The Garner Files: A Memoir (29 page)

B
reathing Lessons
is a Hallmark TV movie, from Anne Tyler’s Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of the same name. Tyler is a wonderful writer, and though I don’t usually read the books my movies are based on, I didn’t hesitate in this case because I thought it would be as good as the script, and it was. That’s not always the case. On the other hand, even if you have a good book, you may not be able to make a good movie from it because they’re two different mediums.

Breathing Lessons
is about a day in the life of two people, with no violence and no real action. It’s a leisurely paced, simple story about Maggie and Ira Moran, an old married couple who don’t seem to have much in common. Maggie is flighty, Ira is a realist. Maggie’s a nonstop talker, Ira is a man of few words. Maggie will share the intimate details of their personal lives with anyone who’ll listen, which never ceases to make Ira cringe. She doesn’t think he appreciates her, and vice versa. But it all works out because they love each other dearly.

Joanne Woodward and I hadn’t worked together before, but I quickly discovered that she’s not only a great actress, she’s a good person, and we hit it off right away. We had a week’s rehearsal, which
made us comfortable enough to try things. I’ve done pictures where you go in the first day and they want you to do a love scene. That’s hard because you really don’t know the person.

Joanne gave me so much to work with, I knew it was going to be good. She has guts. She’ll do stuff. For instance, the scene where she tries to straighten out a dented fender with her bare hands wasn’t in the script.

Playing Ira wasn’t a stretch, because I understand him and I like him. At the time, Joanne and I had each been married for over thirty years, so we both knew the territory. I saw a lot of Lois in the script, and Joanne said she saw a lot of her husband, Paul Newman. We’d make wry little comments to each other as we filmed. She’d say, “Yup, that’s Paul!” and I’d say, “Uh-huh, that’s Lois.”

Somebody once said that marriage consists of two people, one who wants the window open and the other who wants it shut. Lois lives on the phone. I hate phones. I’d throw them out of the house if I could. Lois has no sense of time. If she says she’ll be there in thirty minutes, you’re lucky if she shows up in an hour. Whereas I’m extremely punctual. If I tell someone I’ll be there at a certain time, I’m there ten minutes earlier. On paper, Lois and I don’t seem to have much in common. But, like Ira and Maggie, if either one of us gets in trouble, we’re going to come to the other’s defense. (Lois is one of the most eccentric people I’ve ever met. You know the patches of saggy skin you have on your elbows? Lois once asked a plastic surgeon to get rid of those. The surgeon said, “Sure, if you won’t mind walking around with your arms permanently outstretched, like Frankenstein’s monster.”)

W
hen I read the script for
The Notebook,
I thought it was a beautiful story, but I didn’t appreciate its scope. I called my agent and said, “Is this a TV movie or a movie movie?”

“Movie movie.”

I read it again and realized that anyone from ten to one hundred can enjoy it. It made sense to me because it’s about undying love. I believe in undying love, and I think the film is a success because the audience believes in it, too.

I play Noah Calhoun, a man trying to break through to an Alzheimer’s-stricken woman by reading to her from a notebook. I’m trying desperately to make her remember the past. I found it refreshing to see two older people in a romantic situation. This man loves her passionately; people can still have passion in their relationship after many years.

Noah is the kind of person that people think I am. He’s stubborn and he’s determined to break through, and he does, though only briefly. As I read to her from the notebook, we flash back to the story of two young lovers, played by Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams.

I’ve had personal experience with Alzheimer’s: my aunt Emma suffered from it. I loved listening to her stories, but it was bittersweet: She could remember everything that happened when she was a girl, but didn’t know my name. Not being able to recognize my loved ones is the thing that scares me most about aging.

N
ick Cassavetes did a beautiful job of directing. When you consider that his parents, John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands, used to shoot films in their apartment when Nicky was a boy, he’s been in the movie business all his life. He was our guiding light. He knew what he wanted and got it, because he knows how to talk to actors. He took the Jeremy Leven screenplay (from the novel by Nicholas Sparks) and turned it into a powerful film.

