Look up support in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Support may refer to:

• Support (structure), architectural components that include arches, beams, columns, balconies, and stretchers
• Lateral support (disambiguation)
• Life support, in medicine
• Technical support, help for computer hardware, software, or electronic goods
• Advocacy, in politics

Psychology[link]

• Fan club
• Moral support
• Peer support
• Support group
• Sympathy

Finance[link]

• Support (technical analysis)
• Child support
• Income Support

Chemistry and materials science[link]

• Catalyst support

Mathematics[link]

In mathematics, generally

• Support (mathematics), subset of the domain of a function where it is non-zero valued
• Support (measure theory), a subset of a measurable space
• Method of support, in statistics, a technique that is used to make inferences from datasets
• Support (mobile framework), in mobile computing

In statistics

• Support (measure theory), a subset of a measurable space
• support of a distribution where the probability or probability density is positive
• the natural logarithm of the likelihood ratio, as used in phylogenetics.

Military[link]

• Close air support
• Combat support
• Combat service support
• Fire Support

See also[link]

• All pages beginning with "Support"
• All pages with titles containing "Support"
• Leg (disambiguation)

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Kevin Ware (born September 30, 1980 in Spring, Texas) is a former American football tight end in the National Football League for the Washington Redskins and San Francisco 49ers. He played college football at the University of Washington. He was recently arrested for evading arrest on June 27, 2010 in Houston, TX.^[1]

On July 13, 2010, Kevin Ware stole a pickup truck from a neighbor's home in Spring, Texas. On July 28, the truck was recovered and returned to the rightful owner. When found, the truck bed was full of stolen goods. Ware had the windows professionally tinted on the stolen pickup truck.^{[citation needed]}

References[link]

This biographical article relating to an American football tight end born in the 1980s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

James Garner
at the 39th Emmy Awards, September 1987
Born	James Scott Bumgarner[1] (1928-04-07) April 7, 1928 (age 84) Norman, Oklahoma, U.S.
Residence	Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Education	Hollywood High School
Alma mater	University of Oklahoma
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1956—present
Home town	Norman, Oklahoma
Political party	Democratic
Spouse	Lois Clark (1956—present; 1 child)
Parents	Weldon Warren Bumgarner, Mildred (née Meek)

James Garner (born James Scott Bumgarner; April 7, 1928) is an American film and television actor, one of the first Hollywood actors to excel in both media. He has starred in several television series spanning a career of more than five decades. These included his roles as Bret Maverick, in the popular 1950s western-comedy series, Maverick; Jim Rockford, in the popular 1970s detective drama, The Rockford Files; and the father of Katey Sagal's character on 8 Simple Rules following the death of John Ritter. He has starred in more than fifty movies, including The Great Escape (1963), Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964), Blake Edwards' Victor Victoria (1982), Murphy's Romance (1985), for which he received an Academy Award nomination, and The Notebook (2004).

Early life[link]

Garner, the youngest of three children, was born in Norman, Oklahoma, the son of Mildred Scott (née Meek) and Weldon Warren Bumgarner, a carpet layer.^[1][2][3] His two older brothers were actor Jack Garner (1926–2011) and Charles Bumgarner, a school administrator who died in 1984.^[4][5] His family was Methodist.^[6] His mother, who was said to be of part Cherokee descent, died when he was five years old.^[7] After their mother's death, Garner and his brothers were sent to live with relatives. Garner was reunited with his family in 1934, when Weldon remarried.

Garner grew to hate his stepmother, Wilma, who beat all three boys, especially young James. When he was fourteen, Garner finally had enough of his "wicked stepmother" and after a particularly heated battle, she left for good. James' brother Jack commented, "She was a damn no-good woman".^[8] Garner stated that his stepmother punished him by forcing him to wear a dress in public and that he finally engaged in a physical fight with her, knocking her down and choking her to keep her from killing him in retaliation. This incident ended the marriage.^[9]

Shortly after the breakup of the marriage, Weldon Bumgarner moved to Los Angeles, while Garner and his brothers remained in Norman. After working at several jobs he disliked, at sixteen Garner joined the United States Merchant Marine near the end of World War II. He fared well in the work and with shipmates, but suffered from chronic seasickness. At seventeen, he joined his father in Los Angeles and enrolled at Hollywood High School, where he was voted the most popular student. A high school gym teacher recommended him for a job modeling Jantzen bathing suits.^[10] It paid well, $25 an hour, but in his first interview for the Archives of American Television,^[11] he said he hated modeling and soon quit and returned to Norman. There, he played football and basketball, as well as competed on the track and golf teams, for Norman High School.^[12]

