The Garner Files: A Memoir

by James Garner

  It was television, starting in 1974 with James Garner in The Rockford Files, that really brought the investigative profession into the limelight. The show also had a major influence on people using the private investigator title.

  No one in the country knew what a private investigator really did, or even what a PI was, until The Rockford Files. Jim Rockford accurately portrayed the gumshoe of the time: if you wanted to get information, you had to get out there and ruffle some feathers. Jim Rockford was real. He worked hard to make a decent buck, but he often got beat by clients, even though he was trying to do the right thing. Real PIs deal with that on a regular basis. Even the fact that Rockford didn’t like to carry a gun is accurate: PIs are more likely to be packing a smart phone and a laptop than a gun.

  Jim Garner is such a nice, down-to-earth person; he was a role model for me when I was coming up in the industry. He was representative of what the field was at the time and he portrayed it beautifully. The show made such an impact on the profession that we wanted to recognize James Garner for it, so we named him Television’s Most Famous Private Investigator.

  —JIMMIE MESIS, editor in chief, PI magazine

  Going into a new Rockford season, say the director of photography wanted a raise. The studio said, “Get another DP.” Jim quietly said, “Take the difference out of my money.” He did that all the time with various crew members.

  Actors don’t make what people think they make. Here’s the basic formula: All actors have an agent who gets 10 percent of the gross. If the actor is paid $1 million for a movie, the agent gets $100,000. When a studio pays an actor $1 million, it’s required to deduct a 25 percent withholding tax. So the actor doesn’t get $1 million from which to pay the agent $100,000, he gets only $750,000.

  In addition to the agent who gets 10 percent, there’s usually a business manager who gets anywhere from 5 to 7 percent of the gross and, frequently, a monthly guarantee. If the actor is out of work for a year, the business manager still has as much work to do as when the actor is working. He’s managing investments, filing income tax returns, writing checks, paying bills, so he still gets paid month after month. Then there’s the public relations person. The good ones used to work on percentages, but they don’t anymore. Now they get a monthly fee, anywhere from $600 to $2,500, for the same reason: when the actor’s not working, they’re still doing their job; they’re still arranging interviews, getting his picture on magazine covers, et cetera.

  Managers have come into the picture in the last twenty years. Managers are permitted by the State of California to produce a movie and cast their client in it, so the manager can make whatever he can as the producer and commission his client for acting in it. Managers get anywhere from 5 to 15 percent of the gross.

  So, if an actor is paid $1 million for a movie, his check from the studio is only $750,000 because of the withholding tax, he’s paying $100,000 to his agent, say $50,000 to his PR person, another $50,000 to his business manager, and another $100,000 to his manager. He’s left with $300,000 out of $1 million. It’s not “poor actor”—movie stars are still paid astronomical sums, but it’s not what people think.

  —BILL ROBINSON

  As Jim’s business manager, I attended endless days of depositions and some very difficult face-to-face negotiations with Sid Sheinberg, president of Universal. I remember one session in which Sheinberg said to Jim, in order to induce him to settle the case, “I’ll let you produce a picture. I’ll give you a budget of x and you’ll get all the profits.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. The whole lawsuit was about Universal’s cheating Jim out of his rightful profits from The Rockford Files by making the net disappear, and here was Sheinberg offering the same deal.

  “Let me get this straight,” I said. “You mean net profits after ‘overhead,’ ‘distribution fees,’ ‘advertising charges’ . . . “

  “Well of course!” he said.

  I forget who walked out of the room first, but that ended the meeting.

  We finally got a trial date. Universal had offered a payout over a number of years, which would work out very well for Jim. The one thing that would seal the deal was a check from Universal for a lump sum in addition to the payout, but they refused to raise their offer on the total settlement amount.

  On the morning of the trial, which was scheduled to begin at 1:30 p.m. in downtown Los Angeles, Jim and I were sitting in the Beverly Hills office of Marvin Burns, our lead counsel, when Sheinberg called.

  “I’d like to come over and take one more shot at settling this,” he said.

  Jim didn’t even want to talk to him. He was ferocious: “These bastards tried to screw me and I’m going to get them,” he said.

