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James Garner dead at age 86 (1 Viewer)

identikit

identikit

Footballguy
The Associated Press @AP

BREAKING: Los Angeles police say movie, TV legend James Garner dies at age 86.
 
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Hollywood actor James Garner, star of The Rockford Files and The Notebook has died at the age of 86, according to reports.
Garner was found dead when an ambulance arrived at his Los Angeles home around 8pm on Saturday, TMZ reports.

The iconic actor — one of the first actors to excel in both film and television — starred in a long list of classics during his lengthy career.

He was best-known for his role as Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files detective series.

He co-starred in the 1994 big-screen version of Maverick with Mel Gibson.

He was the original Bret Maverick in the TV series Maverick from 1957 to 1960.

Garner also played the older version of Ryan Gosling’s character in The Notebook.

Born in Oklahoma in 1928, he changed his last name from Bumgarner to Garner after a Hollywood studio credited him as “James Garner” without permission.
He and his wife Lois — who he wed in 1956 just two weeks after they met — had one of Hollywood’s longest marriages.

The cause of death is not yet known.


http://nypost.com/2014/07/20/actor-james-garner-dead-at-86/
 
Wow. One of my favorite actors ever.

If all you know him from are his TV roles and some of his later movies, go watch Support Your Local Sheriff and the sequel Support Your Local Gunfighter. The are western/comedies from the 60s that are loads of fun.

 
Jim Rockford: [answering machine picks up] This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message, I'll get back to you.

Angel Martin: Jimmy, old buddy buddy! It's Angel! You know how they allow you one phone call? Well, this is it.

 
My alarm ringtone..........

GEORGE THOROGOOD AND THE DESTROYERS

"The Ballad Of Maverick"


Who is the tall dark stranger there
Maverick is his name
Ridin' a trail to who knows where
Luck is his companion, gamblin' is his game
Wild as a wind in Oregon, blowin' up a canyon
Easier to tame
Riverboat ring your bell
Fare-the-well Annabell
Luck is the lady that he loves the best
Travellin' around New Orleans
Livin' on Jacks and Queens
Maverick is the legend of the West

Who is the tall dark stranger there
Maverick is his name
Ridin' a trail to who knows where
Luck is his companion, gamblin' is his game
Riverboat ring your bell
Fare-the-well Annabell
Luck is the lady that he loves the best
Travellin' around New Orleans
Livin' on Jacks and Queens
Maverick is the legend of the West
Maverick is the legend of the West
RIP Maverick

 
CNN) -- James Garner, the understated, wisecracking everyman actor who enjoyed multi-generational success on both the small and big screen, has died. He was 86.

Police, who were called to his residence Saturday night in Los Angeles, say he died of natural causes.

Garner starred in hit TV series almost 20 years apart -- "Maverick" in the late 1950s and "The Rockford Files" in the 1970s. He also had a notable film career, starring in such classics as "Sayonara" (1957), "The Great Escape" (1963), "The Americanization of Emily" (1964), "Grand Prix" (1966) and "Victor/Victoria" (1982), as well as the TV movies "My Name Is Bill W." (1989) and "Barbarians at the Gate" (1993). More recent films included "Space Cowboys" (2000) and "The Notebook" (2004).He was fiercely independent, challenging the studios on both "Maverick" and "Rockford" when he felt he wasn't being treated fairly. He sued studios twice and won both times.

"The industry is like it always has been. It's a bunch of greedy people," he told The Los Angeles Times in 1990.

A versatile star

He was a valued and convincing pitchman -- in his 1970s and '80s commercials for Polaroid cameras he had such good rapport with co-star Mariette Hartley that viewers were convinced they were married -- and was nominated for a slew of awards, including Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG Awards and an Oscar (for 1986's "Murphy's Romance"). His performance in "The Rockford Files" won him an Emmy.