Later, he joined the National Guard serving seven months in the United States. He then went to Korea for 14 months in the United States Army, serving in the 24th Infantry Division in the Korean War. He was wounded twice, first in the face and hand from shrapnel fire from a mortar round, and second on April 23, 1951 in the buttocks from friendly fire from U.S. fighter jets as he dived headfirst into a foxhole. Garner was awarded the Purple Heart in Korea for the first injury. For the second wound, he received a second Purple Heart (eligibility requirement: "As the result of friendly fire while actively engaging the enemy"), although Garner received the medal in 1983, 32 years after his injury.^{[10][13][14][15]} Garner was a self-described "scrounger" for his company in Korea, a role he later played in The Great Escape^[16] and The Americanization of Emily.

In 1954 a friend, Paul Gregory, whom Garner had met while attending Hollywood High School, persuaded Garner to take a non-speaking role in the Broadway production of The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, where he was able to study actor Henry Fonda night after night. Garner subsequently moved to television commercials and eventually to television roles. His first movie appearances were in The Girl He Left Behind and Toward the Unknown in 1956.

He changed his last name from Bumgarner to Garner after the studio had credited him as "James Garner" without permission. He then legally changed it upon the birth of his first child, when he decided she had too many names.^[11] His brother Jack also had an acting career and changed his surname to Garner, too. His non-actor brother, Charlie, kept the Bumgarner surname.

Acting career[link]

[edit] Maverick

Garner as Bret Maverick and Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick, 1959.

Garner was closely advised by financial adviser Irving Leonard, who also advised Clint Eastwood in the late 1950s and 1960s.^[17][18] After several feature film roles, including Sayonara with Marlon Brando, Garner got his big break playing the role of professional gambler Bret Maverick in the comedy Western series Maverick from 1957 to 1960. (He was earlier considered for the lead role in another Warner Brothers Western series, "Cheyenne." That role went to Clint Walker, but Garner played an Army officer in the pilot.)

Only Garner and series creator Roy Huggins thought Maverick could compete with The Ed Sullivan Show and The Steve Allen Show. The show almost immediately made Garner a household name. Various actors had recurring roles as Maverick foils, including Efrem Zimbalist, Jr as "Dandy Jim Buckley," Richard Long as "Gentleman Jack Darby," Leo Gordon as "Big Mike McComb," and Diane Brewster as "Samantha Crawford," while the series veered effortlessly from comedy to adventure and back again. The relationship with Huggins, the creator and original producer of Maverick, would later pay dividends for Garner.

Garner was the sole star of Maverick for the first seven episodes but production demands forced the studio, Warner Brothers, to create a Maverick brother, Bart, played by Jack Kelly. This allowed two production units to film different story lines and episodes simultaneously. The series also featured popular cross-over episodes featuring both Maverick brothers, including the famous "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres", upon which the first half of the 1973 movie The Sting appears to be based, according to Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television interview. Garner and Clint Eastwood staged an epic fistfight in an episode entitled "Duel at Sundown", in which Eastwood played a vicious gunslinger. Critics were positive about Garner and Jack Kelly's chemistry, but Garner quit the series in the third season because of a dispute with Warner Brothers.

The studio attempted to replace Garner's character with a Maverick cousin who had lived in Britain long enough to pick up an English accent, played by Roger Moore, but Moore quit the series due to a decline in script quality after only 15 episodes, noting that if he had had stories like Garner's early ones, he would have stayed.^{[citation needed]} Warner Brothers also dressed Robert Colbert, a Garner look-alike, in Bret Maverick's outfit and called the character Brent, but Brent Maverick did not catch on with viewers and Colbert made only two episodes toward the end of the season, leaving the rest of the series run to Kelly (alternating with reruns of episodes with Garner).

When Charlton Heston turned down the lead role in Darby's Rangers before Garner's departure from Maverick, Garner was selected and performed well in the role. As a result of Garner's performance in Darby's Rangers, coupled with his Maverick popularity, Warner Brothers subsequently gave him lead roles in other films, such as Up Periscope and Cash McCall.

• 

  With Connie Stevens in 1959

• 

  With Connie Stevens

• 

  With Jean Willes in 1960

• 

  With Diane Brewster in 1957

• 

  With Suzanne Storrs in 1960

1960s[link]

Reprising his Maverick role for a Bob Hope Buick special in 1961, Garner breaks up at rehearsal.

In the 1960s he starred in such films as The Children's Hour with Audrey Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine,The Thrill of It All and Move Over, Darling (a remake of My Favorite Wife in which Garner played Cary Grant's role), both with Doris Day, Boys' Night Out with Kim Novak and Tony Randall; The Great Escape with Steve McQueen, The Americanization of Emily with Julie Andrews, Duel at Diablo with Sidney Poitier, and The Art of Love with Dick Van Dyke.

In the smash hit war movie The Great Escape, Garner played the second lead for the only time during the decade, supporting fellow ex-TV series cowboy Steve McQueen, among a cast of British and American screen veterans, including Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasance, David McCallum, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson, in a film depicting a mass escape from a Nazi prisoner of war camp based on a true story.

The Americanization of Emily, a literate anti-war D-Day comedy, featured a screenplay written by Paddy Chayefsky and has remained Garner's favorite of all his work.^[19][20]

The cult racing film Grand Prix, directed by John Frankenheimer, left Garner with a fascination for car racing that he often explored by actually racing during the ensuing years. The expensive Cinerama epic did not fare as well as expected at the box office.

In 1969, Garner joined a long list of actors to play Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in Marlowe, a detective drama featuring an early karate scene with Bruce Lee. The same year, Garner scored a hit with the comedy Western Support Your Local Sheriff!, featuring Walter Brennan and Jack Elam.

1970s[link]

In 1971, Garner returned to television in an offbeat series, Nichols. The network changed the show's title to James Garner as Nichols during its second month in a vain attempt to rally the sagging ratings. The motorcycle-riding character was killed in what became the final episode of the single-season series. Garner was re-cast as the character's more normal twin brother, in the hopes of creating a more popular series with few cast changes. According to Garner's videotaped Archive of American Television interview, Garner had Nichols killed in the last episode so that a sequel could never be made. The year 1971 also saw him star in the comedies Support Your Local Gunfighter!, similar to the earlier Support Your Local Sheriff! but not really a sequel, and the racial comedy Skin Game, featuring Louis Gossett, Jr. and Garner as con men pretending to be a slave and his owner during the pre-Civil War era.

[edit] The Rockford Files

In the 1970s, Roy Huggins had an idea to remake Maverick, but this time as a modern-day private detective. Huggins teamed with co-creator Stephen J. Cannell, and the pair tapped Garner to attempt to rekindle the success of Maverick, eventually recycling many of the plots from the original series. Starting with the 1974 season, Garner appeared as private investigator Jim Rockford in The Rockford Files. He appeared for six seasons, for which he received an Emmy Award^[21] for Best Actor in 1977. Veteran character actor Noah Beery, Jr. played Rockford's father, Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, while Gretchen Corbett portrayed Rockford's lawyer and sometime lover, Beth Davenport, until she left the series over a salary dispute with the studio. Garner also invited yet another familiar actor, Joe Santos, who played Rockford's friend in the Los Angeles Police Department, Detective Dennis Becker. Rounding out the cast was a character actor and friend of Garner's who had previously co-starred with him on Nichols, Stuart Margolin, playing Jim's ex-cell mate and less-than-trustworthy friend "Angel" Martin. In the first episode of Season Six, Paradise Cove, Mariette Hartley guest-starred as Court Auditor Althea Morgan. Garner had previously appeared with Rockford Files co-star Hartley in a series of Polaroid Camera commercials. Garner ultimately ended the run of the show, despite consistently high ratings, because of the high physical toll on his body.^[22] Appearing in nearly every scene of the series, doing many of his own stunts — including one that injured his back — was wearing him out.^[22] A knee injury from his National Guard days worsened in the wake of the continuous jumping and rolling, and he was hospitalized with a bleeding ulcer in 1979.^[22]

Margolin said of his longtime colleague that despite Garner's health problems in the later years of The Rockford Files, he would often work long shifts, unusual for a starring actor, staying to do off-camera lines with other actors, doing his own stunts despite his knee problems.^[22] When Garner made The Rockford Files television movies, he said that 22 people (with the exception of series co-star Beery, who died late in 1994) came out of retirement to participate.^[22]

In July 1983, Garner filed suit against Universal Studios for US$16.5 million in connection with his on-going dispute from The Rockford Files. The suit charged Universal with "breach of contract; failure to deal in good faith and fairly; and fraud and deceit". It was eventually settled out of court in 1989. As part of the agreement Garner could not disclose the amount of the settlement.^[8][23]

Garner sued Universal again in 1998 for $2.2 million over syndication royalties. In this suit he charged the studio with "deceiving him and suppressing information about syndication". He was supposed to receive $25,000 per episode that ran in syndication, but Universal charged him "distribution fees". He also felt that the studio did not release the show to the highest bidder for the episode reruns.^[23]

1980s[link]

Garner returned to his earlier TV role in 1981 in the revival series Bret Maverick, but NBC unexpectedly canceled the show after only one season despite reasonably good ratings. Critics noted that most of the scripts did not measure up to the first series. Jack Kelly (Bart Maverick) was slated to become a series regular had the series been picked up for another season, and he appeared in the last scene of the final episode in a surprise guest role. During the 1980s, Garner played dramatic roles in a number of TV movies, including Heartsounds (with Mary Tyler Moore), Promise (with Piper Laurie) and My Name is Bill W.

