#James garner tv#
He made his TV debut in a 1955 episode of "Cheyenne" (ABC, 1955-1963), which was quickly followed by his first feature, "Toward the Unknown," in 1956. The studio also changed his name to "Garner" without his permission, but the new moniker stuck. He eventually returned to Los Angeles and began working steadily in commercials and episodic television, which lead to a contract at Warner Bros., where he earned $150 a week.
Garner's acting career began in 1954 after meeting Paul Gregory, a former classmate from Hollywood High, who was producing the Broadway run of "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial." Gregory got Garner a non-speaking role as a judge in the show, which allowed him to study its star, Henry Fonda, on a nightly basis. Those injuries would later dash his hopes of a college career after his return to the United States he eventually moved back to Los Angeles and worked in a score of odd jobs, including a model for Jantzen's swim trunks. Garner later joined the Army and served in Korea, where he earned two Purple Hearts for injuries sustained in the conflict. Despite being a popular student and a skilled athlete in football and basketball, he dropped out in 1946 and returned to Norman, where he gave high school one final try before dropping out in 1948. A year later, he joined his father in Los Angeles and attempted to earn his diploma at Hollywood High School. Displeased with the options afforded him there, the 16-year-old lied about his age while signing up for the United States Merchant Marines in 1944. Garner's father relocated to Los Angeles following the divorce, while his sons remained in Oklahoma. The stepmother was apparently cut from typical fairytale cloth in interviews, Garner recalled receiving consistent beatings from the woman, which ended only when he physically attacked her and she split from his father. The boys - who included brothers Charlie, who died in 1965, and Jack, who followed Garner into acting in the mid-1960s - were sent to live with relatives until 1934, when their father remarried.
When James Garner died on July 19, 2014, he was mourned by several generations of fans, friends and fellow actors.īorn James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, OK on April 7, 1928, Garner was one of three sons born to Weldon Bumgarner, a carpet layer, and his wife Mildred, who died when Garner was three. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he remained exceptionally active in movies and television, as well as scores of commercials, well into his eighth decade, until he retired following a 2008 stroke. Both programs made excellent use of Garner's folksy, underplayed delivery, earning him an Emmy (for "Rockford") and scores of nominations. Though his rugged good looks made him a capable leading man in features like "The Great Escape" (1963), "The Americanization of Emily" (1964), and "Grand Prix" (1969), Garner found his greatest fame on the small screen most notably in two popular series: the tongue-in-cheek Western, "Maverick" (ABC, 1957-1962) and the detective drama "The Rockford Files" (NBC, 1974-1980). An enormously likable and well-respected star since the early 1950s, James Garner was an Oscar-nominated American actor with a knack for playing lovable rogues in scores of films and television series.