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.
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". Garner's last stepmother was Grace, whom he said he loved and called "Mama Grace", and he felt that she was more of a mother to him than anyone else had been.
Shortly after Garner's father's marriage to Wilma broke up, his father moved to Los Angeles, leaving Garner and his brothers in Norman. After working at several jobs he disliked, Garner joined the U.S. Merchant Marine at age 16 near the end of World War II. He liked the work and his shipmates, but he had chronic seasickness and only lasted a year.
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...
After World War II, Garner joined his father in Los Angeles and was enrolled at Hollywood High School, where he was voted the most popular student. A high school gym teacher recommended him for a job modeling Jantzen bathing suits. 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 enlisted in the California Army National Guard, serving his first 7 months in California. He was deployed to Korea during the Korean War, and spent 14 months as a rifleman in the 5th Regimental Combat Team, then part of the 24th Infantry Division. He was wounded twice: in the face and hand by fragmentation from a mortar round, and in the buttocks by friendly fire from U.S. fighter jets as he dove into a foxhole. Garner would later joke that "there was a lot of room involving my rear end. How could they miss?"
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". At the ceremony where he received his second Purple Heart, Garner understated: "After 32 years, it's better to receive this now than posthumously". 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."
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. After Garner's death in 2014, TCM 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.
After several feature film roles, including Sayonara (1957) with Marlon Brando, Garner got his big break playing the role of professional gambler Bret Maverick in the Western series Maverick from 1957 to 1960. In 1959, he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for his performance.
Only Garner and Roy Huggins thought Maverick could compete with The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show in the ratings but for two years beat both of them. The show made Garner a household name.
Garner was the lone star of Maverick for the first seven episodes but production demands forced Warner Bros. to create a brother, played by Jack Kelly. This allowed two production units to film different story lines and episodes simultaneously, necessary because each episode took an extra day to complete, meaning that eventually the studio would run out of finished episodes partway through the season unless another actor was added.
Critics were positive about the chemistry with Kelly and Garner. The series occasionally featured popular cross-over episodes starring both Maverick brothers as well as brief appearances by Kelly in Garner episodes. This included "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," upon which the first half of The Sting appears to be based, according to Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television interview. Garner quit after the third season due to a dispute with Warner Bros. but was in a fourth-season Maverick that had been held back to run as that season's first episode if Garner lost his lawsuit. Garner won, left the series, and the episode ran in midseason.