Jim’s Women

This has been a big media week for 83-year-old film and TV actor James Garner. His first-ever memoir, The Garner Files, was released on Tuesday, and it invited reviewers to not only comment on the book but also wax nostalgic about some of their favorite Garner performances over the decades. For my own part, I was fortunate enough to interview Garner for The Rap Sheet.

Closing out the week, I thought it might be fun to pick up a video compilation I stumbled across recently on YouTube. Above, you will see just a few of the attractive women Garner--playing Los Angeles private investigator Jim Rockford on The Rockford Files--worked for, or with, over that series’ six-year run. I’m afraid I can no longer put names to everyone in that video, but I do recognize Lindsay Wagner (who was then in her early 20s, and appeared in two early episodes of the show), along with Joan Van Ark and Suzanne Sommers. Sadly missing, though, is Gretchen Corbett, who played Elizabeth “Beth” Davenport, Rockford’s incredibly patient attorney and sometimes girlfriend. To see them together, we must refer to a different video: