Sad news this morning that one of my all-time faves, James Garner, has passed away. My family was big fans, and we faithfully watched "The Rockford Files" every week, along with old episodes of "Maverick". And I can't even begin to count how many times we watched "Murphy's Romance". In our household, he was a very close second to John Wayne, and that's really saying something. Especially so since in real-life, Garner was a devoted Liberal (and let's just say that my family's politics more closely followed The Duke's).
In those days, you could go to a local shop to rent a VHS player and old movies on video, and invariably, we always brought home something with either The Duke or James Garner. Besides "Murphy", there were the Disney Cowboy movies, "The Castaway Cowboy", "Support Your Local Sheriff", and "Support Your Local Gunfighter", and the Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movies. Remember those old Kodak commercials with Mariette Hartley? In the 70's and 80's, James Garner was everywhere you looked in the entertainment world.
His typical character was always handsome, a bit of a con artist, a little irreverent, and usually tried to avoid a fight. But you always rooted for him, because inevitably he'd have to step up and get involved, and when he did, it usually worked out in the end.
No comments:
Post a Comment