Happy Birthday, Jim Garner!

Here's wishing the best to my favourite actor, Jim Garner on his 84th birthday. I've been watching a lot of episodes of The Rockford Files lately, as for me it's the best example of TV as "comfort food". I never get tired of watching the charismatic and extremely likeable Garner portraying private investigator, Jim Rockford, as he somehow always gets the better of his adversaries. This expression was sketched from a typical scene in which somebody is putting the screws to Rockford, but they soon find out that he has the upper hand. In this case, a shady District Attorney who's hired Rockford on a personal case is not happy that Rockford wants no part of it anymore after figuring out that the DA is among the guilty, so he threatens to use his clout to have Rockford's investigator license pulled unless he complies. Rockford then just calmly explains to the DA why he probably would regret that move, as it would mean an appeal in court where he'd have to divulge all he knows about the dubious case the DA had him investigating, the details of which might just reveal the DA's own questionable involvement.

I just love situations like that in the show, as they're pure Jim Garner. Having recently read his autobiography, The Garner Files, it becomes quite evident that Jim never let himself be pushed around by others, no matter how big and important they thought they were. He refused to be bullied by studio mogul, Jack Warner early in his career, and years later after doing The Rockford Files, he successfully took Universal to court when he discovered they'd been illegally withholding millions of dollars of profits he was entitled to. He also would stand up for crew members or fellow performers when they might be bullied on a movie set, always looking out for the underdog. It's that aspect of Jim Garner that I admire so much, as I think we could all learn from his fine example of fighting injustice time and again. I'll admit it - this man has long been my hero, both on and off screen, which is why I like to honour him each year here on my blog. So, Happy Birthday, Jim - I hope you have a wonderful day with your family!