by James Garner
I played Maryk in the road company for four months as we toured Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. But I knew I wasn’t cut out for the theater. It was great experience, but it finally dawned on me that if I were going to succeed as an actor, it would have to be on the screen. I recalled some advice I’d gotten from a friend in the Caine Mutiny cast, a fine actor named John Crawford.
John was staying at the stage manager’s apartment while he was out of town. I asked if I could stay there, too, because I wanted to cut off the rent at the Belvedere Hotel. Late one night we were talking about what we wanted to do. John had already worked in films, and he said, “Jim, when you start making movies, learn what the camera can and cannot do, because that’s your audience, that’s your proscenium stage, the one you’re playing to.”
Then he gave me some “exercises.”
“Jim, after lunch, don’t sit around and bullshit with the crew,” he said. “Go back to the set by yourself. They’ll have the camera set up for the next shot. Pull up a chair and face the monster. Get about a foot away. Take a deep breath and look at that thing. There’ll be a screw on the left and a screw on the right. Those are the ‘eyes.’ Look from one eye to the other as you say, ‘I’m gonna kill you, you sonofabitch!’ Do it again. And again. And again.”
It made perfect sense. The camera isn’t an object—it’s a person. The most important person on the set.
“Now the camera is a woman,” he said, “and you’re trying to get her in bed. Look all over her face, but don’t say anything, just think. Film is in the eyes. On a movie screen, your head is twenty feet high. If there’s anything going on, the audience will see it. Go make friends with the camera.”
So I did.
I learned everything I could about what the camera does, including the technical stuff, and I got to the point where I could play love scenes to the monster.
I also lowered my voice and worked to get rid of my Oklahoma accent.
I was beginning to think of myself as an actor.
CHAPTER THREE
Maverick
By the end of 1955, I was back in Los Angeles, looking for work. I’d make the rounds of the studios during the day and drink beer at night with another struggling actor, Clint Eastwood. We’d talk about our plans for the future and what we wanted to do in the business.
In the mid-1950s, television was eating into movie ticket sales and the movie studios were losing money. Warner Bros. in particular was strapped for cash, so Harry and Albert Warner sold their shares to a banker named Serge Semenenko, who, against Jack Warner’s wishes, steered the company into television production. Within a few years, Warner Bros. TV shows would be so profitable that Jack Warner bought back Semenenko’s shares and wound up owning the whole studio himself.
Jack Warner tapped William T. Orr to head the TV division, not because of any great talent, but because Bill Orr was his son-in-law. A former actor, Orr was married to Warner’s stepdaughter, Joy Page. (“The son-in-law also rises,” some wag said.) It was comic at times: Orr and his two assistants would ride their little bicycles around the lot. Bill would be in front, then the first assistant, then the second. Nobody was allowed to pass anybody. It was like, “I’m the king!” If one of the assistants wanted to talk, he could pull up alongside Orr for a minute, but couldn’t pass him. It was that kind of childish stuff.
Orr didn’t want to pay for established talent for the new shows, so he had the producer-director Richard Bare scout around for unknowns who’d work cheap. One night I was in a bar with Robert Lowery, another out-of-work actor, when Dick Bare came in. Bob introduced me to Dick and we all had a drink. Dick mentioned he’d been looking for someone to star in Cheyenne, Warners’ first Western series, but hadn’t found the right guy. We talked a while longer and went our separate ways.
The next day it occurred to Dick Bare that the guy he’d met in the bar might be right for the Cheyenne lead, so he called Bob Lowery to track me down. Bob gave him my name but didn’t know how to reach me, so all Dick could do was leave a message for me at the bar. I didn’t go in there again until about a week later. I called Dick as soon as I got his message.
“If you can get to the studio right away, I may have a job for you.”
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes!”
Next thing I knew I was auditioning for Bare and Bill Orr. They’d already given the Cheyenne starring role to Clint Walker, but there was still one part left to cast. They were desperate because the company was going on location the next morning to begin filming the first episode. I’m sure that’s why I got the part. It couldn’t have been my acting.
