James Garner Has Made His Great Escape

Sorry to hear that James Garner aka Jim Rockford/ Bret Maverick, has passed on today at the age of 86. Garner made a name for himself in the late 50's on the television western Maverick, beginning in 1957. Garner would leave the top-rated show after the third season to pursue a life in film. A major star of TV, jumping to the big screen was a new and fairly radical venture. Garner's film career began with A-List projects, starting off with William Wellman's second-to-the-last-directed feature Darby's Rangers, followed by Cash McCall with ingenue Natalie Wood. 1961 found Garner caught between Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine in The Children's Hour, director William Wyler's remake of his own 1936 adaptation of These Three, based on the play by Lillian Hellman. His biggest hit of the 1960's, possibly of his entire career, came in 1963's POW - WW II classic The Great Escape. Starring alongside Steve McQueen and a couple of not quite but future stars, Charles Bronson and James Coburn, Garner played "the scrounger ", Flt. Lt. Robert Hendley.

The success of Escape helped pave the way for Garner the rest of the decade. One of his best roles was in The Americaniztion Of Emily, with Julie Andrews, as Lt.Cmdr. Charlie Madison, a self confessed coward who is picked to be a hero at the invasion on Normandy on D-Day. Though not a big success at the time, this Paddy Chayevsky-penned film has gathered a cult following thru the years and is the personal favorite of both Andrews and Garner. Per Wikipedia, William Holden was originally tabbed for Garner's role, but when Holden backed out, Garner stepped in. If so, I can imagine Holden in the part too. Probably would have fit him like a glove as both actors project an ease and naturalism on camera, with Garner being particularly adept in comedic parts. Garner would round out the 60's in just such a role, Support Your Local Sheriff, a surprise hit from 1969. For most of the 1970's Garner would focus on television. His big success portraying P.I. Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files, and it may be the work he is best remembered for today. Premiering on NBC on September 13, 1974 at 9pm, Rockford was an instant hit with tube watchers. However, due to the pressures of a weekly television show, Garner was to suffer from ulcers, which would precipitate his leaving the show. Just goes to show the stress involved in making it all look easy.

 1982 brought the gender-bending comedy Victor/Victoria, again with Julie Andrews, and in 1985's Murphy's Romance, Garner - opposite a sexy, thirty-something Sally Field as a divorced mother with a teenage son - played the widowed, 50-ish Murphy Jones, druggist of a small Arizona town, who gets a second chance at love. Charming and easy going - though at times irascible - Garner had one of the best parts of his career and was honored with an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Irascibility combined with an easy going charm may seem opposite ends of the spectrum, yet Garner, like Cary Grant, seemed to make crabby almost likeable. Certainly, he made it funny. In the 1969 film Marlowe { not an especially good adaptation of Chandler's book Little Sister, yet as to date the only one we have }, there is a scene in which Marlowe is getting roughed up by some thugs. Check out the very beginning of this video. It is an example of what James Garner did so well.

I have always loved that smart-ass, throw-away humor that Garner was so great at. A lost art, I'm afraid. That's what Garner seemed to do best, and may qualify as to why he never really got his due as an actor. Like Mitchum, Grant, Holden and a handful of others, these guys made the difficult craft of acting look effortless. Garner never showed the wheels spinning. I cannot even think of a film or television show in which Garner was not, at least, good. The man never gave a bad performance.  R.I.P. Jim Rockford/Bret Maverick/Murphy Jones/Charlie Madison, etc. You were one of the best.