That's what someone once said to James Garner, who's now in his fourth decade of making films. Here, the original star of TV's "Maverick" talks about making the new movie Maverick, reveals that he'd like to kick the shit out of Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh, and opens up about why he's had to fight everyone from his stepmother at home to a studio head in court.
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James Garner has been in more than 40 movies, some of which are memorable, like The Americanization of Emily, The Great Escape, Victor/Victoria and Murphy's Romance (which garnered Garner an Oscar nomination), and some of which are not, like Boys' Night Out, H.E.A.L.T.H., Tank and Sunset. But he's best known for his work in TV, where he's remembered for his clever cowboy Bret Maverick in the series "Maverick" (1957-61) and his private detective Jim Rockford in "The Rockford Files" (1974-80). (He's also remembered for his Polaroid commercials with Mariette Hartley.) TV Guide recently voted the 66-year-old Garner the Best Dramatic Actor in the history of television, acknowledging his work in TV and cable movies such as Promise, My Name Is Bill W., Barbarians at the Gate and Heart-sounds.
As a kid in Oklahoma, Garner never had ambitions to be an actor. His mother died when he was young and he had a stepmother who seemed out of the pages of Cinderella. After a stint in the Merchant Marines, and another in the Army, where he won two Purple Hearts for injuries received during the Korean War, Gainer wound up in L.A. and decided to give acting a try. Three years later, he was on "Maverick" and hasn't been out of work since.
When Warner Bros, decided to make a movie of "Maverick," Garner was cast as a lawman who follows Mel Gibson wherever he goes. Once Jodie Foster signed on as well, the studio began seeing the potential for sequels. As packages go, it's an attractive one, but how it will turn out is anybody's guess. After all, Garner's gone this route before, when he co-starred in a 1978 TV film called The New Maverick: anyone out there remember Charles Frank, who played the Maverick figure between Garner and Gibson?
Garner suggested we meet at the Bel-Air Country Club, where he spends a lot of his free time reading, golfing, playing cards and kibbutzing with the other members.
LAWRENCE GROBEL: Did Mel Gibson see the TV show "Maverick"? Did he talk to you about the character?
JAMES GARNER: Yeah, he saw the show. No, he never talked to me. When Mel was a kid it was one of his favorite shows, and he just wanted to play it. But he didn't need any help from me.
Q: How different is Gibson's Maverick from yours?
A: Oh, it's different--Mel's Mel and I'm me. But I love what he did. You never see Mel acting, really, which is what I strive for. I don't want anybody to catch me acting on the screen.
Q: Will William Goldman, who wrote Maverick, recognize what you've done with it?
A: He's not going to recognize this movie from his script, no. I don't think you can find four scenes that we did as he wrote them. The structure is all there, though there were some holes we had to plug.
Q: Think "Maverick" will ever be shown on TV again?
A: They're colorizing much of it but they're not going to show it until the last sequel of the movie. That's in the contract.
Q: Were most of the show's initial scripts rewrites of old Warner Bros. movies?
A: Yeah. The first one was a remake of Rocky Mountain, the Errol Flynn movie. That's where I got the Maverick outfit, to match that stock footage that they had. I had to ride a certain kind of horse to match the stock footage.
Q: Is it true that "Maverick" gave you an ulcer after two-and-a-half years?
A: It didn't, the studio did. I was making $500 a week, $317 take-home pay. That wasn't a lot to be starring in the hottest series on television. The second year I got $600 a week.
Q: And after three years you were 10 grand in the hole?
A: What happened was, at the end of my contract with Warner Bros. I went to court and I sued them. I had made $90,000 under contract and I paid my lawyers $100,000 to get me out of it. So I came out a loser, but not really.
Q: How daring was it for an actor to take on a studio?
A: I had people tell me I'd never work again, they'd blackball me from the industry, blah blah blah. Also that I couldn't win a lawsuit. I knew I'd win because right is right and wrong is wrong and I was right.
