James Garner - WikiHQ

James Scott Garner (né Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than fifty theatrical films, including The Great Escape (1963), The Americanization of Emily (1964), Grand Prix (1966), Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969), Victor/Victoria (1982), and Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He also starred on television in Maverick and The Rockford Files.

Early life

Garner was born James Scott Bumgarner on April 7, 1928, in Norman, Oklahoma, the youngest child of Weldon Warren Bumgarner (1901–1986) and Mildred Scott (née Meek; 1907–1933). His father was of part German ancestry, and his mother, who died when he was five years old, was half Cherokee. His older brothers were Jack Garner (1926–2011), also an actor, and Charles Warren Bumgarner (1924–1984), a school administrator. His family was Methodist. The family ran a general store at Denver Corner on the east side of Norman. After their mother's death, Garner and his brothers were sent to live with relatives.

Garner attended Wilson Elementary School, Norman Junior High School and Norman High School (Norman Public Schools).

Garner was reunited with his family in 1934 when his father remarried, the first of several times. He had a volatile relationship with one of his stepmothers, Wilma, who beat all three boys. He said that his stepmother also punished him by forcing him to wear a dress in public. When he was 14 years old, he fought with her, knocking her down and choking her to keep her from retaliating against him physically. She left the family and never returned. His brother Jack later commented, "She was a damn no-good woman".

<blockquote>Garner followed his father to Los Angeles in 1945, attending Hollywood High while helping his dad lay carpet. The next five years were back and forth between California and Oklahoma, during which Garner worked in chick hatcheries and the oil fields, as a truck driver and grocery clerk, and even as a swim trunks model for Jantzen... It paid well ($25 an hour) but, in his first interview for the Archives of American Television, he said he hated modeling. He soon quit and returned to Norman.

There he played football and basketball at Norman High School and competed on the track and golf teams. However, he dropped out in his senior year. In a 1976 Good Housekeeping magazine interview, he admitted, "I was a terrible student and I never actually graduated from high school, but I got my diploma in the Army."

Garner received the Purple Heart in Korea for his initial wounding. He also qualified for a second Purple Heart (for which he was eligible, since he was hit by friendly fire which "was released with the full intent of inflicting damage or destroying enemy troops or equipment"), but did not actually receive it until 1983, 32 years after the event. This was apparently the result of an error which was not rectified until Garner appeared on Good Morning America in November 1982, with presenter David Hartman making inquiries "after he learned of the case on his television show". Reflecting on his military service, Garner recalled: "Do I have fond memories? I guess if you get together with some buddies it's fond. But it really wasn't. It was cold and hard. I was one of the lucky ones."

Awards

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|colspan="12"|Combat Infantry Badge

|colspan="12"|Purple Heart

| colspan="4"|National Defense Service Medal

| colspan="4"|Korean War Service Medal

| colspan="4"|Merchant Marine Combat Medal

| colspan="4"|Merchant Marine Atlantic War Zone Medal

| colspan="4"|Merchant Marine World War II Victory Medal

| colspan="4"|United Nations Service Medal for Korea

| colspan=6|United States Army Presidential Unit Citation

| colspan="6"|Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation

Career

Earliest acting roles (1954–1957)

In 1954, Paul Gregory, a theatre and future film producer whom Garner met while attending Hollywood High School, persuaded Garner to take a nonspeaking role in the Broadway production of The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, where he was able to study Henry Fonda night after night. host Robert Osborne said that Fonda's gentle, sincere persona rubbed off on Garner.

Garner subsequently moved to television commercials and eventually to television roles. In 1955, Garner was considered for the lead role in Cheyenne, which went to Clint Walker; Garner wound up playing an Army officer in the series pilot titled "Mountain Fortress".

In 1957, he had a supporting role in the TV anthology series episode on Conflict entitled "Man from 1997." The series' producer Roy Huggins noted in his Archive of American Television interview that he subsequently cast Garner as the lead in Maverick due to his comedic facial expressions while playing scenes in "Man from 1997" that Huggins had not written to be comical. Garner changed his last name from Bumgarner to Garner after the studio credited him as "James Garner" without permission. He then changed it legally upon the birth of his child, when he decided she had too many names.