In 1984, he played the lead in Joseph Wambaugh's The Glitter Dome for HBO Pictures, which was being directed by his Rockford Files co-star Stuart Margolin. The film generated a mild controversy for a bondage sequence featuring Garner and co-star Margot Kidder.^[24]

He was nominated for his first Oscar award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in the movie Murphy's Romance, opposite Sally Field. Field, and director Martin Ritt, had to fight the studio, Columbia Pictures, to have Garner cast, since he was regarded as a TV actor by then (despite having co-starred in the box office hit Victor Victoria opposite Julie Andrews two years earlier). Columbia didn't want to make the picture at all, because it had no "sex or violence" in it. But because of the success of Norma Rae (1979), with the same star (Field), director, and screenplay writing team (Harriet Frank Jr. and Irving Ravetch), and with Field's new production company (Fogwood Films) producing, Columbia agreed. Columbia wanted Marlon Brando to play the part of Murphy, so Field and Ritt had to insist on Garner.^[25][26][27] Part of the deal from the studio, which at that time was owned by The Coca-Cola Company, included an eight line sequence of Field and Garner saying the word "Coke", and also having Coke signs appear prominently in the film.^[28][29] In A&E's Biography of Garner, Field reported that her on-screen kiss with Garner was the best cinematic kiss she had ever experienced.^[30] Garner played Wyatt Earp in two very different movies shot 21 years apart, Hour of the Gun in 1967 and Sunset in 1988. The first film was a realistic depiction of the OK Corral shootout and its aftermath, while the second centered around a fictional relationship between Earp and silent movie cowboy star Tom Mix; the real-life Earp actually was a consultant on some early silent Westerns toward the end of his life. The film featured Bruce Willis as Mix in only his second movie role. Although Willis was billed over Garner, the film actually gave more screen time and more emphasis to Earp. Malcolm McDowell played a villainous silent comedian.

1990s[link]

In 1991, Garner starred in Man of the People, a television series about a con man chosen to fill an empty seat on a city council, with Kate Mulgrew and Corinne Bohrer. Despite reasonably fair ratings, the show was canceled after only 10 episodes. In 1993, Garner played the lead in another well-received TV-movie, Barbarians at the Gate, and went on to reprise his role as Jim Rockford in eight The Rockford Files made-for-TV movies, beginning the following year. The powerfully frenetic opening theme song from the original series was rerecorded and slowed to a mournfully funereal pace, and practically everyone in the original cast of recurring characters returned for the new episodes except Noah Beery, Jr., who had died in the interim. For the second half of the 80s, Garner appeared in several of the North American market Mazda television commercials as an on screen spokesman.

In 1994, Garner played Marshal Zane Cooper in a movie version of Maverick, with Mel Gibson as Bret Maverick (in the end it is revealed that Garner's character is the father of Gibson's Maverick) and Jodie Foster as a gambling lass with a fake southern accent. In 1995, he played lead character Woodrow Call, an ex-lawman, in the TV miniseries sequel to Lonesome Dove entitled Streets of Laredo, based on Larry McMurtry's book. In 1996, Garner and Jack Lemmon teamed up in My Fellow Americans, playing two former presidents who uncover scandalous activity by their successor Dan Aykroyd and are pursued by murderous NSA agents. In addition to a major recurring role during the last part of the run of TV series Chicago Hope, Garner also starred in a couple of short-lived series, the animated God, the Devil and Bob and First Monday, in which he played a Supreme Court justice.

2000 to Present[link]

In 2000, after an operation to replace both knees, Garner appeared with Clint Eastwood (who had played a villain in the original Maverick series) as astronauts in the movie Space Cowboys, also featuring Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland. During a group appearance by the cast on television's The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Leno ran a brief clip from Garner and Eastwood's lengthy saloon fistfight during Eastwood's Maverick appearance in "Duel at Sundown" over forty years earlier; Tommy Lee Jones and Eastwood also stage a brief bar brawl in Space Cowboys.

In 2001, Garner voiced the main antagonist, Commander Rourke, in Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire. In 2002, following the death of James Coburn, Garner took over Coburn's role as TV commercial voiceover for Chevrolet's "Like a Rock" advertising campaign. Garner continued to voice the commercials until the end of the campaign. Upon the death of John Ritter in 2003, Garner joined the cast of 8 Simple Rules as Grandpa Jim Egan (Cate's father). Originally intended to be a one-shot guest role, he stayed with the series until its end in 2005.

