RIP, James Garner

One question - I know Rockford was falsely convicted and later pardoned, but what was he falsely convicted of?

 

http://bit.ly/1yOX0qO

 

So...what was it he falsely convicted of?

 

I finally found it after digging around some more (wasn't in the wikipedia entry) - it was armed robbery.

 

And he has 2 Purple Hearts which he did not toss into
the tidal basin.

 

https://twitter.com/TheKenStabler/status/491050566169403392/photo/1

 

A few years later Garner put out "The Racing Scene," a documentary about his time leading the American International Racing team. I believe he drove the Indy pace car multiple times -- lord knows he faithfully showed up every year. The man loved his cars.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtOgml5O5SM
http://edgarmotorsport.com/the-racing-scene/

 

"Decaf. You pussy!"

 

Growing up in Santa Monica, there are lots of celebrity sightings and there have been lots of stories popping up on my Facebook page about Garner since yesterday.
One friend recounted an early-morning drive on PCH to Pt. Mugu to go on a hike when a wheel came off his truck. He and his buddy were able to pull over to the side of the road. A little while later, they saw a couple of motorcycles coming toward them. The cyclists stopped to help and it was James Garner and Steve McQueen. They took the guys back to a gas station and waited to make sure everything was going to be OK before pulling away.

 

Most accounts are that "MFA" was indeed conceived as yet another Lemmon-Matthau vehicle, but Matthau was sidelined by health problems and had to drop out.

Which might have been a good thing. Coming off the second "Grumpy Old Men," which had been quite tepidly received, the nation might have been nearing Lemmon-Matthau overload. I am sure Matthau would have been OK in the Matt Douglas role, but Garner had a bit more of the mischievous twinkle needed to be a good foil for the strait-laced Kramer.

It was very easy to buy Garner as a decade-older version of Bill Clinton, a charming skirt-chaser.

 

And a year later we got "Out To Sea" with Lemmon and Matthau, which is probably a good place for it...although the actress who played Dyan Cannon's mother had some funny lines.

 

And that actress was Elaine Stritch, who also died within the past week.

http://wegotthiscovered.com/tv/stage-and-screen-legend-elaine-stritch-dies-at-89/#!bjUtXo