police Sgt who is played by Margo Kidders younger sister. And, like Rockford, "Angel" plays the smarmy wheeler-dealer land and oil speculator who some-times helps out with his contacts and at others gets everyone into trouble. A GREAT series but, alas, only lasted two yrs, iirc

Stuart Margolin was a well-established character actor. He did a lot of TV and got his start doing the segues on "Love, American Style".

If you remember Fern and Lamar, he was Lamar.

William said...

The roles and movies that I remember best were those where he played a variation of the Bret Maverick role. He didn't have a lot of range as an actor, but if it was in his wheelhouse, he reliably hit it out of the park. He just seemed like the kind of guy who would have been fun to know....He stayed married to the same woman his entire life, won two Purple Hearts in Korea, and nursed a bad heart through 86 years. There was substance to the man.

Trooper York said...

Huggy Bear later became a Senator and our first black President.

ndspinelli said...

I have been admonished by Trooper, but this PI liked Rockford as the best PI TV show. The dynamic between Rockford and Angel was special.

ndspinelli said...

My mother loved my father. But, she would have dropped him in a NY minute for James Garner.

Trooper York said...

Hey Nick if you like Rockford who am I tell you different. He doesn't even make my top ten fictional detectives.

1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Peter Gunn
3. Frank Cannon
4. Spencer
5. Travis McGee
6. Mike Hammer
7. Mannix
8. Hap Collins
9. Johnny Staccato
10.Nate Heller

Trooper York said...

I mean Rockford is in the second tier with the likes of Magnum PI, Banacek and Barnaby Jones.

Trooper York said...

You haven't enjoyed a detective story if you haven't waited a half an hour watching Frank Cannon trying to swing his gut out from behind the wheel of his Lincoln Continental.

The man never won a footrace or lost a farting contest.

The epitome of a private eye. Just sayn'

deborah said...

Thanks, Amartel. A few minutes after I posted it, I thought, wait. Was that S and H. Then I though, no, it was Rockford.

Trooper York said...

Johnny Staccato was a great underrated detective series from 1959-1960. Starring the great John Cassavetes.

Catch it on Net Flicks if you can.

Great jazz score even better than Peter Gunn if that is possible.

deborah said...

Trooper, how can Columbo not be in your top ten?

I think Spencer and Hunter were on at the same time, and I liked Hunter.

Longstreet was dreamy.

Chip S. said...

That's Spenser, like the poet.

Amartel said...

I dug Tenspeed and Brownshoe. Ben Vereen and Jeff Goldblum.
Late 70s/early 80s time period.

Amartel said...

Trooper said "Huggy Bear later became a Senator and our first black President."

You have mistaken Huggy for Boo Boo. (Huggy had real-world experience. Boo Boo was a cartoon bear cub who was constantly scolding Yogi and running to Mr. Ranger for assistance and authority.)

deborah said...

Damn, Trooper, ChipS was right.

Trooper York said...

Nice one Chip. You got me.

rhhardin said...

Bond report

Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) had some god-awful woman-attractive dialogue, but the saving grace of a biometric fingerprint thingy that they lifted for Get Smart (2008).

The World Is Not Enough (1999), the next Bond flick, was unwatchable in the psychodrama. Some woman must be screenwriting this thing.

The sense of humor has disappeared completely.

It's a long way from Bond swimming in with a duck on his snorkel.

ken in tx said...

Garner is supposed to be part Cherokee. He actually looks it. Warren doesn't.

rcocean said...

Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, he's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born

rcocean said...

I never knew the song was about Garner.

rcocean said...

Huggy Bear = Ray Huggins

rcocean said...

Top TV Detective:

Columbo

Trooper York said...

Columbo?

Seriously?

Never jumped over the hood of speeding sports car.

No sexy secretary like Mary Tyler Moore.

No superbad side kick like Hawk.

No sexy jazz singing girlfriend like Lola Albright.

Just a raincoat and a glass eye.

Seriously?

rcocean said...

"Just a raincoat and a glass eye.
Seriously?"

Yep, just 90 minutes of talk and "Just one more question..." Plus a cute dog, and old French car.

Quite scintillating.

BTW, why no "Kojak", "Starsky and Hutch", or "Baretta" on your list?

ken in tx said...

Cherokee are good looking. My first wife was. All my kids and grandkids are too. I never married an ugly woman.

Trooper York said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Trooper York said...

I only listed fictional private detectives not police officers. That is a whole different category.

Trooper York said...

Top Ten Fictional Police detectives

1. Pepper Anderson.
2. Christie Love
3. Dee Dee McCall
4. Diane Russell
5. Olivia Benson
6. Dani Reese
7. Julie Barnes
8. Grace Van Pelt
9. Mary Shannon
10.Stacy Sheridan

deborah said...

Got it, good point. In related genre I would list my espionage characters, le Carre's George Smiley and Len Deighton's not-quite-named character in The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin, etc.

As far as old timey, I love the Donald Lam/Bertha Cool mysteries by AA Fair (Erle Stanley Gardner). Lam's a hoot.

I only came across them as a teen because my uncle gave me his old Detective Book Club novels, and I enjoyed a couple of them.

deborah said...

I only know the first three, and I'm detecting a pattern.

Trooper York said...

You know all of them if you saw a photo of them.

For example: Stacy Sheridan....Heather Locklear in TJ Hooker.

deborah said...

I figured I just didn't know their names.

You know it's a random universe when the Shat plays opposite Locklear in a police show.