In 2004, Garner starred in the movie version of Nicholas Sparks' The Notebook alongside Gena Rowlands as his wife (portrayed in flashbacks by Rachel McAdams, while the younger version of Garner's character was played by Ryan Gosling), directed by Nick Cassavetes, Rowlands' son. The Screen Actors Guild nominated Garner as best actor for "Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role."

In 2010, Garner voiced the wizard Shazam in the direct-to-video animated feature Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam.

In 2011, the PBS television documentary series Pioneers of Television briefly profiled Garner's contribution to the television series Maverick and other Westerns, illustrated with film clips, rare stills, and interviews with Garner and Stephen J. Cannell, and a voice-over narration read by Kelsey Grammer touching on Garner's difficult childhood and his impact when Maverick dominated Sunday night television.

Awards[link]

For his contribution to the film and television industry, Garner received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (at 6927 Hollywood Boulevard). In 1990, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In February 2005, he received the Screen Actors Guild's Lifetime Achievement Award. He was also nominated for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role that year, for The Notebook. When Morgan Freeman won that prize for his work in Million Dollar Baby, he led the audience in a sing-along of the original Maverick theme song, written by David Buttolph and Paul Francis Webster. In 2010, the Television Critics Association gave Garner its annual Career Achievement Award.

Statue of James Garner[link]

On April 21, 2006, a 10-foot-tall (3.0 m) bronze statue of Garner as Bret Maverick was unveiled in Garner's hometown of Norman, Oklahoma, with Garner present at the ceremony.

Personal life[link]

Marriage and family[link]

Garner with step-daughter Kim (1958)

Garner is married to Lois Clarke, whom he met at an "Adlai Stevenson for President" rally in 1956. They married 14 days later on August 17, 1956. "We went to dinner every night for 14 nights. I was just absolutely nuts about her. I spent $77 on our honeymoon, and it about broke me."^[10][31] According to Garner, "Marriage is like the Army; everyone complains, but you'd be surprised at the large number of people who re-enlist".^[32]

He has one daughter: Greta "Gigi" Garner.

Health issues[link]

Garner's knees would become chronic problems during the filming of The Rockford Files in the 1970s, with "six or seven knee operations during that time." In 2000 he had both knees surgically replaced.^[10]

On April 22, 1988, Garner had quintuple bypass heart surgery.^[33] Though he rapidly recovered, the doctors insisted that he stop smoking.

Garner underwent surgery on May 11, 2008 following a stroke he had suffered two days earlier.^[34] His prognosis was reported to be "very positive."^[34]

Racing[link]

Garner was an owner of the "American International Racers" (AIR) auto racing team from 1967 through 1969. Famed motorsports writer William Edgar and Hollywood director Andy Sidaris teamed with Garner for the racing documentary "The Racing Scene," filmed in 1969 and released in 1970.^[35] The team fielded cars at Le Mans, Daytona, and Sebring endurance races, but is best known for Garner's celebrity status raising publicity in early off-road motor-sports events.^[36] Garner signed a three-year sponsorship contract with American Motors Corporation (AMC).^[37] His shops prepared ten 1969 SC/Ramblers for the Baja 500 race.^[38] Garner did not drive in this event because of a film commitment in Spain that year. Nevertheless, seven of his cars finished the grueling race, taking three of the top five places in the sedan class.^[39] Garner also drove the pace car at the Indianapolis 500 race in 1975, 1977, and 1985 (see: list of Indianapolis 500 pace cars).

Golf[link]

Garner was an avid golfer for many years. Along with his brother, Jack, he played golf in high school.^[12] Jack even attempted a professional golfing career after a brief stint in the Pittsburgh Pirates baseball farm system.^[40] Garner took it up again in the late 1950s to see if he could beat Jack.^[10] He was a regular for years at Pebble Beach Pro-Am.^[40] In February 1990 at the AT&T Golf Tournament he won the Most Valuable Amateur Trophy.^[7]

University of Oklahoma[link]

James Garner is a supporter of the University of Oklahoma, often returning to Norman for school functions. When he attended a game, he frequently could be seen on the sidelines or in the press box at Oklahoma Sooners football games. Garner received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree at OU in 1995.^[41] In 2003, to endow the James Garner Chair in the School of Drama, he donated $500,000, half of a pledged $1 million, for the first endowed position at the drama school.^[41][42] Tom H. Orr, the Director for the School of Drama (Acting/Camera Acting) and the Artistic Director University Theatre, currently holds the James Garner Chair at the university.^[43][44]

