THEY told me, from New York, to go to Universal Studios, but they were wrong. They don’t know anything back East, except how to be lib eral, and their mistake put me in a mean temper. Uni versal is plastic and deca dent, and I had been look ing forward to an afternoon doing something plastic and decadent, and getting paid for it, never mind the pal try sum. Instead, I learned, I was supposed to go to Warner Brothers, and that’s serious. Movies are made there.
This excursion to War ners, which lies a hillside or two away from Forest Lawn Memorial Park — out in The Valley, as we say here, al though it’s not my idea of a valley — was to find out how James Garner feels about returning to video aft er his whooping success um teen years back in “Maver ick.” I agreed because it was strongly hinted, by unreli able sources, that my next assignment might take me to the old Republic lot.
Immediately NBC told me not to ask James Garner those dumb questions about how he feels returning to video, because the entire press corps, traveling by donkey to the Valley of De cision, has been asking that. A freezing panic, which al ternates with a hot sweat, consumed me. I did recall that James Garner’s first act ing job was as a silent juror in the stage production of “The Caine Mutiny Court Martial,” with Henry Fonda, Lloyd Nolan, John Hodiak, and a host of other celestial luminaries, but I doubted if I could scribble 7,500 words on that. When I met James Garner a few days later on The Lot, both of us having thumbed down lunch in The Commissary, the first thing he said, with an honesty sel dom found in The Business, was, “I don’t know why any one would bother to inter view me. They want me on the Frost show for 90 min utes. I wonder if I can talk that long.”
His new series, “James Garner as Nichols,” re ceived better reviews than most, the critics admired his low‐key comic cool, and, al though at first glance his show is still another West ern on the darkling plain, It can probably hold its own now that it has been switched to Tuesdays at 9:30 and is no longer pitted against that blind detective, Longstreet. No, not the crip pled detective, and not the one with a weight problem; the blind detective.
Before entering The Main Gate at Warners, which evokes a nostalgia for the 40’s, when Bergman and Bo gart and Bacall beeped through in their roadsters, I emerged from The Motel Pool (shaped like a perfect kidney stone) long enough to discover what had happened to the Maverick character since he’d become Nichols. Maverick rode a hoss back in the days when the West was wild and the West was woolly; when men were men and women were women, and everybody slurped a lit tle too much cactus juice. But Nichols, sheriff of an Arizona town, easy rides a 1913 Harley ‐ Davidson mo torcycle. Both the men and women are more vulnerable, and America, God bless, is about to lose her purity. At least that’s the impression I got.
So far, the only story prob lem agreed upon by the “Nichols” staff is that Sher iff Nichols is not clearly de fined. He can be against vio lence and not wear a gun, but his needlepoint homilies, some of which have unex pected pith, are not, accord ing to Nielsen, a tough enough substitute for pistol packin’ violence. The com pany is going on hiatus to discuss the sheriffs Every body in Hollywood periodic ally goes on hiatus. I always thought it was a little is land in the Pacific, with may be one hotel, the Hiatus Hil ton, that offered special off season charter fares, but hi atus is a state of mind. If you don’t come back from hiatus, you go to limbo.
After watching “Nichols,” and respecting its intent, decided to meet the execu tive producer, Meta Rosen berg. I hoped, on the subject of TV, the ratings, and show biz jazz, we might talk tur key. She would have none of that. Meta, who was Gar ner’s agent for 12 years, simply stressed, “Garner is a real professional, ho doesn’t goof off, he’s gener ous. I know this is boring and I may sound Pollyanna, but goddamn, he’s a pleasure to be around.”
I had not yet met James Garner, who is, in fact, relaxed, humorous, self‐dep recating actor who certainly does not need Meta’s hosan nas, for he can stand on his own laurels, but I could not very well say, “Aw, knock it off, Meta.” Anyway, when pressed, she told me that of all his movies, he liked best “The Americanization of Em. ily,” and she was also quite fond of his latest film, “The Skin Game,” which they pro duced together. “At the pre view in Topanga, I told Jim, Jesus, I don’t care what hap pens to this picture, because I’ve sat in this theater with 1,000 people, and I’ve felt waves of approval and spon taneous applause.”
I am not au courant on the vagaries of The Industry, which al iad, but ap parently Garner, who became a superstar at War ners in “Maverick,” had been signed, lock, stock, and gun barrel, by the studio for a measly $500 a week, an was being pushed around by some cigar chompers who ran the store. A battle of sorts started between War ners and Garner, who told a reporter, “I feel like a piece of ham in a smokehouse,” which offended the great Jack L., who possibly misun derstood the metaphor. To day James Garner is back, earning, according to Time, $40,000 a week, which Meta says is not true, and Jack L. Warner has gone to Hia tus.
Garner’s arrangement with NBC is practically Ideal. The network offered him a wad of money to return to video in any series he chose. Meta assigned three writers to “come up with something.” One prepared a detective se ries; another created a law yer show. The winner was Frank Pierson with the pre World War I Western.
The only sacrifice required of Garner was that, as long as the series runs, he give up his favorite sport, auto rac ing. “If NBC drops me, I’ll be back in the next race,” he says, referring to a stretch of dirt‐silt‐and‐rocky road between Ensenada and La Paz in Mexico. “Y’know, I’ve never understood my success. I’m an actor who always feels his next job may be his last.”