I played a smart aleck Union Army officer I thought of as “the irate lieutenant.” Just a couple of scenes. Over the next few months, I hung around Warners and did half a dozen small TV parts. One day somebody from the front office called and said they wanted to give me a screen test.
“What for? I’ve just done a bunch of jobs for you. If you can’t tell by now, what good is a screen test?”
“Well, we like to test.”
I didn’t want to do it, but I finally said, “Okay, but you only get two weeks to make up your mind.” They wanted a month, but I told them I might lose a job waiting, so they agreed to two weeks. I think they tested fourteen people in one day, including Dennis Hopper and Michael Landon. I told them, “Whatever you do about me, you ought to hire that Michael Landon. The kid’s good.”
Two weeks came and went and they asked for another week to make up their minds.
“Forget it,” I said. “I didn’t want to be under contract anyway.”
Well, they picked me up that day. I was the only one of the fourteen they tested who got a contract.
I fell in love for the first and last time on August 1, 1956, at an Adlai Stevenson-for-President rally.
Stevenson lost.
I won.
That’s where I met Lois Clarke.
It was love at first sight. The “thunderbolt.” She was as beautiful as she was sweet. She reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, only full bodied, like Sophia Loren. And she was obviously a good Democrat. I was nuts about her from the moment we met.
Still am.
It was a barbecue and I ended up in the pool with the children. That’s how I got to talk to Lois. It wasn’t any strategy, it’s just what happened. She was very nice. Within the first few minutes she told me she had a daughter from her first marriage, Kimberly, who had polio.
Lois and I saw each other every day—sometimes twice a day— until August 17, when we were married in the Beverly Hills courthouse.
My family was against the marriage. They pointed out that Lois and I had little in common. I was six feet three inches tall and Lois was petite; I was the outdoor, athletic type and she was the indoor type. I was practical and pragmatic, she was a dreamer. I was from a small town in Oklahoma, Lois had lived in LA all her life. The biggest objection was the difference in religion: I’m a Methodist, Lois is Jewish. But neither of us was ever what you’d call religious, so it wasn’t an issue, at least not for Lois and me.
None of the naysayers had stopped to consider that Lois and I complemented each other. What they saw as weaknesses, we saw as strengths. Lois had what I lacked and vice versa.
Our honeymoon consisted of two days and one night at the La Jollan, an old hotel (a “dump,” according to Lois) near San Diego. It was all we could afford on my contract player’s salary. We didn’t have the bridal suite, but a tiny room and bath overlooking the street. Lois now says she had to drag me to the beach during the day and to a play that night, and that I would have been happy just staying in the room, but that’s not how I remember it. As I recall, if she wanted to go, I went . . . cheerfully.
Back home, we rented a small apartment on Dickens Street in Sherman Oaks. Its only advantages were proximity to the studio and affordable rent. Money was tight: Kim’s condition had required expensive treatments, and the medical bills had piled up.
When I started acting, I
didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I was just stumbling around, hoping to get lucky. Getting married made me serious about my career and about my life. Suddenly I was the breadwinner for a family of three, soon to be four—our daughter Gigi was born a little over a year later. I had to buckle down and support these people. I welcomed the responsibility, but I also felt the weight of it. I think it focused me as an actor and motivated me to try to build a career rather than just drift along as I’d done before.
It wasn’t easy. My signature on the Warner Bros. contract consigned me to the same studio system that Jimmy Cagney and Bette Davis had rebelled against in the 1930s and ’40s. For openers, the studio changed my name without my permission. I was born James Scott Bumgarner; the studio knocked off the “Bum.” I accepted it because of Kim. Her name was Kimberly Clarke. She was known in school as “Kimberly Clarke,” and “Kimberly Bumgarner,” and “Kim Garner.” That’s confusing for a little girl, so I changed it legally—to make sure she knew who she was.
