If Sam Spade was a tough guy, Jim Rockford was … well, he could throw a punch, but he didn't like to because it hurt his hand. Rockford's idea of a good time was eating Oreos and fishing with his dad, not spending a lost weekend with some smoky blonde. And tough talk just wasn't his thing; when some hood was beating the tar out of him, Rockford sputtered, "Does your mother have any idea what you do for a living?" Still, the perennially broke investigator always managed to set things right, and by the end of every episode of "The Rockford Files," Rockford — a.k.a. actor James Garner — also gave viewers something they weren't getting from other tough guy heroes: laughs. Garner, a master of light comedy who won an Emmy as Rockford and earlier had shot to fame as a charming and dry-witted gambler on the hit TV western "Maverick," died Saturday at his Los Angeles home. He was 86. Source: http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-james-garner-20140721-story.html#page=1