  We almost pleaded with him: “Jim, what’s the harm in letting him come over?”

  After further attempts at persuasion by both Marvin and me, Jim reluctantly agreed to at least listen.

  Sheinberg arrived a short while later and made his pitch: “Jesus, Jim, we ought to be able to resolve this. It’s going to cost you a lot of money to try the case. I can’t give you the figure you want, but close to it. Will you at least consider it?”

  “No, we’re not going to compromise.”

  Sheinberg left the room to let us confer. Marvin and I both urged Jim to accept what we considered an equitable deal and Jim finally said, “Well, I don’t want to do it, but if you guys are so certain I should take it, I will.”

  We asked Sheinberg to come back in, but he suddenly got tough: “I want to settle this, but I can’t give you the figure you want. It’s not going to happen.”

  That made Jim angry all over again. “Absolutely not!” he said. “We’re going to trial.”

  I was sure that killed our last chance to avoid a costly and risky trial. Just when I thought Sheinberg would get up and walk out, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a check already made out for the initial payment on the total we’d been demanding all along.

  “Okay, we’ve got a deal,” he said.

  Sheinberg just wanted to see if he could knock us down that last little bit, but he gave up when he was finally convinced that Jim was willing to go all the way.

  —JESS MORGAN

  I didn’t like to ride with Jim in the car. He was death-defying, and he loved to scare you on Mulholland on those curvy roads. Especially in that Mini Cooper. Here’s a guy with terrible knees and a terrible back and he’s bending into a pretzel to get into that Mini Cooper—that’s typical Jim. It felt like a racecar. He’s always had fast cars. I don’t even like to ride in a golf cart with Jim. He scares the hell out of me. You hang on for dear life. I think he does that on purpose.

  Jim could get angry on the golf course. I’d make these long putts—I was always a good long putter—he’d get so mad and I’d say, “Man, you’re beautiful when you’re angry” or “You know, your eyes flash when you’re mad.” He’d get even madder.

  He was an expert club thrower—I’ve seen New York Mike have to climb a tree more than once—and he could slam his hand into the steering wheel of the golf cart hard enough to do some damage. I’d say, “Jim, one of these days you’re gonna break your hand.”

  “I wish I would,” he’d say, “then I wouldn’t have to play this game.”

  He’s a wonderful curmudgeon. That may be an oxymoron, but that’s exactly how I’d have to characterize him. A wonderful curmudgeon. He never played good enough. If he made bogey, he should have made par; if he made par, he should have made birdie. He never admitted to hitting a good shot.

  “Great shot, Jim!”

  “Well, I hit it a little thin . . . “

  One day we were on the eighth hole at Bel-Air. There’s a stagnant pond in front of the green and Jim was backing away from the cup trying to line up a putt. Jim kept backing closer and closer to the pond until his foot slipped. He slid down a rock and went feetfirst into the foul water. He was completely submerged! The only thing sticking up was his putter, and his hat was floating on the water.
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  Frank Chirkinian was playing with us, so the two of us ran over and pulled Jim out. He looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, with algae all over him. He was so mad he couldn’t even cuss, he was sputtering: “Gardn . . . dardn . . . mordn . . . fordn.” We pulled him up onto dry land and put his cap back on his head. He was completely soaked. We said, “Come on, Jim, let’s forget it—we’ll run in and get you some dry clothes and play the back nine later.”

  “No, goddamn it, I’ll finish the hole!” He putted out and stomped off to the ninth tee, at which point the water began to squirt out of the bottoms of his shoes like there were little fountains in his feet. I turned to Chirkinian and said, “Frank, I’m not gonna laugh, are you?” and he said, “Hell no!”

  As soon as Jim got far enough away, we both fell down laughing.

  Someday I’m going to put a plaque out there that says, “Rockford’s Rock.”

  —MAC DAVIS

  The curmudgeon in Jim came out on the golf course. He was negative about his game. But he was always courteous and complimentary to others, including me. It was always, “I hit it too hard,” or “I’ll never get that thing up and down from there.” That was the way he played. Then he found a perfect companion in Mac Davis. Mac is just like Jim and he’s also been a dear friend of mine for twenty-five years.