The contract was harsh. The studio owned you body and soul, and they had no qualms about putting you in a picture that was bad for your career. If you refused the part, they’d suspend you without pay and add the time to your contract. They could also make money “loaning” you out to other studios. Contract actors were indentured servants, like pro ballplayers before free agency.
I had a fifty-two-week deal, which meant they could use me for movies, television, public relations—they could make me sell pencils if they wanted to. They sent me all over the country for personal appearances and cast me in small character parts in several features, beginning with a William Holden vehicle, Toward the Unknown, directed by Mervyn LeRoy. When we started shooting, I was scared to death and had no idea what I was doing. I was so green I didn’t even know what a producer was.
LeRoy was known for singling out one actor and picking on him for the whole shoot, and sure enough, he tried to make me his whipping boy on the set. He was especially nasty if he hadn’t taken his pills that morning. Well, the first time he pushed me, I shoved right back, and he found somebody else to lord it over.
I got along fine with my fellow actors, including Lloyd Nolan, a pal since Caine Mutiny Court Martial. One day on the set, Bill Holden took me aside. “Jim,” he said, “I saw the dailies, and you’re gonna be a big star.” What a generous thing to do. It gave me confidence when I really needed it.
Still a novice, I did small parts in two more features, The Girl He Left Behind with Tab Hunter, Natalie Wood, and David Janssen, and Shoot-out at Medicine Bend, directed by Dick Bare. It was Randy Scott’s last contract picture for Warners after a long run. The movie couldn’t decide if it was a comedy or a drama, maybe because Bare had gotten his start directing the “Joe McDoakes” comedy shorts in the 1940s. Even the title is off; there’s gunplay, but not one decent shoot-out in the whole picture.
Though my acting still wasn’t very good, my next assignment was my first role of any consequence, and my first serious film.
Sayonara is the story of American servicemen in Japan who break the taboo against fraternizing with Japanese women. Based on James Michener’s novel, it’s a love story that also deals with racism.
Warner Bros. originally wanted Marlon Brando and Audrey Hepburn to play the leads, but they didn’t have the budget for two big stars, so it came down to a choice between Brando and an unknown Japanese girl, or Audrey Hepburn and a newcomer in the Brando role. I figured I had a chance at the lead if they went with Audrey, but they decided on Marlon and a beautiful young actress named Miiko Taka.
Still a lowly contract player at Warner Bros., I was assigned to do screen tests with all the actors they were considering for the part of Marlon’s buddy. The list included David Janssen, Robert Sterling, and Gary Merrill. When I heard they’d decided on a young actor named John Smith for the role, I asked to see the director, Joshua Logan, and the producer, Bill Goetz.
“Look,” I said, “you’ve already got me, I’m a lot cheaper, and I think I’m better for the part.”
And by golly, they hired me.
It’s the only part I’ve ever gone after. (Okay, maybe I stole it.)
We shot Sayonara in Japan, in beautiful locations like the Imperial Palace in Kyoto, with its magnificent rock gardens and cherry trees. The movie showed tea ceremonies and traditional dances, and I think the portrayal of Japanese culture a decade after the end of World War II helped increase understanding between former enemies.
Marlon and I hit it off from the start. We gave each other the right of way, maybe because we had something in common: we were both rebels.
Marlon plays Major Lloyd Gruver, an Air Force ace and West Point graduate who risks a promising career when he takes up with a Japanese entertainer. I play Marlon’s sidekick, Captain Mike Bailey, a Marine pilot.
The first scene we shot was in the back of a taxicab, and I couldn’t help thinking about another taxi scene, Marlon’s famous one with Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront. I knew I was no Rod Steiger.
I was so tense my palms were dripping wet, and Marlon noticed it.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
“I’m so nervous I can’t see straight. I’ve never done a first-class picture before.”
Marlon immediately put me at ease. He took me aside and said, “If you have any problems, just let me know and we’ll work ’em out.”
That calmed me down. From then on, we worked well together.
