James Garner James Garner James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor, producer, and voice artist. He starred in several television series over more than five decades, including such popular roles as Bret Maverick in the 1950s western series "Maverick" and Jim Rockford in "The Rockford Files", and played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, including "The Great Escape" (1963) with Steve McQueen, Paddy Chayefsky's "The Americanization of Emily" (1964), "Grand Prix" (1966), Blake Edwards' "Victor/Victoria" (1982), "Murphy's Romance" (1985), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, "Space Cowboys" (2000)
The Rockford Files the LAPD, Sgt. Dennis Becker (Joe Santos), a homicide detective struggling to advance in the department under a series of overbearing lieutenants. The two most notable are Alex/Thomas Diehl (Tom Atkins) during the first, second and fourth seasons and Doug Chapman (James Luisi) in the third to sixth seasons. Those higher-ups invariably dislike Rockford (and private investigators generally) because of their perception that either he is meddling in open cases or is trying to make the LAPD look incompetent in its handling of closed cases. Further, Rockford often calls Becker asking for favors, such as running license plates through the