1960s

thumb|upright|With [[Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in The Children's Hour]]

After his acrimonious departure from Warner Bros., Garner was briefly graylisted until William Wyler hired him for a starring role in The Children's Hour (1961) with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, a drama about two teachers surviving scandal started by a student. After that, Garner abruptly became one of the busiest leading men in cinema. In Boys' Night Out (1962) with Kim Novak and The Thrill of It All (1963) with Doris Day, he returned to comedy. Garner also starred opposite Day in Move Over, Darling, a 1963 remake of 1940's My Favorite Wife in which Garner portrayed the role originally played by Cary Grant. (The remake was recast and retitled when Dean Martin withdrew after the death of Marilyn Monroe.)

Next came the World War II dramas The Great Escape (1963), The Americanization of Emily (1964) with Julie Andrews, and Roald Dahl's 36 Hours (1965) with Eva Marie Saint. In the smash hit The Great Escape, Garner played the second lead for the only time during the decade, supporting Steve McQueen among a cast of British and American screen veterans including Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasence, David McCallum, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson in a depiction of a mass escape from a German prisoner of war camp based on a true story. The film was released the same month as The Thrill of It All, giving Garner two hits at the same time.

The Americanization of Emily, a literate antiwar D-Day comedy, featured a screenplay written by Paddy Chayefsky and remained Garner's favorite of all his work. In 1963, exhibitors voted him the 16th most popular star in the US and it was thought he might be a successor to Clark Gable. In Mister Buddwing (1966), he starred as a man who finds himself sitting on a bench in Central Park without knowing how he got there.

thumb|left|upright|With [[Katharine Ross in Mister Buddwing (1966)]]

In 1964, Garner formed his own company, Cherokee Productions. After several lackluster entries, Grand Prix (1966), directed by John Frankenheimer and co-produced by Cherokee, co-starred him with Yves Montand and Eva Marie Saint on the European Grand Prix circuit. The expensive Cinerama epic by MGM did not fare as well as expected, and in light of his recent films, Garner was blamed for the disappointing box office on Grand Prix, which damaged his film career. distracting him from his career in front of the camera. He formed his own American International Racing team and both competed in and backed as team owner racing in numerous classes, captured in a documentary he co-produced and starred in, The Racing Scene, in 1969.

Despite opposition from MGM and having to plead his case, Garner played Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in Marlowe, a 1969 neo-noir featuring an extended kung fu scene with Bruce Lee. Garner rounded out the 1960s with the hit comedy, Support Your Local Sheriff!.

1970s

thumb|upright|With [[Margot Kidder in Nichols]]

Along with his undistinguished early 1970s films, including Support Your Local Gunfighter, Garner returned to television for the offbeat Nichols which lasted one season.

The Rockford Files (1974–1980)

thumb|upright|Garner in the 1974 episode "Tall Woman in Red Wagon" featuring [[Sian Barbara Allen with David Morick as the county coroner]]

thumb|upright|With [[James Whitmore Jr. in The Rockford Files (1977)]]

With Garner's career in a lull, Roy Huggins had an idea to reprise Maverick, but with Garner as a modern-day private detective. Starting in 1974, Cherokee produced six seasons of The Rockford Files, starring Garner as Jim Rockford. According to Huggins' and co-creator Stephen J. Cannell's Archive of American Television interviews, many of the plots were recycled from Maverick, but Rockford was, in the words of film and television critic Matt Zoller Seitz in TV (The Book), "the role (Garner) was put on earth to play". It earned him the 1977 Emmy Award for Best Actor.

From 1978 to 1985, Garner co-starred with Mariette Hartley, who had made an Emmy-nominated appearance on The Rockford Files, in 250 TV commercials for Polaroid, a manufacturer of instant film and cameras. They portrayed a bantering, bickering couple so convincingly that some viewers believed that the two were married. After six seasons, The Rockford Files was cancelled in 1980. Appearing in nearly every scene and doing many of his own stunts, including one that injured his back, was wearing him out. The suit was eventually settled out of court in 1989. As part of the agreement, Garner could not disclose the amount of the settlement.

"The industry is like it always has been. It's a bunch of greedy people," he stated in 1990. Garner sued Universal again in 1998 for $2.2 million over syndication royalties. In this suit, he charged the studio with "deceiving him and suppressing information about syndication". He was supposed to receive $25,000 per episode that ran in syndication, but Universal charged him "distribution fees". He also felt that the studio did not release the show to the highest bidder for reruns.

