Sad news to report today, via TMZ – actor James Garner has died. Paramedics were called to Garner’s Los Angeles home last night, and arrived to find that he’d died of natural causes. He was 86.
Many of you will know Garner as the older version of Ryan Gosling’s Noah Calhoun in “The Notebook,” but what you may not know is that his earlier work made that casting decision wholly appropriate – his performances as Jim Rockford in the 1970s detective drama “The Rockford Files” and Bret Maverick in the 1950s western series “Maverick” were dripping with the kind of charm and charisma that Gosling could only dream of. Garner transitioned seamlessly between television and film, embodying almost one hundred different characters in his lifetime, including starring roles in “The Great Escape,” “Victor Victoria” and “Murphy’s Romance” – the latter of which earned him an Academy Award nomination.
Garner was born James Scott Baumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma in 1928. He joined the United States Merchant Marine at age sixteen during World War II, then moved to Los Angeles where his rugged good looks (and former experience on the water, perhaps?) earned him a bathing suit modeling contract.
He went on to fight in the Korean War as a member of the National Guard, and was awarded a Purple Heart. He called upon his military experience later in “The Great Escape” while playing Hendley, who held a similar position (called a “scrounger”) as a soldier.
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