Q: After the suit went to court, how long were you out of work?
A: I won the lawsuit and that day I got a script, The Comancheros. I didn't like it, didn't want to do it, but a couple of days later I heard Gary Cooper was going to do it, so I said, "Send me back the script." So I was going to do it--the director and the head of production at 20th [Century Fox] all wanted me--then suddenly I never heard from them again. This was maybe 10 days after I won the lawsuit. I know what happened: there was a phone call...
Q: From Jack Warner?
A: [Nods his head] And he said, "Don't hire him." Then Cooper bowed out and John Wayne did it.
Q: Did Jack Warner send out letters against you as well?
A: We don't know that. If he did that I'd own the studio. So there's no way to prove that.
Q: Were you surprised that Jack Warner personally testified against you?
A: Well, that's how they lost the lawsuit. His lawyers never wanted him to take the stand. He would stick his foot in his mouth every time. After he got off the stand my lawyer said, "That did it, he just hung himself. You can't lose."
Q: Not that many actors have succeeded from TV to films but you, Eastwood and McQueen have done it.
A: I've done it all my career. The medium does not make that much difference, if you can maintain your dignity while doing it. I wouldn't do what Cher's doing [infomercials]. You lose dignity by doing that.
Q: You resisted actually getting into acting, didn't you?
A: I didn't want any part of it. My aunt would have talent scouts come by and look at me at the A&P where I worked, then she'd try to get me to talk to them. But I was an introvert.
Q: So what changed you?
A: When I was 18 or 19, working at a Shell service station in Hollywood, this guy named Paul Gregory, who worked as a soda jerk, used to say to me, "You ought to be in pictures." He said he was going to be a big producer. A few years later I ran into him and he was a big agent. I came back from Korea 15 months later and saw his name in Time. After the service, I knew I didn't want to lay carpets for my father for the rest of my life. I saw Paul Gregory's name on a building just as a woman pulled out of a parking place. So I parked and walked in and he remembered me. At that time you could be a producer and an agent, and he still had an agency, so he signed me to a contract that day. So I said to myself, I'm 25 years old, I'll give myself till I'm 30 to see if I can make a living at this job. After three years I was starring in "Maverick." So I said, Well, I can go another five years on what I've done. And I didn't go more than five year increments until I was 50 and I said, Hey, I don't need to go five more years. I think I've got it made. I caught the brass ring. But I also knew that the brass ring could tarnish very easily.
Q: So there was never any real desire to be a star?
A: No. It's just a job. Always. I didn't like stardom. It wasn't a goal of mine at all. And fame didn't enter into it. Fortune did, but not fame. Fame is a trap. And it's fleeting. It comes and it goes in a flash.
Q: Marlon Brando's called acting a bum's life.
A: Acting is a bum's life. If you're not qualified to do anything in this world, you can be an actor. If you can't do that, there's one more thing you can do if you've got a high-school education: be a politician.
Q: Your father had three sons, a difficult second marriage and the Depression to deal with. How radically did your life change after your mother died when you were under five?
A: I went to live with my Aunt Leona and Uncle John. My brother Jack went with my Aunt Ruth. My oldest brother stayed with my dad. Dad got married a year or so later to... her. Then we went back to live with them.
Q: Why did you go back, since it seems she didn't want any of you?
A: We didn't know that. I was five. But [my stepmother] Wilma was a nasty bitch. She used to beat the hell out of me particularly. Jack, who was two years older than me, was kind of sickly, so she didn't beat on him so much.
Q: Why did she beat you?
A: I don't know. I was the most available. I've seen people for years just pick on certain people. Directors do that, they find whipping boys.
Q: Did your stepmother really make you wear a dress and call you Louise if you did something wrong?
A: Yeah, where did you find that out? It was out in the country and we'd be in some little store and I'd just go hide because it would embarrass me terribly. Then my brothers would tease me and call me Louise and a fight would break out. I was the youngest, but I was pretty tough.