The big names on The Lot have their own bungalows, and Garner, sitting in his, or ders lunch, which is a pot of coffee and two cigarettes. Like all actors, Garner is a weight‐watcher, for the cam era magnifies. Look at what it did to poor Sydney Green street, who was almost ane mic, I’m told. While Garner inhaled lunch, I inquired about “The Caine Mutiny Court‐Martial.”
With a pleasant candor, he said, “I felt the stage was not the place where I’d succeed.” As one of the Si lent Six on the “Caine” jury, his most important task was staying awake. Agnes Moore head told him, “You’re learn ing how to listen and react.” Before reaching Broadway, the play, with Garner listen ing, hit 77 cities. When the production came to L.A., Garner didn’t come with it. He didn’t want Casting Peo ple to see him because they’d think, “Yeah, but the guy can’t talk.”
As for his biographical data, herewith, in somewhat abridged form, is what James Garner had to say: “I was born 43 years ago in Nor man, Oklahoma. When I was growing up, I went to cow boy movies, but I never real ly wanted to be an actor, wanted to be wealthy. I nev er had ambition, and my lack of drive and ambition has probably hurt me. The only film I wanted to do, for my career, was ‘Grand Prix’ I read in the trades one clay that John Frankenheimer was directing it, and thought it would be a good project.
“My formal education stopped at the ninth grade, and I finished high school in the Army. When I was 16 joined the Merchant Marine, then I was in the National Guard and a few years la ter I had the distinction of being Oklahoma’s first draft ee for the Korean War. In the Guard, I tore a cartilego in my leg and I reinjured it in Korea. It still acts up, so I just had an operation on my knee. I also have three disintegrating disks in my back, so I can’t play golf any more. My wife and I have two daughters, Kimberly and Greta.”
James Garner finished his coffee, finished his cigarettes and stared out the open door into the interminable sun shine. The telephone buzzed and somebody told him he had five minutes to get back on The Set, a couple of blocks way. Fortunately, he’d parked his car outside the bungaloW in a space marked “Andy Griffith,” fig uring Andy wouldn’t mind.
Garner’s arrangement with NBC is practically Ideal. The network offered him a wad of money to return to video in any series he chose. Meta assigned three writers to “come up with something.” One prepared a detective se ries; another created a law yer show. The winner was Frank Pierson with the pre World War I Western.
The only sacrifice required of Garner was that, as long as the series runs, he give up his favorite sport, auto rac ing. “If NBC drops me, I’ll be back in the next race,” he says, referring to a stretch of dirt‐silt‐and‐rocky road between Ensenada and La Paz in Mexico. “Y’know, I’ve never understood my success. I’m an actor who always feels his next job may be his last.”
The big names on The Lot have their own bungalows, and Garner, sitting in his, or ders lunch, which is a pot of coffee and two cigarettes. Like all actors, Garner is a weight‐watcher, for the cam era magnifies. Look at what it did to poor Sydney Green street, who was almost ane mic, I’m told. While Garner inhaled lunch, I inquired about “The Caine Mutiny Court‐Martial.”
With a pleasant candor, he said, “I felt the stage was not the place where I’d succeed.” As one of the Si lent Six on the “Caine” jury, his most important task was staying awake. Agnes Moore head told him, “You’re learn ing how to listen and react.” Before reaching Broadway, the play, with Garner listen ing, hit 77 cities. When the production came to L.A., Garner didn’t come with it. He didn’t want Casting Peo ple to see him because they’d think, “Yeah, but the guy can’t talk.”
As for his biographical data, herewith, in somewhat abridged form, is what James Garner had to say: “I was born 43 years ago in Nor man, Oklahoma. When I was growing up, I went to cow boy movies, but I never real ly wanted to be an actor, wanted to be wealthy. I nev er had ambition, and my lack of drive and ambition has probably hurt me. The only film I wanted to do, for my career, was ‘Grand Prix’ I read in the trades one clay that John Frankenheimer was directing it, and thought it would be a good project.
“My formal education stopped at the ninth grade, and I finished high school in the Army. When I was 16 joined the Merchant Marine, then I was in the National Guard and a few years la ter I had the distinction of being Oklahoma’s first draft ee for the Korean War. In the Guard, I tore a cartilego in my leg and I reinjured it in Korea. It still acts up, so I just had an operation on my knee. I also have three disintegrating disks in my back, so I can’t play golf any more. My wife and I have two daughters, Kimberly and Greta.”
James Garner finished his coffee, finished his cigarettes and stared out the open door into the interminable sun shine. The telephone buzzed and somebody told him he had five minutes to get back on The Set, a couple of blocks way. Fortunately, he’d parked his car outside the bungaloW in a space marked “Andy Griffith,” fig uring Andy wouldn’t mind.
That’s about it, except for one point. “I don’t think there is such a thing as a TV star,” Garner said. “TV is much too personal a me dium. When I was doing ‘Maverick,’ if I ate out, I’d be asked to join another ta ble with a ‘Hiyah, Jim, baby, come meet the wife and kids.’ But the movie screen is awe inspiring, larger than life think a star is Clark Gable. Would they do that to him?”
On that note, we shook hands in the sunshine. I won dered what Meta was up to; probably wondering what was up to. She’d asked me, “Haven’t we met somewhere before?” I didn’t say any thing but I was thinking the same myself. Could it have been that summer at Marien bad … surely not Marien bad.
By Paul Gardner