Marlon had the reputation of being “difficult,” but it wasn’t with fellow actors, just producers and directors. For one thing, he liked to rewrite dialogue. For another, as Major Gruver he affected a Southern accent, which wasn’t in the script.
Marlon was unhappy because he didn’t feel Josh Logan was giving him any direction. He’d say to Josh, “Why don’t you direct me?” and Josh would say, “Marlon, if you do anything I don’t like I’ll tell you.” I think Marlon wanted a confrontation, but Josh was so agreeable, it was like pushing on a rope. That frustrated Marlon even more and he complained to me about it.
“Why are you doing this picture?” I asked.
“For the money.”
“Okay, then, do it for the money, but don’t give the director a heart attack!”
Josh didn’t give me a lot of direction either, probably because Marlon became my personal coach. We’d go out to a rice paddy and “improve” the scenes. Then the two of us would rehearse and rehearse. I thought, Josh is gonna kill me for this, but when we showed him our stuff he usually liked it and wound up using it. But not because Josh was a pushover. When he made Sayonara, he was already a veteran stage and screen director, with film credits that included Bus Stop and Picnic, and he’d won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as coauthor of the Broadway musical South Pacific. Josh had been around the block, and he was smart enough to stay out of Marlon’s way.
Marlon Brando was the best movie actor we’ve ever had. I know that’s not exactly going out on a limb, but I just want to be on record with all the other actors who feel the same way. He could make you forget he was the great Brando and you’d just see the character. Not many actors can do that. For what it’s worth, I think he could have been even greater if he had chosen his material more carefully. But I never saw him do a bad job. Marlon was in a lot of bad movies, but he was always interesting.
Sayonara earned a bunch of Oscar nominations and wound up with several statuettes, including one each for supporting actors Red Buttons and Miyoshi Umeki. Though my role as Marlon’s buddy wasn’t outstanding, it was a big learning experience and a definite career boost. You’re bound to get a little of it on you when you’re in a film like that.
The studio bosses were absolute monarchs. Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, Harry “Genghis” Cohn, and Warner Bros. head of production Jack L. Warner—the Hollywood “moguls”—didn’t like back talk from mere actors.
J.L., or “the colonel,” as his subordinates called him—he’d wangled a commission in the Signal Corps during World Wa
r II— was the youngest of four brothers who’d immigrated to the United States from Poland in around 1900. They were movie exhibitors, then distributors, and by World War I they’d opened a studio, Warner Bros., Inc., which introduced sound to the movies with The Jazz Singer in 1927 and made low-budget, socially conscious features in the 1930s and ’40s.
Jack Warner treated everybody the same: lousy. He didn’t spare his wife, his son, or his mistress. He hated writers ( “schmucks with Underwoods,” he called them), he hated actors, and he was cruel to his employees. According to Warner’s own son, if Jack’s brothers hadn’t hired him, he’d have been out of work.
Someone once said in Warner’s defense that he “bore no grudge against those he had wronged.” But that wasn’t true in my case, because Jack Warner hated me. Maybe it was because I said in a Time magazine interview 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. Word got back to me that the colonel didn’t like that.
Warner was rude and crude—the most vulgar man I’ve ever met. He had terrible taste in most things and a filthy mouth. The first time Lois and I went to the Oscars, we sat at his table and listened to him tell one dirty joke after another. He actually thought they were funny. We got up and moved to another table. I told Bill Orr: “Don’t you ever . . . don’t you ever get me invited anywhere where he’s going to be.” Well, you don’t say that about the boss.
Warner seemed to enjoy embarrassing himself and everybody in the room. When Madame Chiang Kai-Shek came to the United States on a fund-raising tour for China during World War II, she visited the Warner Bros. lot, where a dinner was given in her honor. After she delivered a gracious speech thanking her American allies for their continuing support and praising Warner Bros. for their contributions to the war effort, Jack Warner got up, waited for the applause to die down, looked at Madame Chiang, and said, “Holy cow, that reminds me, I forgot to pick up my laundry!”