Q: How often did that happen?
A: Oh gosh, a lot. If I did anything wrong I'd have to go put on the dress.
Q: At what point did you fight back?
A: I fought back at around 13. I decked her. I had her on the bed, choking her. My dad and my brother pulled me off of her. I can understand how kids can rebel to the point of murder. I don't agree with it, but I don't know what I'd have done--because she was tough. Tough. I'm sure I wouldn't have let go of her until she quit breathing because she'd have killed me if she got up. Then they held me down so she could whip me. But that's the night that broke up the marriage with my dad and her. They started drinking later and... God, I hate to tell this story. I get so upset when I read about how badly people were treated during their childhood. It's just part of growing up.
Q: Did you ever run into her again after she and your dad split up?
A: I went back to Oklahoma 12 years ago to appear in a parade in a covered wagon. I was going to the hospital to visit my grandmother and my brother told me that Wilma was working [there]. And I was actually scared. I had said a lot of things about her over the years and she was the type, I figured, who'd take a rifle and blow me right off that covered wagon going down Main Street. That's how mean she was.
Q: So what was the positive side of all of this?
A: It made me stronger, independent. If I wanted something I was going to have to get it. It also made me very leery in relationships throughout my life. Commitments are very difficult for me. Once there is a commitment it's for life, but committing to somebody has always been hard.
Q: Were you ever a whipping boy for a director?
A: Mervyn LeRoy tried to whip me on the first picture I ever worked on, Toward the Unknown. I jumped right back at him. He was famous for it, he'd just pick one guy and lord it over him for the whole picture. If he hadn't taken his pills early in the morning, he was nasty.
Q: Otto Preminger was like that. And John Huston could be, too.
A: But John Huston didn't do it maliciously. If somebody wasn't coming up to standard then he got him and never let him up. He wasn't really unfair. It comes with casting: cast people who know what they're doing, then you don't have trouble.
Q: Sometimes Huston left an actor alone because he liked what the actor was doing, but the actor felt cheated that he wasn't getting any direction.
A: That happened between [director] Josh Logan and Marlon Brando during Sayonara. Marlon said to him, "Why don't you direct me?" Josh said, "Marlon, if you do something I don't like I'll tell you." Marlon wanted to be directed or at least have a confrontation about it, but Josh loved everything Marlon did. I was caught in the middle because I was doing the scenes with Marlon and we would improvise most of it, then we'd go to Josh and he'd say, "Great." And that would really make Marlon angry. I said to Marlon, "You're going to give Josh a heart attack." And he said, "The sonofabitch, he won't direct me." I said, "What are you doing this picture for?" "The money." "Okay, do it for the money, but don't kill Josh in the process." And he would have, he'd have given him a heart attack. I love Marlon.
Q: Did you stay in touch with him over the years?
A: No. Though he and I were a couple of the organizers for the March on Washington in '63 and I got to know him a little bit then, about his political side.
Q: Did you have any interest in politics?
A: I was approached to run for governor of California against [Pete] Wilson, but I didn't want to do it. I've got some things in my background that I wouldn't want out.
Q: I thought you'd been pretty blunt about your background.
A: No, there's more. It's like jumping into a den of vipers. The problem with being a politician is that to be successful you have to compromise. I couldn't compromise. What I feel is right I feel is right.
Q: You knew Ronald Reagan when he was the president of SAG. What was your opinion of him?
A: He was a dimwit then, he's a dimwit now. He played the part and [Nancy] told him what to say and do. He was the same in the Screen Actors Guild.
Q: You did The Great Escape with Steve McQueen. What was he like?
A: He was just a wild kid, loved his cars and his motorcycles. He was a little difficult as an actor. Not with other actors but with the producers and the directors. He was fired during the middle of that picture. Steve's agents talked him into staying. It turned out great for him, made a big star out of him, but Steve was a stubborn little cuss.
Q: Didn't McQueen have a problem with you because you did Grand Prix when he felt he should have done it?