Politics[link]

Garner is a strong Democratic Party supporter, contributing over $7,500 to Democrats running for Federal office the past seven years, including Dennis Kucinich (for Congress in 2002), Richard Gephardt, John Kerry, Barbara Boxer, and various Democratic committees and groups. Since 1982 Garner has given at least $29,000 to Federal campaigns, of which over $24,000 has been to the Democrats.^[45]

For his role in the 1985 CBS miniseries Space, the character's party affiliation was changed from a Republican (as in the book) to reflect Garner's personal views. Garner said: "my wife would leave me if I played a Republican".^[46]

Prior to the entry of ex-San Francisco Mayor (later U.S. Senator) Dianne Feinstein, there was an effort by Democratic party leaders, led by state Senator Herschel Rosenthal, to persuade James Garner to seek the 1990 Democratic nomination for Governor of California.^[47][48]

Filmography[link]

Bibliography[link]

• Garner, James; Jon Winokur, introduction by Julie Andrews (2011). The Garner Files: A Memoir. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4516-4260-5. OCLC 709673421. 

See also[link]

• Karl L. Rundberg, Los Angeles City Council member, public quarrel with Garner at Council meeting

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: James Garner

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: James Garner

• James Garner at the Internet Movie Database
• James Garner at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
• James Garner at Yahoo! Movies
• James Garner interview at Archive of American Television – March 17, 1999
• James Garner Interview on the Charlie Rose Show
• James Garner at Emmys.com
• The Official James Garner Fan Page

This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (April 2008)

Joan Ann Hackett (March 1, 1934 – October 8, 1983) was an American actress who appeared on stage, in films, and on television.^[1]

Early life[link]

She was born in New York City of Irish and Italian extraction. Her immigrant parents raised her Roman Catholic and sent her to Catholic schools.^[2]

Acting career[link]

Hackett debuted with the role of Gail Prentiss in the TV series Young Doctor Malone in 1959. In 1961 she won a Theatre World Award, an Obie Award, and a Drama Desk Award for her portrayal of Chris in Michael Shurtleff's play Call Me By My Rightful Name. She had a recurring role on the CBS legal drama The Defenders (1961–1965) as the fiancee of Kenneth Preston (played by Robert Reed), partner in the father-and-son law firm led by patriarch Lawrence Preston (E.G. Marshall). She appeared regularly in scenes with both lead actors. She had a leading role in The Twilight Zone episode "A Piano in the House". In the 1963-1964 season, she guest starred on the ABC drama about college life, Channing starring Jason Evers and Henry Jones. She had one of the starring roles in the 1966 Sidney Lumet film The Group, along with Candice Bergen, Larry Hagman, Richard Mulligan, Joanna Pettet and others.

One of her notable movie performances was the role of Catherine Allen, a young mother struggling to survive on the frontier, in the 1968 Western Will Penny, with Charlton Heston in the title role. Hackett also had notable parts in the classic Western comedy Support Your Local Sheriff!, with James Garner, and the 1973 murder mystery The Last of Sheila. After this she primarily had parts in TV movies and on episodes of TV series.

Hackett won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress - Motion Picture and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the 1981 movie Only When I Laugh, the last movie she made before her death. She could also be seen in Paul Simon's film One Trick Pony, in which she did a nude scene.

Personal life[link]

From 1965 to 1973 she was married to actor Richard Mulligan, who also appeared in The Group.

Death[link]

Hackett died of ovarian cancer at Encino Hospital in California in 1983. Both of her parents as well as her former husband Richard Mulligan also died of cancer. She is interred in Hollywood Forever Cemetery, where her epitaph reads "Go Away—I'm Asleep", a reference to her love of beauty sleep.

Partial filmography[link]

• 1966: The Group
• 1968: Will Penny
• 1968: Assignment to Kill
• 1969: Support Your Local Sheriff!
• 1970: The Other Man
• 1970: The Young Country
• 1970: How Awful About Allan
• 1971: Five Desperate Women
• 1972: Lights Out
• 1973: The Last of Sheila
• 1974: Reflections of Murder
• 1974: The Terminal Man
• 1975: Mackintosh & T.J.
• 1976: Treasure of Matecumbe
• 1977: Dead of Night
• 1980: The Long Days of Summer
• 1980: One Trick Pony
• 1980: Harnessing the Sun
• 1981: Only When I Laugh
• 1982: The Escape Artist

Selected TV guest appearances[link]