  Jim, Mac, and I were part of an interesting group at Bel-Air that was a mix of all kinds of players. There were entertainers, businessmen, and other professionals, including the actor George Scott, comedians Bob Newhart and Dick Martin, the press agent Jim Mahoney, and Jim Middleton, an oil company executive. We’d meet at the club midmorning, have breakfast, and try to beat the lunch crowd onto the golf course.

  Once, when I arrived at Bel-Air after a long absence, one of the guys in our group said, “Bill, you need to talk to your buddies, Jim and Mac. They’re getting so cranky, no one wants to play with them anymore.”

  I rode in the cart with Jim that day, and before I could open my mouth he said, “Sax, you need to say something to Mac. He’s getting so ornery, I’m the only one who’ll play with him.”

  A while later, when Jim was out of earshot, Mac came over and whispered, “Billy Dee, you need to say something to Jim; he’s such a curmudgeon, nobody will play with him but me.”

  The two of them are birds of a feather.

  —BILL SA XON

  In January of 1969, I was working the 24-Hour race at Daytona and, when not on duty, spent time in the pits taking pictures of the fabulous cars and legendary drivers. James Garner was there in his capacity as the AIR team owner. Mr. Garner was always very accommodating to folks who wanted to take his picture, get an autograph, or just talk.

  A friend of mine who had a car entered in the race and his crew were on a tight budget for the event. They didn’t even have enough money for hotel rooms, so they planned to camp out in the paddock at the Speedway, sleeping in and around their vehicles.

  On one particular night, my friend was in his sleeping bag, which was on an aluminum lounge chair next to his vehicle. During the night a cold, damp fog rolled in off the Atlantic Ocean and by early morning my friend was covered in dew and he was cold to the bone. Mr. Garner was an early riser and left his trailer as the sun was coming up, drinking a hot cup of coffee to keep warm. He was on his way to the garage area when he noticed this fellow in the lawn chair who was just beginning to wake up.

  Garner went back into his trailer and got another cup of coffee and gave it to my friend, who by now was awake and flabbergasted that this celebrity was bringing him a much-needed cup of hot coffee.

  —LOUIS GALANOS

  While Garner wasn’t the world’s most fearless driver, he had the best retention of any man who drove for me. On a prerun, if he hit a bump, he’d come back five days later and tell you where it was within ten feet.

  —VIC HICKEY

  As a brand-new nurse at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles, I got a call from a physician en route with a patient from a movie set. They were going to bypass the ER and bring the patient straight up to the floor. I’d never had an emergency floor admit—we normally didn’t do that. Patients went to the ER, ICU, or the OR before being transferred up to us, so it had to be someone very special, and it was: James Garner.

  Though I had no history on him, I was given several orders by the doctor. One of them was for a lot of morphine because they suspected multiple rib fractures. I called down to Medical Records— this was before we were computerized—and said, “Would you please send up the most recent admission of Mr. Garner? He’s on his way in and I need it within the next ten minutes, stat.” I wanted to see if he had any allergies before I gave him a heavy narcotic.

  A few minutes later an orderly arrived wheeling a cart filled with charts. “Which one is Mr. Garner’s?” I asked.

  “They all are,” he said.

  That’s when I went, Uh oh!

  By the time I found the most recent admission and checked his history, they were coming down the hall. It was like something out of a Peanuts cartoon. He had such an entourage around him, the only thing missing was the dust cloud. All these men, and they were so loud. Well, they all followed us into the room. I got Jim into bed with the help of the techs and tried to take his blood pressure, but I couldn’t hear anything because the guys were making so much noise. I walked around the bed and said, “Look, fellas, this is a hospital and you need to go home now. Mr. Garner’s going to be fine, but I’m sedating him, so please leave. Here’s the number if you want to call the hospital later to see how he’s doing.”

  Jim had his eyes closed the whole time—he was in such agony. I rolled him over to take his vitals and it was just so darn cute: he had this little leopard-print bikini underwear and I remember thinking, Well, look at you, Mr. James Garner! (I didn’t know then that Lois had bought them for Jim.) I turned him on his side and gave him an injection and then turned him on his back. I was standing there taking his vital signs, just quietly going about my business, when he opened his eyes, blinked at me, and said, “Did I die?”