A: He was gonna do it but he didn't get along with [director John] Frankenheimer, so he went off to make The Sand Pebbles. Then he was going to make [another racing] picture called The Champions with John Sturges directing. In the meantime, I called him in Taiwan when he was doing The Sand Pebbles and told him I was going to do Grand Prix. I got a letter from him saying, "Glad you're doing it," all the right things, but then he wouldn't talk to me for about a year and a half! Their picture went, like, eight months over schedule, so they didn't get their picture Le Mans made until after we were released.
Q: Any actors you'd like to work with?
A: I always wanted to work with Robert Duvall, and I thought I was going to in Lonesome Dove but he wouldn't do the other part, the one Tommy Lee Jones did. Then I dropped out because I had an aneurysm of the aorta and they said I couldn't ride a horse, so Duvall took [my] part and was wonderful.
Q: What do you think about such New York actors as Robert De Niro and Al Pacino?
A: I don't know who they are. I think of one and no, that's the other one. Pacino I like the best, but I put them all in a lump. I think it's my background, not what they do. I'm a country boy and I don't understand that inner-city thinking.
Q: Any actors you've worked with who you'd never work with again?
A: I'd never work with Bruce Willis again. I did that Blake Edwards film with him, Sunset. Willis is high school. He's not that serious about his work. He thinks he's so clever he can just walk through it, make up dialogue and stuff. I don't think you work that way.
Q: Were you surprised at his politics--that he supported George Bush in the last election?
A: Well, he would. That tells you something. I've heard that Willis has changed since I worked with him. If that's really the case, more power to him.
Q: Let's move on to some of your leading ladies. What did you think of your Cash McCall co-star, Natalie Wood?
A: She was very nice to me. We were under contract to the same studio. Natalie had some friends who sort of did her in--one of them turned out to be a gossip columnist and was selling stuff about Natalie while they were friends and Natalie didn't know.
Q: You made two pictures with Doris Day, The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling. What was she like?
A: She was down-to-earth, I had a lot of fun with her. She was such a big star and she took it in stride.
Q: Julie Andrews?
A: We did The Americanization of Emily, one of my favorites, and Victor/Victoria together. We got along great, laughed, did good work.
Q: Lauren Bacall, with whom you made The Fan?
A: I really like Betty. She's been at it a long time, she just says what she thinks, and she's usually pretty right.
Q: How about your Murphy's Romance co-star Sally Field?
A: Sally is harder to know on a personal basis--she's got a little screen in front of her that keeps people backed off.
Q: Kim Novak, your Boys' Night Out co-star?
A: Kim was more interested in her appearance than the content of whatever she was doing. She was good, and she had this wonderful quality about her that people loved, but she was insecure.
Q: Audrey Hepburn, with whom you made The Children's Hour?
A: I loved her to death. A wonderful human being. And [The Children's Hour co-star] Shirley MacLaine, I got along great with her.
Q: Speaking of Shirley MacLaine, weren't you supposed to work together on The Pink Jungle?
A: I was told I'd get MacLaine, but they got some girl that somebody at the studio liked, but she hadn't done hardly any work at all. She was a nasty German bitch named Eva Renzi--we called her Eva Nazi.
Q: Any actresses you admire and want to work with?
A: I thought for Maverick we were going to work with Meg Ryan. I'd love to work with her. I love Meryl Streep and would like to work with her. And Emma Thompson, I think I'd really like her.
Q: Now that Streep has passed 40, Thompson is being considered the "new" Meryl Streep.
A: Which is the dumbest thing. Of course you've got producers who are only 24 years old, they think if you're over 30 you're ancient. Women are coming into their own at 40, they're more attractive. When Lana Turner was 40, I thought she was so much more attractive than she was when she was young. It's just dumb and stupid on the producers' and directors' part, but that's the way it is, I'm afraid.
Q: Were you surprised when TV Guide voted you the "All-Time Best" television dramatic actor?
