Garner tells his life story with the same wry, self-effacing charm that characterized his classic TV characters: the laidback cowboy Bret Maverick and the down-on-his-heels gumshoe Jim Rockford…Garner comes across as likable on the page as he does on screen.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“…the narrative is genuine, candid, and more informative than usual for a Hollywood bio…Truly a cut above most actor bios, this is prime stuff for film and television collections.”
—Booklist
“Laid-back charm and a sense of humor fuel such memories, two qualities shared by the characters Garner often played in a career of 50-plus years…Full of funny stories and observations, The Garner Files offers the kind of clubhouse banter you might expect from a hardworking, successful guy who doesn't take himself too seriously — and doesn't want you to, either.”
—Associated Press
“James Garner stepped into two of TV's most calcified genres — the western and the detective series — and set a new standard that others have been chasing down since…having made up his mind to write [a memoir]…Garner follows his own heroic dictum: Plenty of self-deprecating, humor, a general air of live-and-let-live, but when it comes down to it, no pulled punches. For Garner fans, The Garner Files is catnip…[Garner] is unfailingly candid about his own desires…it is a fine, frank and fun collection.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Stand aside for Maverick! Stand aside again for Jim Rockford!...Let this neatly written and well-supplemented little book—all of [Garner’s] friends provide relevant stories and fond judgments—set a new standard of integrity for the genre…You could hand this book as a primer on ethics to any young man just reaching the age of choosing his way in life.”
—Clive James, The Atlantic
“[an] enjoyable memoir…there's plenty to love in this book. Garner…has a knack for telling a story and finding the perfect quote to tie it all together…charming…[It] resembles a conversation with an old friend who loves to tell colorful stories.”
—PublishersWeekly.com
“James Garner's memoir is as easygoing and plain-spoken as his acting persona…[He] wouldn’t have it any other way.”
—USAToday.com
“The Garner Files is a classic tale of making it in Hollywood fueled…with Garner’s good looks, fortune, charm, and sense of humor.”
—ChristianScienceMonitor.com
“If you buy one cranky celebrity memoir this fall, might we suggest James Garner's The Garner Files?”
—TheAtlanticWire.com
“Garner follows his own heroic dictum: Plenty of self-deprecating, humor, a general air of live-and-let-live, but when it comes down to it, no pulled punches. For Garner fans, ‘The Garner Files’ is catnip…it is a fine, frank and fun collection.”
—LOS ANGELES TIMES
Though Garner fans are aging—inevitable, since the star himself is 84-years-old—there are plenty who'll snap up this enjoyable memoir. Having gained a loyal following through TV series such as Maverick and The Rockford Files, and films including The Great Escape and The Notebook, Garner has remained in the public eye for more than six decades. Wherever you fall on the Garner spectrum, there's plenty to love in this book. Garner (or more likely Winokur) has a knack for telling a story and finding the perfect quote to tie it all together. Summing up his difficult childhood, which included an alcoholic father and an abusive stepmother, Garner says he lived through "The Depression. In Oklahoma. In the dust. After that, studio executives don't bother you at all." He fell into acting because "a woman pulled out of a parking space in front of a producer's office" and he pulled in. In describing meeting his wife, Garner says he "fell in love for the first and last time on August 1, 1956." Even if this charming book has some choppy and random moments, it still resembles a conversation with an old friend who loves to tell colorful stories. (Nov.)
With Winokur (The Big Book of Irony, 2007, etc.) Garner tells his life story with the same wry, self-effacing charm that characterized his classic TV characters: the laidback cowboy Bret Maverick and the down-on-his-heels gumshoe Jim Rockford. Raised in Depression-era Oklahoma by an alcoholic father and abusive stepmother, Garner escaped to Hollywood, got his own hit show (Maverick) before he was 30 and made movies. He has stayed married to the same woman for over 50 years. Fate has, for the most part, been kind: "The only reason I'm an actor is that a lady pulled out of a parking space in front of a producer's office." Along the way, he also spent a hellish season in the Korean War and received two Purple Hearts in Korea--though he claims that he "didn't save anybody but myself." Garner praises mentors such as Henry Fonda and Marlon Brando and offers testier assessments of his late neighbor and competitor Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson ("a bitter, belligerent SOB") and Charlton Heston ("stiff as a board"). He gives great inside dope on the technical demands of making of his racing hit Grand Prix (1966), the sheer physical toll action roles can take on the body and the equally brutal business end of Hollywood, where Garner has survived two legendary you'll-never-work-in-this-town-again run-ins with the studios ("It was like being in business with the Mafia, only Universal didn't need a gun, just a pencil"). The author is also full of contradictions. He doesn't believe in glorifying the military but supports a memorial for Korean War veterans, calls himself a coward but continually points out that he never backs down from a fight and claims not to take acting too seriously ("I have to laugh when I hear actors talking about their art") but clearly knows the craft and respects it. Although he can go on too much about how unaffected and genuine he is, Garner comes across as likable on the page as he does on screen.