A Parking Space that Launched a Career

LOS ANGELES - CIRCA 1965: Actor James Garner poses for a portrait circa 1965 in Los Angeles

Truth is stranger than fiction — especially when it comes to the life of Hollywood legend James Garner, who died Saturday at age 86. Unlike so many in Los Angeles, Garner didn't have stars in his eyes. In fact, his résumé was filled with jobs far removed from the glitz and glam of the movie industry. A high school dropout, he had bounced around from telephone installer to oil field roughneck to chauffeur to dishwasher to janitor to lifeguard to grocery clerk to salesman to swim trunk model to gas station attendant. And it was during his tenure at a Los Angeles gas station that Garner met the man who would change his life, Paul Gregory.
At the time, Gregory was working as a lowly soda jerk, but he had ambitions to be an agent. The two young men became fast friends until Garner left Southern California to serve in the Korean War (where he earned two Purple Hearts) and the two lost touch.

Then, years later, Garner was driving down La Cienega Boulevard when he noticed a sign for Paul Gregory & Associates. As Garner recounted in his autobiography, The Garner Files, a car pulled out as he neared the building, leaving an open space in front. Garner decided to pop in and catch up with his old friend, who had apparently made good on his life's ambition.

As it turns out, Gregory was producing a Broadway play, Herman Wouk's The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial. The production starred legends Henry Fonda, John Hodiak, and Lloyd Nolan, but also included a handful of nonspeaking roles. Gregory gave Garner one of them, effectively launching his
career.

THE CAINE MUTINY COURT-MARTIAL, The cast gathers around Adlai Stevenson, ca. 1955: Lloyd Nolan, (third from left), …



The play opened in Santa Barbara before opening on Broadway in January 1954 for a 415-performance run.
But time onstage wasn't all Garner got from his first theatrical job. He admitted in his memoir that he learned how to act from practicing lines with the stars and studying them as they performed — especially Henry Fonda.
"I swiped practically all my acting style from him," Garner quipped.
That said, "swiped" is probably an oversimplification. The truth is that he and Fonda had many striking similarities. They were both masculine actors who managed to toe the line between sincerity and charisma while maintaining a likable, guy-next-door vibe. The two stars became lifelong friends offscreen as well. Garner's understated acting method led many to assume he was just being himself, when, in fact, he was practicing a Fonda-esque acting technique.

What's more, Garner's rich (and varied) pre-Hollywood life experience informed his "realness" in front of the camera. This guy had paid his dues in a slew of jobs and served honorably in a war before ever dabbling in the film industry.
In his autobiography, he revealed that when he got started in Gregory's play, he came up with what he called his "five-year plan," which basically meant he decided he'd stick with this whole acting thing for five years and then do something else.
"After the first five years, I'd done Maverick, so then I said, 'Well, maybe I can go five more,'" he explained. "It wasn't until I'd turned 50 and had been in the business 25 years that I realized I might actually have a career as an actor." And have one he did — all because he was paying attention during the rarest and most magical of L.A. moments: when a parking space opened up.