A: Shocked. I was very pleased, but I didn't get anything, not even a free TV Guide. I don't take TV Guide. I quit it when Walter Annenberg was using it as a platform for Nixon, Reagan and Bush. I was offended by it.
Q: What's your opinion of James Woods, who acted with you in the TV films Promise and My Name Is Bill W.?
A: On the first one, I promised Jimmy an Emmy, which he got. He got one for the second, too, but I didn't think he deserved it--I thought Duvall did for Lonesome Dove. But Jimmy's brilliant, just as bright as can be. He's an MIT graduate, he has about a 140-something IQ, he's bordering on genius. But that mouth just keeps going. I love him at a cocktail party because there's never a dull moment. I got him into this country club.
Q: How long does it take to go from application to membership at this club?
A: Took me about six months. Took Jimmy Woods a year because he had some bad publicity and there were some guys on the board who were, frankly, pains in the butt.
Q: Do you often defend people to get them into the club?
A: Yeah, sometimes you have to. I told them with Jimmy, "You guys sit up here and you're reading the Enquirer, the Star, and you take it as gospel, when it's trash. The only thing that's true in there is their names. After that, it's made up."
Q: Let's talk about some of the things people have said or written about you. Roy Huggins, who created "Maverick," said, "... in [the] role of the charming con man, there is nobody better. It's when he has gotten away from that image that his career always seems to diminish." Agree?
A: Roy hasn't seen a lot of my work.
Q: "Rockford," according to TV Guide, made you beloved, but in real life you were known as a tempestuous man. Is that accurate?
A: I'm supposed to react to that? Tempestuous? Depending on the situation I can be tempestuous. And when I'm angry it wouldn't be wise to cross me. I kind of go blind, I don't care what I do or what I say.
Q: After five years of doing "The Rockford Files," you found out that Universal claimed the show was $9.5 million in debt. The show had earned over $40 million. Why do studios cheat actors?
A: It's in their nature. They're in it to make all the money that they can make and I swear they would rather screw the actor than make a good deal.
Q: Have you ever named the Universal executive you characterized as having the "head of a snake" and another as a Mafia hit man?
A: Oh, you're talking about [Sid] Sheinberg? Well, that's what he looks like, a Mafia hit man. Universal is just one big snake. I don't think it has a head.
Q: Why did you once slug producer Glen Larson?
A: He stole 12 ["Rockford"] scripts from us and was shooting some of them when we found out about it. Sharon Gless, who had done a "Rockford," came to me and said, "Jim, I'm doing our script [on Larson's TV series 'Switch']. It's the same script we did." So we checked and sure enough, it was. So they took [Larson] to the [Writers] Guild and he had to pay royalties and was slapped on the wrist. About a year later somebody said, "He's done it again." He had a pilot and he stole the music from "Rockford." I called him and chewed him out and said, "Get that damn music out of there." He said, "Oh Jim, that's not the same music." Well, we were shooting at Universal at night, and he came over to this party we were having. I said, "Glen, just get away from me." I must have told him eight times to get away from me, and he wouldn't do it. So finally I reached over and punched him in the gut, thinking maybe he'd take a swing at me and I could beat the shit out of him. But he didn't. He called the sheriff's office. I went over to him and said, "Did you call the police?" He said yes. I said, "Well, if they're going to get me, they're going to get me good." I hooked him with a left, hit him in the ear and knocked him up over the curb. When the police came they just talked to us, we shook hands, and that was that. But he took the music out.
Q: Is he still working?
A: Yeah, I'm sure he is, stealing something from somebody somewhere.
Q: Didn't you also have some trouble with Charles Bronson?
A: I had a little set-to with Charlie, a personal thing over a card game at my house where he kind of ripped off this street kid in a game and I called him on it and he got upset. We came head to head and I made him pay the kid the money, probably 40 or 50 dollars. The guy was an extra, that money meant a lot to him.
