James Garner, Rockford Files star, dies aged 86

James Garner, the US star of hit TV series The Rockford Files and Maverick and films including The Great Escape, has died aged 86.

Garner had suffered ill health since a severe stroke in 2008.

"Mr Garner died of natural causes," the West LA Division of the Los Angeles Police Department told the BBC, adding they had two officers at the scene.

His body has been released to his family by a doctor, the police spokesman said.
Garner's greatest successes were as laconic private investigator Jim Rockford [1974 to 1980] and also as the poker-playing Bret Maverick in the Western comedy from 1957 to 1962, and again from 1981 to 1982.

The actor was also Oscar-nominated for best actor in 1986 for the romantic comedy Murphy's Romance, in which he played a small town pharmacist.

He starred alongside Doris Day in the 1963 screwball comedy Move over Darling and with Julie Andrews in gender-bending comedy Victor Victoria in 1982.

He won an Emmy in 1977 for The Rockford Files and was given a Screen Actor's Guild lifetime achievement award in 2005.

In 1963's iconic World War Two film The Great Escape, Garner played flight lieutenant Robert Hendley, an American in the RAF, alongside Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and Donald Pleasence.
The film depicted the daring escape by prisoners of war from the German Stalag Luft III camp through a 336ft (102m) long tunnel. Only three reached safety and of the 73 recaptured, 50 were shot.

Hendley's role in the film was as the "scrounger" who managed to get hold of identity cards, clothes and a camera.

In an interview on US TV in 2002, he told Charlie Rose: "John [Sturgess, Great Escape's director] always in his movies had a plan. He took all these different characters and he took them all in one direction.

"John was a great director and editor and he got the most out of his actors and I don't know how he did that, I think it was just pat on the back and that sort of thing."

He also admitted that he was "always nervous" when acting, adding: "Keeps me on my toes. I've never been that confident, I don't have the background in acting.

"Some people do, they went to all these classes," he said, explaining that he had initially felt "inferior" to more experienced actors, but that this quickly changed once he worked with them.

"A lot of people say you have to have this foundation, you have to have all the great teachers and all the great theory. I don't think so.

"When I was 25 when I first started acting I'd been around the world a little bit. I'd travelled in a lot of different societies. I felt I knew as much as any of these actors who'd been to acting school."

James Garner
Garner received a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild in 2005
Garner's career as an actor began after he won a role in the 1956 film Towards the Unknown, about a group of experimental aircraft test pilots at Edwards Air Force Base in the 1950s, when supersonic flight was in its infancy.

He was also uncredited as Bret Maverick in a 1957 episode of the TV series Sugarfoot, about a civil war adventurer who lacks cowboy skills but roams the West in search of adventure.

But in the same year, Garner secured the lead role in the TV series Maverick.

He starred as one of two poker-playing brothers, alongside Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, who travelled from town to town trying to make money while avoiding any form of manual labour.

Richard Natale of Variety said that the role of the laid-back, work-shy Maverick fitted "his wry personality like a glove".

Garner was also nominated for nine Golden Globes for shows including The Rockford Files in 1980 and Maverick in 1982, having won in 1958 for most promising newcomer.

He also won a further two for TV series Decoration Day [1991] and Barbarians at the Gate [1994].

The actor also made eight Rockford Files TV movies in the 1990s and starred with Sandra Bullock and Ellen Burstyn in mother-daughter drama Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, in 2002.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-28390309

Aw man! I used to love him on the Rockford Files and Maverick. I hate to hear that.

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Originally Posted by bcollins

Aw man! I used to love him on the Rockford Files and Maverick. I hate to hear that.

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Yes same here, he was a legend.

I think that's one of the things that sucks the most about getting older is seeing all the great ones go. I guess it's a little bit of recompense that we get to see the new great ones coming up - but it still sucks.

I liked James Garner yes I enjoyed his work RIP Mr Garner.

He was as classy of man as I've ever seen. RIP

Its an odd thing when staples and entertainers of childhood pass away. My old man made sure we never missed an episode of Rockford Files. That funky twangy electric intro music, still shots. That was cool stuff. Garner was the everyman type actor. Provided some good memories ya have to be grateful for. RIP

Yep, as a kid, I used to stay up late to watch The Rockford Files.



Rest in Peace, James Garner.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yg1Cx26-928

One of the last of Hollywood's Golden Era....it's a shame, he was very talented and had class about him

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Originally Posted by El Kabong

One of the last of Hollywood's Golden Era....it's a shame, he was very talented and had class about him

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I used to view class as entirely a façade and a manufactured illusion. However, recently I've come to appreciate it and just how much restraint it must take to be a huge celebrity or great athlete and handle one's self with class.


Class is to be respected and applauded.