• 1960 Diagnosis: Unknown in episode 7 "Gina, Gina", September 6
• 1962 The Twilight Zone (1959) playing "Esther Fortune" in episode: "A Piano in the House" (episode # 3.22) February 16
• 1962 Gunsmoke (1955) playing "Mady Arthur" in episode: "The Widow" (episode # 7.25) 24 March
• 1963 Combat! (1962) playing "Gabrille" in episode: "The Chateau" (episode # 1.19) February 12
• 1964 The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (1962) playing "Helen Clarvoe" in episode: "Beast in View" (episode # 2.21) March 20
• 1965 Bonanza (1959) playing "Margarita Miguel" in episode: "Woman of Fire" (episode # 6.17) January 17
• 1969 Daniel Boone (1964) playing "Theodora Liggett" in episode: "A Pinch of Salt" (episode #5.26) May 1
• 1979 Trapper John, M.D. (1979) playing "Wilma" in episode: "The Surrogate" (episode # 1.10) December 23
• 1979 Taxi playing "Charlotte", the sister of "Alex Reiger" in episode: "Honor Thy Father" (season 2, episode 2) aired on 18 September 1979
• 1982 Paper Dolls (1982) playing "Julia Blake" mother of teen model Taryn Blake

References[link]

External links[link]

• Joan Hackett at the Internet Movie Database
• Allmovie Review of her episode of The Twilight Zone
• Review of her episode of Combat!
• Allmovie Plot synopsis of her 1965 Bonanza episode
• Joan Hackett at Find a Grave

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2012)

Walter Brennan
Brennan in Meet John Doe (1941)
Born	Walter Andrew Brennan (1894-07-25)July 25, 1894 Lynn, Massachusetts, US
Died	September 21, 1974(1974-09-21) (aged 80) Oxnard, California, US
Cause of death	Emphysema
Resting place	San Fernando Mission Cemetery
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Rindge Technical High School
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1925–1974
Spouse	Ruth Wells (m. 1920–1974; his death)
Children	Andrew Brennan, Ruth Brennan, Arthur Brennan
Awards	3 Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actor

Walter Brennan (July 25, 1894 – September 21, 1974) was an American actor.^[1] Brennan won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor on three separate occasions, which is currently the record for most Oscar wins by a male actor, tied with Jack Nicholson.

Early life[link]

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, less than two miles from his family's home in Swampscott,^[2] Walter Andrew Brennan was the second of three children born to Irish immigrants William John Brennan and Margaret Elizabeth Flanagan. The elder Brennan was an engineer and inventor, and young Walter studied engineering at Rindge Technical High School in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

While in school, Brennan became interested in acting, and began to perform in vaudeville. While working as a bank clerk, he enlisted in the U.S. Army and served as a private with the 101st Field Artillery Regiment in France during World War I.^[2][3] Following the war, he moved to Guatemala and raised pineapples, before settling in Los Angeles. During the 1920s, he became involved in the real estate market, where he made a fortune. Unfortunately, he lost most of his money when the market took a sudden downturn due to the Great Depression.^{[citation needed]}

Career[link]

Finding himself broke, he began taking extra parts in 1929 and then bit parts in as many films as he could, including The Invisible Man (1933), the Three Stooges short Woman Haters (1934), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and also worked as a stunt man. In the 1930s, he began appearing in higher-quality films and received more substantial roles as his talent was recognized. This culminated with his receiving the very first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Swan Bostrom in the period film Come and Get It (1936). Two years later he portrayed town drunk and accused murderer Muff Potter in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

Throughout his career, Brennan was frequently called upon to play characters considerably older than he was in real life. The loss of many teeth in a 1932 accident, rapidly thinning hair, thin build, and gravelly voice all made him seem older than he really was. He used these physical features to great effect. In many of his film roles, Brennan wore dentures; in Northwest Passage—a film set in the late 18th century, when most people had bad teeth—he wore a special dental prosthesis which made him appear to have rotting and broken teeth.

Director Jean Renoir gave the character actor a leading role in 1941: Brennan played the top-billed lead in Swamp Water, a drama directed by Renoir and featuring Walter Huston.

Brennan in Affairs of Cappy Ricks

In the 1941 Sergeant York, he played a sympathetic preacher and dry goods store owner who advised the title character played by Gary Cooper. He was particularly skilled in playing the hero's sidekick or as the "grumpy old man" as in To Have or Have Not, mostly a Humphrey Bogart/Lauren Bacall performance, but with several scenes with Brennan. Though he was hardly ever cast as the villain, notable exceptions were his roles as 'Old Man Clanton' in the 1946 film My Darling Clementine opposite Henry Fonda, the 1962 Cinerama production How the West Was Won as the murderous Colonel Jeb Hawkins, and as Judge Roy Bean in The Westerner, for which he won his third best supporting actor Academy Award, in 1940.