Q: You've described yourself not as a tough guy but as a softy. So how come you're in these fights?
A: It takes a long time to get my goat, but it can be got.
Q: Stephen Cannell said the only person you punish with your anger is yourself.
A: That's true. I'm harder on myself than I am with anybody else.
Q: You've been known to get into terrible depressions. How often, and how long do they last?
A: It hasn't happened in a long time. Depression is a hard thing to deal with because you don't even know you're in it until you're in it so deep it's hard to get out. But I haven't had any trouble with it since I got out of "Rockford."
Q: You've alluded to a darker side of you than you've shown to the media. How dark does it get?
A: I've been in depressions where I couldn't make up my mind whether to take a shower or not, just sit for hours, couldn't get up, couldn't do anything, couldn't make a decision.
Q: Have you needed medication?
A: Yeah, I've taken Desyrel and a couple of things, which helps.
Q: You've admitted to being a control freak. You still that way?
A: I don't know if I've admitted to it, but it's probably true.
Q: You've said you won't do movies that glorify killers and bank robbers, correct?
A: I don't like glorifying killers. I had trouble with Bonnie and Clyde and Unforgiven for that reason. Film and TV are very influential. We have to have a certain amount of restraint in our business. I don't mean censorship, just a moral sense that we have to take responsibility for.
Q: Then how do you account for the enormous popularity of the two films you've just mentioned?
A: You're appealing to a basic low instinct in human beings. I worry about those things. In "Rockford" we did a thing on how to get a driver's license with somebody else's name on it. Remember the Chowchilla school bus that those boys hijacked, kidnapping the kids in it? That's how they got phony licenses, they watched "Rockford" and learned how to do it. I felt badly about that.
Q: In 1964 you made an early antiwar film, The Americanization of Emily. Is it still your favorite film?
A: Yeah. Paddy Chayefsky wrote a great script. I was fortunate to get that picture. Bill Holden was gonna do it. It was the first antiwar film made. Early '60s, '63. We were making it when Kennedy was assassinated.
Q: The Night of the Iguana was also being made around then.
A: That's a film I turned down. The part [Richard] Burton played. I never liked the film. It was just too Tennessee Williams for me.
Q: Have there been films you've regretted turning down?
A: I was up for Terms of Endearment, I went to talk to James Brooks. When we walked out of the meeting I told my agent, "I don't think I want to do that picture." I'm never upset when a picture I turned down is great. I just figure it wasn't right for me.
Q: Besides Emily, what other films of yours are you proud of?
A: Skin Game, The Great Escape, Grand Prix, Murphy's Romance, Victor/Victoria, Support Your Local Sheriff, Hour of the Gun.
Q: What films most embarrass you?
A: I've made some dogs. A Man Called Sledge was one. I did one A Man Could Get Killed with Melina Mercouri once that I didn't like.
Q: You were in a film about aliens, Fire in the Sky. Believe it could have happened?
A: Yes I do. I didn't see the movie, but I liked the script. I think it's very presumptuous of us to think we're the smartest thing in the universe.
Q: Ever listen to Howard Stern?
A: No, I'm not that sick. He's too tasteless. I don't understand that kind of success.
Q: What about Rush Limbaugh?
A: No, he'll say anything for effect. He's saying things that a lot of bigots and racists want to hear, so they love him. I'd love to slap him on the side of the head a few times.
Q: So if you had to be in a room for an hour with either one of them, who would you choose?
A: I wouldn't want to be with either one of them. I'd kick the shit out of both just on general principle. They wouldn't even have to say anything.
Q: One last question, Jim. How flattered were you that your ass was mentioned in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge?
A: [Laughs] I don't know how flattering it was, but it was amusing. It's good to be written about. He was studying the asses of male movie stars all the way from the flat ass of Hoot Gibson to the impertinent baroque ass of James Garner. I found that amusing.
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Lawrence Grobel interviewed Bridget Fonda for the November '93 Movieline.