Nick did something that impressed me. He’d envisioned a shot where ducks surround the young lovers in a boat. He
had
to have that shot, so he hired a wrangler to train hundreds of ducks for six months for something that would be on the screen for twenty seconds. When I saw the finished film, I thought it was magnificent. Then I found
out it was all special effects because, despite all the effort and expense, the real ducks wouldn’t do what they were supposed to. But that didn’t diminish my admiration for Nick’s commitment..

Nick and Gena were so tender and respectful of each other, I loved watching them. On our first shot of the picture, Nicky called out, “Okay, Mom—action!” It broke me up and I ruined the take. (But what else was he going to call her, “Ms. Rowlands”?)

I hadn’t met Gena before we started the picture, but I loved working with her. Not only is she a wonderful lady, she’s never given a bad performance in her life. The climactic scene near the end of the picture had worried me. I couldn’t decide what I was going to do. In the end, I just let Gena set the tone and I reacted to what she did. Sure enough, she tore my heart out. I think Nick used the first take.

The rest of the cast is perfect: Rachel and Ryan took risks and tried things that would never have occurred to me. Sam Shepard, Joan Allen, James Marsden, Kevin Connolly—they’re all in service of the story. I don’t usually go on like this about films I’m in, but this one is extra-special.

The story goes from teenage to old age. It’s love found, love lost, love found, love lost. Some critic called it “schmaltzy.” It
is
a tearjerker, but there’s nothing wrong with sentiment if it’s honest. We don’t need to apologize for anything. It’s as touching a love story as I’ve ever seen, and I’m proud to be in it.

L
ois and I don’t have a “Hollywood marriage.” Out here, people don’t take marriage seriously. They don’t seem to value loyalty and commitment. They vow to stay together “till death do us part,” but a lot of them never get to the “D” in “death.”

The secret to a long marriage, I think, apart from the physical side of it, which is very important, of course—you have to have respect. Lois and I have always respected each other. I think that’s why we’ve lasted so long. You have to think of how everything you
do will affect your partner. I’ve had chances to go crazy, but I asked myself, “What’ll that do to Lois?” And I said, “No, I’m not gonna do that.”

But it wasn’t all roses. Lois and I went through an eighteen-month separation starting in 1979. We weren’t angry at each other, and the marriage was never in real danger. It wasn’t
us,
it was
me
. Lois was smart enough to know that I just needed some time alone because I was physically and mentally exhausted from the demands of doing
Rockford
. I was ready to quit acting. I fell into a deep depression. I was so edgy that the smallest thing would set me off. I started seeing a psychiatrist.

I moved out of our home and rented a house in the Valley. I spent a couple weeks on the road with Waylon Jennings. It was wild. He even brought me on stage one night to sing, but I was so nervous I don’t remember it.

Lois had a lot of people saying, “Divorce his ass,” and she had every right. But she had the patience to hang in there with me. You don’t really know someone until you’ve lived with them. You have to accept the things about them you don’t like, and they have to do the same for you. It’s give and take. Unless you’re willing to do that, don’t get married.

Lois knows me better than anybody in the world. Just like the couple in
The Notebook,
we’ll be there for each other forever.

Now, if I could just get her off the phone.

I
n the 1950s there was a live network television show called
This Is Your Life
. Every week the host, Ralph Edwards, would ambush some unsuspecting individual, usually a celebrity but sometimes an “ordinary” person who’d done something extraordinary, and review his life in front of a studio audience. There was a reveal at the top of the show where Ralph would tear the wrapping off the
This Is Your Life
book and say, “Joe Zilch,
This . . . is . . . your . . . life!
” The music would swell and poor Joe would be a dead duck. For the next half hour, they’d trot out old friends, relatives, and former teachers for little reunions. The camera would push in tight on the victim’s—I mean, the subject’s—face for his reaction as each guest was introduced.