From 1957-1963, he starred in the ABC television series The Real McCoys. The comedy about a poor West Virginia family that relocated to a farm in southern California ran on ABC from 1957 to 1962 before switching to CBS for a final season as simply The McCoys. Brennan joined with the series creator, Irving Pincus, to form Brennan-Westgate-Marterto Productions.

Brennan appeared in several other movies and television programs, usually, as an eccentric "old timer" or "prospector". Prior to the launching of The Real McCoys, Brennan appeared as himself as a musical judge in the 1953-1954 ABC series Jukebox Jury. On May 30, 1957, he guest starred on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford.^[4] He also made a few recordings, the most popular being "Old Rivers" about an eccentric but much-beloved farmer; it was released as a single in 1962 by Liberty Records with "The Epic Ride Of John H. Glenn" on the flip side, and peaked at number 5 in the U.S. Billboard charts. In his music, Brennan sometimes worked with Allen "Puddler" Harris, a Louisiana native who was a member of the original Ricky Nelson Band. He also co-starred with James Garner in the 1969 Support Your Local Sheriff!, playing the head of the Danby Family.

Brennan in the trailer of Rio Bravo

Brennan starred as wealthy executive Walter Andrews in the short-lived 1964-1965 series The Tycoon, with Van Williams. In 1967, he starred in another series, The Guns of Will Sonnett, in which he played a man in search of his gunfighter son, James, with his grandson, Jeff, played by Dack Rambo. After the series went off the air in 1969, Brennan continued working in both television and feature films. He received top billing over Pat O'Brien in the TV-movie The Over-the-Hill Gang in 1969 and Fred Astaire in The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again the following year. From 1970 to 1971, he was a regular on the show To Rome With Love, which was his last TV show as a member of the permanent cast.

Legacy[link]

Film historians and critics have long regarded Brennan as one of the finest character actors in motion picture history. While the roles he was adept at playing were extremely diverse, he is probably best remembered for his portrayals in movie Westerns, such as trail hand Nadine Groot in Red River and Deputy Stumpy in Rio Bravo both directed by Howard Hawks. He was the first actor to win three Academy Awards. He remains the only person to have won three Best Supporting Actor awards. However, even he remained somewhat embarrassed as to how he won the awards. In the early years of the Academy Awards, extras were given the right to vote. Brennan was extremely popular with the Union of Film Extras and since their numbers were overwhelming, each time he was nominated, he won. Though never described as undeserving of the awards he won, his third win was one of the catalysts leading to the disenfranchisement of the Extras Union from Oscar voting.

Unlike many actors, Brennan's career never really went into decline. As the years went on, he was able to find work in dozens of high quality films, and later television appearances throughout the 1950s and 60s. As he grew older, he simply became a more familiar, almost comforting film figure whose performances continued to endear him to new generations of fans. In all, he would appear in more than 230 film and television roles in a career spanning nearly five decades.

For his contribution to the television industry, Walter Brennan has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6501 Hollywood Blvd. In 1970, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, where his photograph adorns a wall.

Private life[link]

Brennan was politically conservative. In 1963 and 1964, Brennan joined fellow actors William Lundigan, Chill Wills, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., in making appearances on behalf of U.S. Senator Barry M. Goldwater, the Republican nominee in the campaign against U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson.^[5] Brennan thereafter supported American Independent Party candidate (and former governor of Alabama) George C. Wallace, Jr., over GOP nominee and former Vice President Richard M. Nixon in the 1968 presidential campaign because he felt Nixon was too liberal. He also supported Ronald W. Reagan for governor of California in 1966.

In one of his films, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band (1968), Brennan portrayed a Democratic supporter of U.S. President Grover Cleveland. Buddy Ebsen, who played Brennan's son in the film, was depicted as a supporter of Cleveland's 1888 rival, Benjamin Harrison. In the comedy film, Brennan disparaged Ebsen's character as "never too bright for he was a gol-dern Republican". Both Brennan and Ebsen were outspoken Hollywood Republicans.

Death[link]

Upon his death from emphysema at the age of eighty in Oxnard in Ventura County, Brennan's remains were interred at San Fernando Mission Cemetery in Los Angeles. Brennan was married to the former Ruth Wells (December 8, 1897 – January 12, 1997),^[6] whom he married in 1920. The Brennans had a daughter and two sons.

Discography[link]

Albums[link]

Singles[link]

Academy Awards[link]

Partial filmography[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Walter Brennan

• Walter Brennan at the Internet Movie Database
• Walter Brennan at the TCM Movie Database
• Walter Brennan at AllRovi
• Walter Brennan at Find a Grave
• The Golden Years