  “No, Mr. Garner, you certainly did not. You’re at Cedars-Sinai and I’m your nurse and my name is Lisë. You’re going to be fine. I just gave you some medicine.”

  He kept staring at me for the longest time and finally said, “I thought you were an angel.”

  Though Jim and Mac were friends, I didn’t meet Mac through Jim, and neither of them was aware I knew the other because I didn’t talk about my patients to Mac. One day a few months later Jim and Mac were on the golf course and Jim was telling the story of a nurse at Cedars named Lisë who he thought was an angel and Mac said, “I’m married to her!” Jim refused to believe it, so they called me from the club and I confirmed it. Mac said, “You never told me!”

  “Well, honey,” I said, “I don’t tell you who my patients are—it’s against medical ethics and they wouldn’t appreciate me talking about them off the floor.”

  —LISË DAVIS

  It was 1984, and I was working in the mailroom at the Burbank Studios. It was one of my first days on the job. I was on my bike, with a bunch of heavy scripts in the basket. It was raining. James Garner stopped me and asked where Producer’s Building Number One was. I had no idea because I had just started, but I had a map, so I took it out and unfolded it and he held one end while I held the other. Meanwhile, I had the bike straddled between my legs, and with all the heavy scripts, it began to slip. I fell right onto him on my bike and got mud all over his pants. I felt horrible, but he was just so gracious and kind. He didn’t make me feel bad about it at all. Later on that day, I was riding my bike around the lot and I heard, “Hi, Honey!” He was waving to me from Producer’s Building Number One.

  —MARILYN HECK

  Everybody was stuffed into a condominium down there [in Florida, while shooting Robert Altman’s Health]. Two- or three-room apartments for the cast, or at least the alleged illustrious members. We were all in Garner’s room one evening—Betty Bacall, Carol Burnett, Glenda Jac
kson, James, and some others. Bacall said something like, “I forgot my glasses” or “Could you go get a book I left in my room?” and I volunteered to go get it. I went there, looked around, and found whatever the mysterious, negligible object was.

  And there was her diary!

  Looking back, a little too prominently placed on the bed—a red diary—one of those daily reminders. It was open and facedown. Somebody said, “Conscience is the voice of your parents,” and I could hear either my mother or my father, I wasn’t sure which voice it was, saying, “We do not look at people’s private papers.” (Who was the figure in British history who said he didn’t want his spying done by saying, “Gentlemen don’t read each other’s diaries”?)

  Anyway, I thought, It can’t hurt. I won’t leaf through it, I don’t have time—they’re expecting me back. I just took a glance. And it said in effect, if not precisely, “It’s going well here. The hotel is okay. I like everybody here except Cavett. He dresses like a teenager and thinks he knows it all.” I remember the scalding horror. That was enough. If there was more, I slammed the book shut. I went back up to Garner’s room trying desperately to look unruined. Nobody ever did anything or said anything.

  Months and months later, it was Carol Burnett who tipped me to it. She said, “Didn’t they ever tell you that was a joke?”

  “Are you kidding? No!”

  I called Garner and he could not stop laughing. I thought we would have to call 911 to pick him up off the floor. They not only performed it perfectly but they waited it out perfectly. A long time later, I thought, Garner is such a nice guy, maybe he joined in pretending that it was a joke because they felt all guilty about it, but I don’t think that’s true. I think the whole thing was his idea.

  —DICK CAVETT

  While shooting Health for Bob Altman, we all stayed in condos at the Don CeSar Hotel in St. Petersburg. Everybody got along fine, but we were very cruel to Dick Cavett, who played himself in the movie. He took it gracefully and thought it was hysterical that we’d do those things to him.

  Now, Dick is not very tall. One morning he came into the makeup room all oiled up wearing nothing but a bathing suit. (He had a cute little body.) The makeup room had a wall phone and Dick, who was always name-dropping, said, “I have to call Marlon,” and we all said in unison, “Perkins?” Dick laughed at that, and then, when Dick reached for the phone . . . Jimmy lifted him up.