The Garner Files: A Memoir (30 page)

I’ve been in constant pain from arthritis since the 1960s. Disintegrated disks in my back and neck have made me a couple of inches shorter than I used to be. Now the pain keeps me from playing golf and driving a car. Though I’ve taken a lot of pain medication over the years including Vicodin and Percocet, I can’t remember what it’s like to be pain-free.

What’s the old line? “If I knew I was gonna live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” I didn’t take care of my body while I was working. Most of the tears and sprains and breaks resulted from doing my own stunts. I didn’t eat properly, I didn’t get enough sleep, and I was usually out of shape. The only time you’d catch me jogging was if someone was chasing me, and he had to have been big or I wouldn’t have run.

And I smoked.

But the truth is, even if I knew I was going to live this long, I almost certainly would
not
have taken better care of myself. You have to live your life. What’s the point of being here if you don’t
live
? That may be the only point!

W
hat have I learned? I learned, at the age of fourteen, that I had to fight my own battles. That’s when I made up my mind that nobody would ever step on me again.

If you survive combat, you think of every day after it as a gift. I don’t think people appreciate life as much as those who’ve gone through that.

You have to take risks to get rewards. When you’re standing on the edge of a cliff trying to get up the courage to jump off and fly, it always looks a lot farther down than you think.

People ask me what I’m proudest of, careerwise. They expect me
to name a movie or a television show, but the thing I’m proudest of professionally is that I never kissed anyone’s butt.

Success doesn’t change people. If they get difficult and arrogant, they were that way before and just weren’t in a position to show it.

I don’t believe that nice guys finish last. I’ve known too many wonderful people who finished first because they had lots of help. The best way to accomplish your goal is to have other people pulling on the rope with you. If you have a team where everyone embraces the same general principles and tries to help one another, you have a much better chance of winning.

Is the audience always right? Nooo! Look at all the trash out there.

I’ve been married to the same woman for over half a century and the list of my leading ladies is a Hollywood Who’s Who, but I don’t claim to know anything about women. Half the time you
think
you know them, but you don’t. All I know is, I love them. I love them all. But I’m afraid of them.

I think there’s something out there bigger than we are, but I don’t have a clue what it is.

Something funny happens as you get older. You loosen up. You get a little freer and a little braver. You don’t hold back so much. You try not to get too high or too low. When your feelings go up and down that’s called
stress,
and it’s a killer. And you’re not so insecure. Believe me, I
am
insecure.

At the end of the day when you put your head on your pillow there is only one person you had better please: yourself.

P
eople who don’t know me think I’m easygoing and lighthearted, but I’m a pessimist by nature, maybe because I was always disappointed when I was young. I’m really an old curmudgeon. A guy who says he’s an expert on curmudgeons tells me it isn’t curmudgeon-like to proclaim yourself one, but I don’t care. MaryAnn
likes to say, “You’re not a real curmudgeon, you’re a curmudgeon wannabe.” We argue about it:

“I am too a curmudgeon.”

“You are not.”

“Am too!”

“Not!”

A lot of my characters are curmudgeons. Jim Rockford’s a curmudgeon: he pretends to be tough, but it’s only a front. I guess I’ve played more and more curmudgeons as I’ve gotten older: Murphy Jones in
Murphy’s Romance,
Albert Sidney Finch in
Decoration Day,
Ira Moran in
Breathing Lessons,
Jim Egan in
8 Simple Rules
.

Deep down, curmudgeons are good people. They try to do the right thing. They have a sense of humor and a sense of proportion. They speak their mind and devil take the hindmost. They have principles and they don’t run from a fight.

Curmudgeons know that some things are worth fighting for, that we all need boundaries that we’re ready to defend no matter what. If you don’t make an enemy or two along the way, you’re not doing it right.

But I’m not a macho guy. I don’t
like
macho guys. I’m a marshmallow. No, a Tootsie Pop: hard on the outside, soft on the inside. I don’t go looking for trouble, but I’ve never backed down from a fight, because if you back down, you lose right then, and
I don’t like to lose
. I try to get along with the world, but when big ones start treading on little ones, those who can’t defend themselves—I’ll get in there and do something. I might get stomped on, but that’s okay. I can’t help it. I guess that’s why Frank Wells used to call me “Crusader Rabbit.” I believe there’s justice out there if you fight for what you know is right. The pain you have to endure is worth it.

If I give you my word, that’s it. If say I will do something, you better believe I’ll do it. I’m loyal: if I’m your friend, it’s forever. The only thing you can do to change that is lie to me, because I can’t stand
dishonesty. Lie to me just once, and you’re in trouble. Well, I might let you get away with it
once,
but the second time it’s all over.

I
’m a big fan of the “crimson and cream,” the University of Oklahoma football team. Oklahoma is known as “the Sooner State,” and the OU football team adopted “Sooners” as their nickname. The University’s fight song is “Boomer Sooner,” sung to the tune of “Boola Boola.” If you’ve followed OU football as long as I have, you’ve heard it at least a million times. I’ve always had affection for OU, having grown up around its campus. Anyone who’s lived in a college town knows what I’m talking about.

When I was asked to give the OU commencement address in 1995, the year of the Oklahoma City bombing, I could not believe they wanted
me
. I immediately declined because of my stage fright, but they wore me down, and I finally agreed to do it eight months before. It was the worst eight months of my life.

Bill Saxon and Steve Cannell helped me write the speech. They gave me pages and then I worked the material my own way. But I still worried I’d say something stupid and make a fool of myself.

I’ve got to be the most unlikely commencement speaker OU ever had. I didn’t graduate with my class at Norman High; I got my diploma from tests in the army while I was in Korea. I spent about twelve minutes at OU, yet over the years I’ve had dozens of people tell me they had classes with me there. They must’ve looked quick.

At a dinner the night before graduation, OU president David Boren introduced me as “Doctor Jim Garner” and everyone stood up and applauded. By the time I reached the podium, I was crying.

F
or a country boy, I’ve been to a lot of places and done a lot of things. I have a wonderful family and great friends. I’ve had a long
career, made some money, and had the greatest gift of all: I found something I liked to do. I don’t feel I’ve left anything on the table. I don’t regret not having done this or that.
I’ve had a good time!

I like people and I think I’m a good judge of character. I go by my gut and haven’t been disappointed very often. I’ve been criticized for picking up strays. I’ve been told I’m too kindhearted for my own good, that I’m a “pigeon.” I don’t think so. It’s just that I’ve had a few broken wings in my life and wished somebody would pick me up and dust me off.

I’ve been asked again and again, “How do you want to be remembered?” I usually say I don’t care, but that’s not true. I want to have accomplished something, to have made a contribution to the world. It would be wonderful if just one person looked at my life and said, “If he could overcome that, maybe I can, too.”

Beyond that, I think an actor can contribute by making people forget their troubles for an hour or two. Call it relief, escape, diversion . . . I think one of the greatest gifts is being able to make people happy. I
like
to make people happy.

So, if anybody asks, “How do you want to be remembered?” I tell them:

“With a smile.”

Family, friends, and colleagues weighed in for this book, and since their stories sound better directly from them, here they are, in their own words.

J
im and I “met cute.” He tells everyone it was at a Stevenson-for-President rally, but it was actually a week before, at a barbecue one Sunday afternoon at Toni and Jess Kimmel’s house in Studio City. Jess was the head of the talent department at Universal. At the time the studios nurtured young actors, gave them drama classes, etc. James Bumgarner had just gotten his contract at Warners.

At that moment in my life, I was an emotional wreck. My daughter, Kim, was in the hospital with polio. Her esophagus was paralyzed and she couldn’t swallow. I’d just been fired from my job as a receptionist at Foote, Cone & Belding because I took so much time off to be with her.

Jim made quite an entrance. All of a sudden, shooting into the backyard like an arrow, this gorgeous man runs across the lawn, smiles, says, “Can I go swimming?” and dives straight into the pool! My first thought was,
Wow, who
is
this man? He’s too beautiful to be alive!

The Kimmel children were in the pool and Jim started playing with them. I thought it was somehow odd to see such a young, good-looking guy playing with kids like that, so I watched him. He was pretending to be a monster. He’d pick up the kids and throw them back in the water, and they’d come out screaming for more.
Adorable!
I said to myself, “Forget it. He’s too beautiful. He’s not going to look at you,” and I dismissed him from my mind.

A little later, he sat down at our table still wet and proceeded to tell jokes. One of his favorite things in those days was pretending to be gay. Here’s this masculine man putting on this attitude. We fell down laughing. He was so adorable and so funny I thought,
He’s too good to be true.

About a week later, the Kimmels called. “Do you remember Jim Bumgarner?”

“Yes . . . “

“He’d like to see you again. Come to a Stevenson-for-President rally at our house this weekend.”

There were lots of guest at the rally, but pretty soon I saw Jim, all by himself in the kitchen. The first thing he said was, “Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?” Before I could answer, an attractive young woman came in and said, “Jim, are we having dinner tonight?” and Jim said, “No, just made other plans.” The woman had a Scotch in her hand and she threw it in Jim’s face—ice cubes and all—and stormed out. He was dripping wet, with Scotch running down his face onto (I found out later) the only suit he had. But he didn’t lose his composure. As he calmly dried himself with a dish towel he said, “You know, I’ve got a girlfriend.”

“That one?”

“No, another one, BarBara Luna.”

She was a well-known young actress in town. I wasn’t thrilled to hear that he had at least two other women in his life.

After he’d dried himself off, we left the party. On the way to dinner he stopped the car and said, “Do you mind if I kiss you?”

I was stunned, but I let him kiss me. Willingly.

Then he said, “So, will you marry me?”

Still joking, I said, “Of course!”

We went to Frascati, on Sunset. It happened that Gene Shacove, my hairdresser, was there. (He’s the guy they modeled
Shampoo
on— Warren Beatty lived with him to watch how he operated.) Gene said, “Who are you with?”

“That boy over there.”

“Oh, really? What’s going on with you two?”

“I don’t know, I just met him.”

“I’ll bet you marry him.”

“Really? As a matter of fact, he just asked me to marry him!”

Jim and I saw each other every day and every night for the next week. One night we were up on Mulholland “talking” in his car when he again asked me to marry him. I could see he was serious and I said yes without hesitating. By then I was serious, too.

Jim won’t like me telling this, but a tear ran down his cheek when I said yes.

“I never thought anybody would ever love me,” he said.

Jim didn’t have any money and I didn’t have any money, but he’d met Kim and she liked him. We’d gone to an ice cream parlor, and while Jim was getting the cones I said, “Kim, what do you think? Should I marry him?” I always asked Kim about the men I dated. I’d considered marrying a man I didn’t love who had money and was willing to adopt my daughter because I was worried about what would become of us.

Kim said, “Yes, Mom, marry him. He’s perfect and you’re perfect together.”

We got married two days later. It all happened so fast, it was like a dream.

And a miracle.

—LOIS GARNER

I
was a young girl when my dad Jim created a new kind of TV magic based on his wry delivery, self-deprecating wit, and the brightest smile I’ve ever seen. He was an instant sensation as Bret Maverick and I was proud of him. One of my fondest memories of those days is of a tour of the Warner Bros. studios with him. We visited various sets where we were shown all the cameras, lights, and equipment. Then I got to ride a horse and meet actors in costume, including some delightful cowboys and Indians. I even had my hair “done” by a makeup artist. And I met Gary Cooper. I didn’t know who he was at the time, but I could tell he was a very nice man. The whole experience made me think I was in a magical place. I had the sense Jim was showing me off, which made me feel part of a family with him. I was proud of both of us.