About  Actor, Producer, Director and Hollywood Legend JAMES GARNER

A proud Oklahoma native, James Garner did want to see the world so he enlisted in the Merchant Marines only to find out too late that he suffered from chronic seasickness. Then Garner was the first draftee chosen in the State of Oklahoma and went on to earn two purple hearts for his tour of duty in Korea,  before permanently moving to California.

His professional acting career began ironically with a non-speaking part in the Broadway theatre company of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1954), in which he was also assigned to run lines with stars Lloyd Nolan,  Henry Fonda and John Hodiak. Given that talent roster, and the fact that the director was Charles Laughton, Garner managed to earn his salary and receive a crash course in acting all at the same time.

After a few TV commercials, he was signed as a contract player by Warner Bros. in 1956. He barely had a part in his first film, The Girl He Left Behind (1956), when he was given special attention by director David Butler, who felt Garner had far more potential than even the film's nominal star, Tab Hunter.

Garner was cast in the Warner Bros. TV Western Maverick. The television audience latched on to his seemingly effortless gift for understated humor, and, before long, the show had as many laughs as shoot-outs. Garner was promoted to starring film roles during his Mavrerick run, but, by the third season, he wanted to be a free agent. He did extremely well as a freelance actor for years, turning in excellent work in such films as Cash McCall (1960), Boys' Night Out (1962), The Great Escape (1963) and then he broke out as a major leading man in starring roles opposite Doris Day in Move Over Darling and The Thrill of It All! (both 1963) and The Americanization of Emily (1964) starring along side Julie Andrews. Garner went on to star again with Ms. Andrews in several other critically acclaimed works such as Victor Victoria (1982) and One special Night (1999) for Hallmark.

Garner fared rather better in variations of his Maverick persona in such Westerns as Support Your Local Sheriff (1969), Support Your Local Gunfighter (1971) and Skin Game (1971). He also played the ulra-cool cool private eye Marlowe (1969) where he defeats Bruce Lee with little effort.

Garner is one of the only actors who has ever been able to sucessfully bounce back and forth from film to television. His personal favorite TV series was Nichols (1971) where he played a more peaceable Westerner. The actor finally shed the Maverick cloak with his long-running TV series The Rockford Files (1974-1978), in which he played a private eye who never seemed to meet anyone capable of telling the truth. This TV series still has a huge cult following to this day and has been enhanced by the recent release of the entire DVD collection.

To the public, Garner was a very likable fellow they'd seen in his fictional roles and as Mariette Hartley's partner (not husband) in a series of Polaroid commercials. However, a few of his later film and TV-movie roles had a dark edge to them, notably his likable but mercurial pharmacist in Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Oscar nomination, Fire In The Sky (1993) and his multifaceted co-starring stints with James Woods in the TV movies  Promise (1986) and My Name is Bill W. (1989). Other brilliant performances by Garner were showcased in Heartsounds (1984) with Mary Tyler Moore, Barbarians at The Gate (1993), Breathing Lessons (1994) with Joanne Woodward and Roughing it (2002) where he gave an outstanding performance of Mark Twain.

In 1994, Garner came full circle in the profitable feature film Maverick (1994), in which he played Mel Gibson's Father. With the exception of such efforts as the noir-ish Twilight (1998) with his friend Paul Newman, Garner's career in the '90s found the veteran actor once again tapping into his latent ability to provoke laughs in such efforts as Space Cowboys (2000) while maintaining a successful television career by returning to the role of Jim Rockford in made-for-TV movies. Providing a voice for the popular animated feature ATLANTIS: THE LOST EMPIRE (2001), as well as appearing in the huge comedy-drama The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) and The Notebook (2004) ensured that, despite his age, Garner would continue to seek out film roles and maintain a permanent place in the hearts of his fans.

FILMOGRAPHY

• The Big Trees (1952)
• Toward the Unknown (1956)
• The Girl He Left Behind (1956)
• Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend (1957)
• Sayonara (1957)
• Darby's Rangers (1958)
• Up Periscope (1959)
• Alias Jesse James (1959) (cameo)
• Cash McCall (1960)
• The Children's Hour (1961)
• Boys' Night Out (1962)
• The Great Escape (1963)
• The Thrill of It All (1963)
• The Wheeler Dealers (1963)
• Move Over, Darling (1963)
• Action on the Beach (1964) (short subject)
• The Americanization of Emily (1964)
• 36 Hours (1965)
• The Art of Love (1965)
• Grand Prix: Challenge of the Champions (1966) (short subject)
• A Man Could Get Killed (1966)
• Duel at Diablo (1966)
• Mister Buddwing (1966)
• Grand Prix (1966)
• Hour of the Gun (1967)
• Once Upon a Wheel (1968) (documentary)
• The Man Who Makes the Difference (1968) (short subject)
• How Sweet It Is! (1968)
• The Pink Jungle (1968)
• The Racing Scene (1969) (documentary)
• Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969)
• Marlowe (1969)
• A Man Called Sledge (1970)
• Support Your Local Gunfighter! (1971)
• Skin Game (1971)
• They Only Kill Their Masters (1972)
• One Little Indian (1973)
• The Castaway Cowboy (1974)
• HealtH (1980)
• The Fan (1981)
• Victor Victoria (1982)
• Heartsounds (1984)
• Tank (1984)
• Murphy's Romance (1985)
• Promise (1985)
• Sunset (1988)
• My Name is Bill W. (1989) (TV)
• Decoration Day (1990)
• The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)
• Fire in the Sky (1993)
• Barbarians at the Gate (1993)
• Breathing Lessons (1994) (TV)
• Maverick (1994)
• Streets of Laredo (1995)
• Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996) (documentary)
• My Fellow Americans (1996)
• Fire In The Sky (1993)
• The Hidden Dimension (1997) (documentary) (narrator)
• Twilight (1998)
• Legalese (1998) (TV)
• One Special Night (1999)
• The Last Debate (2000)
• Space Cowboys (2000)
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001) (voice)
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002)
• The Land Before Time X: The Great Longneck Migration (2003) (voice) (direct-to-DVD)
• The Notebook (2004)
• Al Roach: Private Investigator (2004) (short subject) (voice)
• The Ultimate Gift (2007)
• Battle for Terra  (2007