James Garner
Date of Birth: 19 July 2014 , Brentwood, Los Angeles, California, USA (acute myocardial infarction)
Birth Name: James Scott Bumgarner
Nickname: "Slick" - as a teen
Height: 6' 2" (1.88 m)
The son of an Oklahoma rug layer, James
Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner) dropped out of high school at 16 to link
the Merchant Marines. He worked in a diversity of jobs and conventional 2
Purple Hearts when he was injured twice throughout the Korean conflict. He had
his primary chance to act when a friend got him a non-speaking position in the
Broadway phase play "The Caine revolt Court Martial (1954)". Part of
his work was to understand writing lines to the lead actors and he began to
learn the craft of drama. This play led to little television roles, television
commercials and finally a contract with Warner Brothers. Director David Butler
saw something in Garner and gave him all the concentration he needed when he
appeared in The Girl He Left Behind (1956). After co-starring in a handful of
films during 1956-57, Warner Brothers gave Garner a co-starring role in the the
western series Maverick (1957). Originally planned to alternate between Bart
Maverick (Jack Kelly) and Bret Maverick (Garner), the show fast twisted into
the Bret Maverick Show. As Maverick, Garner was cool, good-natured, likable and
forever ready to use his wits to get him in or out of trouble. The series was
very victorious, and Garner continued in it into 1960 when he left the series
in a dispute over money.
In the early 1960s Garner returned to films, often playing the same
type of character he had played on "Maverick". His successful films
included The Thrill of It All (1963), Move Over, Darling (1963), The Great
Escape (1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964). After that, his career
wandered and when he appeared in the automobile racing movieGrand Prix (1966),
he got the bug to race professionally. Soon, this ambition turned to supporting
a racing team, not unlike what Paul Newman would do in later years.
Garner found great success in the western comedy Support Your Local
Sheriff! (1969). He tried to repeat his success with a sequel, Support Your
Local Gunfighter (1971), but it wasn't up to the standards of the first one. After
11 years off the small screen, Garner returned to television in a role not
unlike that in Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969). The show was Nichols (1971) and
he played the sheriff who would attempt to solve all evils with his wits and
without gun play. When the show was canceled, Garner took the news by having
Nichols shot dead, never to return in a sequel. In 1974 he got the role for
which he will probably be best remembered, as wry private eye Jim Rockford in
the classic The Rockford Files (1974). This became his second major television
hit, with Noah Beery Jr. and Stuart Margolin, and in 1977 he won an Emmmy for
his portrayal. However, a combination of injuries and the discovery that
Universal Pictures' "creative bookkeeping" would not give him any of
the huge income the show generated soon soured him and the show ended in 1980. In
the 1980s Garner appeared in few movies, but the ones he did make were darker
than the likable Garner of old. These includedTank (1984) and Murphy's Romance (1985).
For the latter, he was nominated for both the Academy prize and a Golden Globe.
Returning to the western mode, he co-starred with the young Bruce Willis in
Sunset (1988), a mythical story of Wyatt Earp, Tom Mixand 1920s Hollywood.
In the 1990s Garner conventional rave reviews for his role in the
highly praised television movie about corporate greed, Barbarians at the Gate (1993).
After that he appeared in the theatrical reconstruct of his old television
series, Maverick (1994), opposite Mel Gibson. Most of his appearances after
that were in numerous TV movies based upon The Rockford Files (1974).