One afternoon in June ’58, Jack Kelly and I were on the
Maverick
set at Warner Bros. shooting an episode directed by Richard Bare. Dick, who was in on the surprise, pretended to be ill, so we wrapped for the day. Someone from the publicity department came over and said, “Jim, since you have the rest of the afternoon off and you’re still in costume, would you mind shooting some stills with Jack over at NBC?”

I think I grumbled something about being under contract and having no choice.

They took us over to NBC, and while they were supposedly setting up the lights for the photo session, Ralph Edwards burst in and sprung the trap. I pretended to be surprised and a little annoyed—the way I’d seen others react to “Mr.-This-Is-Your-Life-Himself.”

I
was
annoyed, but not surprised. That day, probably for the first time in my life, I was late for work and was still home when the car came to take Lois and the girls to the
This Is Your Life
set. When I realized what was going on, I pitched a fit. I dreaded the prospect of having my personal history exposed on national television. For that matter, at age thirty, I wasn’t ready to review my life under any circumstances.

“No
way
am I gonna do that,” I said.

Lois tried to persuade me, but I stood firm. I was about to lock myself in the bathroom when she said the magic words: “They flew your whole family in from Oklahoma. Do you want to disappoint them?”

That did it.

Both my grandmothers were there, along with my father and Mama Grace, Uncle John and Aunt Leona, my brothers, Bum and Jack, plus Jim Paul Dickenson, Henry Kaiser, Paul Gregory, and Captain Horace West, my commanding officer in Korea.

They had me.

Once the show began, I got into it and was happy to see everyone. I enjoyed the after-party at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel even more. But if you ever happen to catch the video, watch my face when Ralph Edwards says,
“James Garner, this . . . is . . . your . . . life!”
See my expression? That’s
ACT-
ING!

I
’ve been lucky to have worked with many talented actors, and gotten along with most of them. The only coworkers I’ve ever had problems
with were the ones who didn’t do their jobs. I’ve worked with good directors and gotten along with them, too: William Wellman, Joshua Logan, William Wyler, George Seaton, Arthur Hiller, John Sturges, John Frankenheimer, Norman Jewison, Paul Bogart, Blake Edwards, Richard Donner, Martin Ritt, Glenn Jordan, Clint Eastwood.

But I’ve never wanted to direct. That should be worth
something.
(Never made a record album, either. Too many actors have.) I directed one
Rockford
episode, “The Girl in the Bay City Boys Club,” written by Juanita Bartlett. The director dropped out at the last minute and I had to step in. Not something I enjoyed. It’s hard to act and direct at the same time. You have to prepare a scene, make sure everybody knows what they’re supposed to do, then switch hats and step in front of the camera. I’d rather concentrate on acting.

I’ve had other chances. Steve Cannell always wanted me to direct his
Rockford
scripts, but I’ve never been comfortable telling people what to do. Sure, I’ll make suggestions here and there, but I generally let the people I hire do their jobs. They’re happier, I’m happier, and we all work better that way.

I
n 1988, I had two open-heart operations and discovered I’m a fatalist. Lois was beside herself with worry, but I decided that since it was beyond my control, I’d just accept my fate, whatever it might be. If I can’t change or influence something, I’m not going to think about it two seconds.

If archaeologists dig up my bones a thousand years from now, they’ll wonder what in the world I was. I’ve had broken ribs, broken knuckles, a cracked coccyx, dislocations, sprains, and torn ligaments. I stopped counting the number of stitches I’ve had at two hundred. I broke my right kneecap twice. I’ve had nine knee operations, including three knee replacements (the right one twice). After one knee operation, I got a staph infection that laid me up for three months. I’ve had ulcers, diverticulitis, an aortic aneurysm, a
quadruple bypass, and a hemorrhagic stroke. I had surgery to remove an arterial blood clot I got when my trainer held my leg up too long. (The poor guy felt awful about it.)