Murphy's Romance (1985)

Garner also resumed his movie career, enjoying success at the box office with Victor/Victoria with Julie Andrews for Blake Edwards in 1982, and in 1984 with Tank. His only Oscar nomination was for Best Actor in a Leading Role for Murphy's Romance (1985), opposite Sally Field. Field and Martin Ritt had to fight Columbia Pictures to have Garner cast, since he was by then regarded as a TV actor who occasionally made films. But after the success of Field's Norma Rae (1979), with the same director and screenplay writing team (Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch), and with Field's production company (Fogwood Films) producing, Columbia agreed, despite being lukewarm about the film itself. The studio wanted Marlon Brando as Murphy, but Field and Ritt insisted on Garner. Part of the deal with the studio, which at that time was owned by The Coca-Cola Company, included both Field and Garner mentioning "Coke," and Coca-Cola signs had to appear prominently in the film. In A&E's Biography of Garner, Field said that her on-screen kiss with Garner was the best cinematic kiss she ever experienced.

Sunset (1988)

Garner played Wyatt Earp in two different movies shot 21 years apart, first in John Sturges's Hour of the Gun in 1967, and then in Blake Edwards' Sunset in 1988. While the first film was a realistic depiction of the O.K. Corral shootout and its aftermath, the second was a comedy centered on a fictional adventure shared by Earp with silent movie cowboy star Tom Mix, inspired by Earp's real career as a consultant on Western movies in his later years. The movie features Bruce Willis as Mix, billed above Garner, though the film gave more screen time and emphasis to Earp.

For the second half of the 1980s, continuing his career as a pitchman, Garner also appeared in Mazda television commercials as an on-screen spokesman.

1990s

In 1991, Garner starred in Man of the People, an NBC series about a con man filling an empty seat on a city council which was cancelled after only ten of its episodes were aired.

In 1993, Garner starred in a well-regarded HBO movie, Barbarians at the Gate, then reprised his role as Jim Rockford in eight Rockford Files TV movies for CBS beginning the following year. According to Garner's memoir, he insisted upon being fully paid in cash before shooting each of the Rockford movies.

In 1994, Garner co-starred as Marshal Zane Cooper in the movie version of Maverick, with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster in the leading roles. He starred in the TV miniseries Streets of Laredo, and paired with Jack Lemmon in My Fellow Americans on the big screen. In addition to a recurring role in Chicago Hope, Garner also starred in two short-lived TV series, the animated God, the Devil and Bob and First Monday.

2000s and 2010s

In 2000, after having both knees replaced, Garner appeared with Clint Eastwood as astronauts in Space Cowboys. In 2002, following the death of James Coburn, Garner took over the TV commercial voiceovers for Chevrolet's "Like a Rock" advertising campaign, on which Garner continued through the end of the campaign. Also in 2002, he was Sandra Bullock's father in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, and after the death of John Ritter, Garner joined the cast of 8 Simple Rules in 2003, remaining with the series until it ended in 2005.

In 2004, Garner starred as the older version of Ryan Gosling's character in the film version of The Notebook, for which the Screen Actors Guild nominated Garner as best male actor. In 2006, Garner made his last appearance in The Ultimate Gift, although he voiced Shazam in Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam in 2010.

Memoir

left|thumb|upright|With stepdaughter Kim in 1958

On November 1, 2011, Simon & Schuster published Garner's autobiography The Garner Files: A Memoir, co-written with Jon Winokur. In addition to recounting his career, it detailed the childhood abuses Garner suffered at the hands of his stepmother. It also offered unflattering assessments of Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, and Glen Larson, though he was effusive in praise for others. In addition to recalling the genesis of his hit films and television shows, the book featured a section in which the star critiqued each of his acting projects, accompanied by a star rating for each. (His favorite: The Americanization of Emily; least favorite: Mister Buddwing.) Garner's three-time co-star Julie Andrews wrote the foreword. Lauren Bacall, Diahann Carroll, Doris Day, Tom Selleck, Stephen J. Cannell, and other associates, friends, and relatives provided memories in the book's coda.

The "most explosive revelation" in his autobiography was that Garner smoked marijuana for most of his life. "I started smoking it in my late teens," Garner wrote.