Rockford Filed

(Kudos to Monty)

James Garner, who lived through the hell of having to read a sappy Nicholas Sparks story over and over again in The Notebook, has died of a massive heart attack at the age of 86. Garner brought a series of knights in slightly dinged armor to life on TV as Bret Maverick and Jim Rockford, and in movies like Murphy’s Romance (winning an Academy Award nomination) and as the Scrounger in The Great Escape. Continuing his string of roguish characters, he played a con man turned city councilor in Man of the People, and the ultimate con man in the animated short-lived series God, the Devil and Bob, while on the big screen, he played a crooked lawman / con man / Bret Maverick’s father in Maverick and a disgraced former president in My Fellow Americans. Other roles included a Supreme Court justice in First Monday and one of Clint Eastwood’s Space Cowboys. In 2003, he was cast as Gibbs’ father on NCIS but suffered a stroke and was unable to take the role, which meant he was later available to help prop up 8 Simple Rules (for Dating My Teenage Daughter) after the sudden death of John Ritter.

 

Stritch Marks

(Props to Monty)
Elaine Stritch, professional brassy dame who spent nearly 70 years dropping withering one-liners on stage and screen, has died at the age of 89. On the stage, she was nominated for 5 Tonys, winning for her 2001 one-woman show Elaine Stritch at Liberty. She also won Emmys for a guest spot on Law & Order in 1993, for the documentary about her one-woman show and for her recurring role as Jack Donaghy’s caustic mother on 30 Rock. Stritch originated the role of Trixie Norton in a Honeymooners sketch with Jackie Gleason, Art Carney and Pert Kelton before the role, originally a burlesque dancer (who often marry sewer workers), was recast after just one episode, with the more wholesome looking Joyce Randolph playing the character as an ordinary housewife. Other roles included a bitter, grammatically correct mother who lost a son in Vietnam and objected to the IHP’s production of Hair on Head of the Class, a stern schoolteacher of Rudy’s class on The Cosby Show and a widow who put the moves on Jack Gilford in Cocoon: The Return. She was reportedly considered for the role of Dorothy Zbornak on The Golden Girls but blew her audition and the role was cast with Bea Arthur.