He could do serious. His performance in the TV movie "My Name Is Bill W." -- about the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous -- was straightforward and uncompromising. He could also show real heartbreak, whether it was cradling fellow escapee Donald Pleasance in "The Great Escape" or talking with Gena Rowlands in "The Notebook."

But he was rarely one to blow his own horn.

"I got into the business to put a roof over my head," he once said. "I wasn't looking for star status. I just wanted to keep working."

Humble beginnings

James Scott Bumgarner was born April 7, 1928, in Norman, Oklahoma. His mother died when he was 5 and his father remarried a year later. Garner didn't get along with his stepmother and, after a particularly vicious argument, left home at 14. His father, who divorced his stepmother, eventually moved to Los Angeles. At 16, Garner followed, attending Hollywood High School and finding a job as a swimsuit model.

"I made 25 bucks an hour!" he told "People Magazine". "That's why I quit school. I was making more money than the teachers. I never finished the ninth grade.

After joining the Merchant Marine and the National Guard, he served in the Korean War, where he won a Purple Heart. After the war, he returned to Los Angeles and took up acting -- for the same reason he started modeling, he told the L.A. Times.

"What was I qualified to do to make a living? Nothing," he said. "You don't need qualifications as an actor or a politician. And I didn't want to be a politician."

 
I was a teenager when Rockford had its original run and I wanted to be him - trailer on the beach, Trans AM, and Gretchen Corbett :wub:

 
My favorite Rockford Files conversation:

Jim Rockford: What's wrong?

Joseph 'Rocky' Rockford: I am THROUGH talking to you! Look at you, an inch or two to the right and you'd be missing that eye!

Jim Rockford: Yeah, but look at it this way, an inch or two to the left and he'd have missed me completely.
 
Oh, no. I loved him. Did anyone have a bad word to say about him? Total class, onscreen and off.

Identikit, nice photo of him with Diahann Carroll marching on Washington. I never knew that either.

UH, great call on Gretchen Corbett. Adorable.

RIP. :(

 
Damn. Had the pleasure of working with him once. Really nice guy. Total class act. Gave me a bottle of wine from his private vineyard for Christmas, "Chateau Jimbeaux". I know I've posted my biscuits story before, I'll see if I can dig it up. A funny moment I'll never forget.

Edit:

Longtime Yank here. Never knew about biscuits and gravy. Never came across it. Never had it. Didn't know it was such a staple.

One time a few years back, I'm working on set as a production assistant/gofer. James Garner was doing a small role and showed up that morning, and I brought him to his dressing room. Since he's old and walks with a cane, I ask if there's anything I can get for him. He asks if there's breakfast at craft service and I offer to make him a plate. I go down and there's a full catered spread. I figure, it's James Garner, he's going to want a man's breakfast. I load him up with a ####-ton of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, home-fried potatoes and hash browns, grits, the works. I think I filled up two of those oversized 11-inch styrofoam plates. I skipped all the stuff I thought was "chick stuff"... yogurt, cereals, etc. One of the trays had biscuits and gravy, and, being a Yank, I had no idea what it was there for or why anyone would want it. So I bring all the food up to his room and let him get ready for the day.

About 45 minutes go by and it's time to bring him to set to rehearse the next scene. One of the assistant directors walked him to stage through the back entrance by craft service. I'm just sitting there minding my own business watching rehearsal when all of a sudden I hear this bellow from behind the back wall: "Gawdammit Sarnoff... you didn't tell me there were biscuits and gravy!" Everyone started cracking up. He came around the corner and started joking around like he was going to crack me with his cane. "Now go fetch me a plate!"

That's how I learned how important biscuits and gravy are.
Click to expand...
 
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identikit said:
CNN) -- James Garner, the understated, wisecracking everyman actor who enjoyed multi-generational success on both the small and big screen, has died. He was 86.

Police, who were called to his residence Saturday night in Los Angeles, say he died of natural causes.

Garner starred in hit TV series almost 20 years apart -- "Maverick" in the late 1950s and "The Rockford Files" in the 1970s. He also had a notable film career, starring in such classics as "Sayonara" (1957), "The Great Escape" (1963), "The Americanization of Emily" (1964), "Grand Prix" (1966) and "Victor/Victoria" (1982), as well as the TV movies "My Name Is Bill W." (1989) and "Barbarians at the Gate" (1993). More recent films included "Space Cowboys" (2000) and "The Notebook" (2004).He was fiercely independent, challenging the studios on both "Maverick" and "Rockford" when he felt he wasn't being treated fairly. He sued studios twice and won both times.

"The industry is like it always has been. It's a bunch of greedy people," he told The Los Angeles Times in 1990.

A versatile star

He was a valued and convincing pitchman -- in his 1970s and '80s commercials for Polaroid cameras he had such good rapport with co-star Mariette Hartley that viewers were convinced they were married -- and was nominated for a slew of awards, including Emmys, Golden Globes, SAG Awards and an Oscar (for 1986's "Murphy's Romance"). His performance in "The Rockford Files" won him an Emmy.

He could do serious. His performance in the TV movie "My Name Is Bill W." -- about the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous -- was straightforward and uncompromising. He could also show real heartbreak, whether it was cradling fellow escapee Donald Pleasance in "The Great Escape" or talking with Gena Rowlands in "The Notebook."

But he was rarely one to blow his own horn.

"I got into the business to put a roof over my head," he once said. "I wasn't looking for star status. I just wanted to keep working."

Humble beginnings

James Scott Bumgarner was born April 7, 1928, in Norman, Oklahoma. His mother died when he was 5 and his father remarried a year later. Garner didn't get along with his stepmother and, after a particularly vicious argument, left home at 14. His father, who divorced his stepmother, eventually moved to Los Angeles. At 16, Garner followed, attending Hollywood High School and finding a job as a swimsuit model.

"I made 25 bucks an hour!" he told "People Magazine". "That's why I quit school. I was making more money than the teachers. I never finished the ninth grade.

After joining the Merchant Marine and the National Guard, he served in the Korean War, where he won a Purple Heart. After the war, he returned to Los Angeles and took up acting -- for the same reason he started modeling, he told the L.A. Times.

"What was I qualified to do to make a living? Nothing," he said. "You don't need qualifications as an actor or a politician. And I didn't want to be a politician."
Click to expand...
High time we find a cure.

 
Uruk-Hai said:
I was a teenager when Rockford had its original run and I wanted to be him - trailer on the beach, Trans AM, and Gretchen Corbett :wub:
Click to expand...
pretty much my dream as a kid too. sweet ride, living like that on the beach, messing around with the ladies and being a private detective? sign me up.

 
My kid and I were watching "The Great Escape" this AM and I didn't know he had passed.

If you've never seen "Murphy's Romance" find it and watch it. It is a little cheesy and has Corey Haim in it but Garner is awesome.

 
"$200 a day plus expenses."

I watched the Files everyday after school. My favorite episodes were the ones with Isaac Hayes as Gandolph---loved his and Garner's interactions.

RIP

 
DiStefano said:
Support Your Local Sheriff is one of the greatest family movies ever.
Click to expand...
Hell, that's a great movie no matter who's watching. The scene where he started throwing rocks at the guy who drew guns on him is a classic - kind of a reverse IndyJones-vs-Scimitar-Dude 15 years earlier.

 
RIP Jimbo.

Loved Maverick and The Rockford Files.

One movie of his I love that never gets mentioned is "36 Hours" with Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor and a small but very good role for John Banner. Saint and Taylor are still alive at the ages of 90 and 84. And she still looks good.

 
The Man With No Name said:
One movie of his I love that never gets mentioned is "36 Hours" with Eva Marie Saint, Rod Taylor and a small but very good role for John Banner. Saint and Taylor are still alive at the ages of 90 and 84. And she still looks good.
Click to expand...
I watched that on TCM last week. It's a very clever WWII thriller that still held my attention.

 
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