You Don’t Mess Around WITH JIM
THE SCREEN ICON’S DAUGHTER REMEMBERS HER DAD AS A KINDHEARTED WARRIOR FOR JUSTICE
One of Gigi Garner’s earliest memories of her father, James, is when she was 5, and he bravely joined Martin Luther King Jr. and a cadre of Hollywood stars like Marlon Brando, Rita Moreno and Diahann Carroll at 1963’s March on Washington. “These people took their beliefs to the next level when they could’ve all been blackballed,” Gigi, 60, recalls proudly. “My dad was a champion for the underdog — that was just the essence of his character.”
Four years after his death, the beloved Maverick and Rockford Files vet remains a shining example of a star who always stood up for his convictions and never shied away from a worthy fight. “I don’t like macho guys — I’m a marshmallow,” he said. “No, I’m a Tootsie Pop: hard on the outside, soft on the inside. I try to get along with the world, but when big ones start treading on little ones, I’ll get in there and do something.”
It’s a lesson he learned painfully early in his life. Born James Scott Bumgarner (a studio exec convinced him to drop the “Bum”) on the eve of the Depression in Norman, Okla., he didn’t remember his mother, who died when he was 4. “It wasn’t until I was 15 that my cousin Betty told me my mom died of uremic poisoning after a botched abortion. She was 26,” he revealed. “We never talked about it in the family.”
His dad was a drunk who soon wed a woman named Wilma, known as Red. “She enjoyed beating the bejesus out of us,” James said of himself and brothers Jack and Charles. “Red liked to put me in a dress and make everyone call me ‘Louise.’ Now they’d put that woman in jail for what they did to us. But in those days, nobody cared.”
When James was 14, he finally fought back. “I had [Red] down and was choking her,” he said. “I don’t think I’d have let go until she quit breathing, because I thought she’d kill me if she got up.” James’ dad and Jack pulled him off her, but he made a vow that day: “I had to fight my own battles…and nobody would ever step on me again.”
LOVE & MARRIAGE
Looking for a way out, James joined the military at 16 near the end of World War II and
served as a rifleman in the Korean War. “He earned two Purple Hearts,” Gigi beams. Even in wartime, James was known for his kindness, helping a Korean orphan who needed clothes, shoes and food. “My dad never met a child he could resist,” Gigi says.
After the war, James settled in LA and pursued acting — and his future wife. “I fell in love for the first and last time on Aug. 1, 1956, at the Adlai Stevenson for President rally — he lost, I won,” he said. “That’s where I met Lois Clarke. It was love at first sight.”
Though his Methodist family opposed the romance because Lois is Jewish, he proposed two weeks later. “James won’t like me telling this, but a tear ran down his cheek when I said yes,” Lois confessed. “‘I never thought anybody would love me,’ he said.”
Lois did, and so did her daughter from her first marriage, Kimberly, who was then 7 and recovering from polio. “Kim said, ‘Yes, Mom, marry him,’ ” Lois remembers. “‘He’s perfect, and you’re perfect together.’ ”
Two years later, Gigi was born and joined her dad’s many admirers. “My friends adored him, too, and not because he was some big Hollywood star, but because I had the most fun dad,” Gigi gushes. “If I wanted to jump off the balcony into the pool, he would do it first just to make sure it was safe.”
“He never forgot where he’s from or let fame go to his head.” — Daughter Gigi
A REAL MAVERICK
James leaped into roles with equal bravado. His characters on Maverick and Rockford and in films like The Great Escape shared a certain quality. “He had a way of playing the light-comedy underdog,” Gigi says.
He’d been doing it his whole life. After suffering the merciless verbal and physical abuse of his stepmother, “I’ve always kept my tongue in my cheek and a twinkle in my eye,” he explained. “Because I want people to laugh with me, not at me.”
But he was dead serious when making a stand against powerful studios taking advantage of actors. “Jack Warner hated me,” James said. “Maybe it was because I said in Time mag-
azine that being under contract to Warner Bros. was like being a ham in a smokehouse: Whenever they wanted some, they’d take it off the hook, slice off a few pieces, then hang it back on the hook.”
Despite warnings that he’d never work again, James sued Warner Bros. and Universal, makers of Maverick and Rockford, for his mistreatment. “He had a very strong moral character, and he believed what was right was right,” says Gigi. “He just had a conviction that stayed with him his entire life.”
Adds Tom Selleck, who had a recurring role on Rockford and considers James a mentor, “Some of the stands he took gave other actors courage and helped them enormously. He didn’t take credit for any of that.”
James’ career thrived, but the physical injuries he endured while playing flawed but heroic men of action took a toll. “He did most of his own stunts, and eventually he got worn out,” Gigi says. That’s an understatement. “In the six years I did Rockford, I had seven knee operations,” James said. “The studio doctors told me I had to stop working, because I was literally sick and tired. I was a plow horse who’d pulled the plow too long.”
Not being able to work sent James into a depression and led to an 18-month separation from Lois. “I spent a couple weeks on the road with Waylon Jennings — it was wild,” he said. “Lois had a lot of people say, ‘Divorce his ass,’ and she had every right. But she had the patience to hang in there with me.”
The couple stayed together for the rest of James’ life. “Lois and I don’t have a ‘Hollywood marriage,’ ” he said. “Out here people don’t take marriage seriously. They don’t value loyalty and commitment.” James and Lois did. “People in their generation didn’t just divorce at the drop of a hat,” Gigi says. James grew kinder with age. “I eventually forgave my dad everything,” he said. “He may have had a drinking problem and married the wrong woman, but he wasn’t evil.”
He also attained a healthy perspective about his life and career. “For 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,” he said. “I don’t feel like I’ve left anything on the table. I don’t regret not having done this or that. I had a great time!”
And if leading with his heart sometimes got him into trouble, he was OK with that. “I’ve been told I’m too kindhearted for my own good, that I’m a ‘pigeon,’ ” he said. “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.”
He’d always do that for Gigi. “He made a concentrated effort to stay connected to me, no matter where he was,” she says. James was a lot like his characters: always fighting for the right side. Concludes Gigi, “My dad was just a good guy — the guy with the white hat.”
“I believe there is justice if you fight for what is right. The pain you have to endure is worth it.” — James