A year behind bars for Heather Cho, the daughter of the chairman of Korean Air, for her extraordinary melt-down over a packet of poorly-presented macadamia nuts. Ms Cho was also found guilty of committing acts of violence against a crew member, forcing him to kneel and hitting him with a service manual. The price of going nutshttp://econ.st/1E4tNtO
A year behind bars for Heather Cho, the daughter of the chairman of Korean Air, for her extraordinary melt-down over a packet of poorly-presented macadamia nuts. Ms Cho was also found guilty of committing acts of violence against a crew member, forcing him to kneel and hitting him with a service manual. The price of going nutshttp://econ.st/1E4tNtO
James Garner, Witty, Handsome Leading Man, Dies at 86
July 23, 2014
James Garner, the wry and handsome leading man who slid seamlessly between television and the movies but was best known as the amiable gambler Bret Maverick in the 1950s western “Maverick” and the cranky sleuth Jim Rockford in the 1970s series “The Rockford Files,” died on Saturday night at his home in Los Angeles. He was 86.
His publicist, Jennifer Allen, said he died of natural causes.
He was a genuine star but as an actor something of a paradox: a lantern-jawed, brawny athlete whose physical appeal was both enhanced and undercut by a disarming wit. He appeared in more than 50 films, many of them dramas — but, as he established in one of his notable early performances, as a battle-shy naval officer in “The Americanization of Emily” (1964) and had shown before that in “Maverick” — he was most at home as an iconoclast, a flawed or unlikely hero.
An understated comic actor, he was especially adept at conveying life’s tiny bedevilments. One of his most memorable roles was as a perpetually flummoxed pitchman for Polaroid cameras in the late 1970s and early 1980s, in droll commercials in which he played a vexed husband and Mariette Hartley played his needling wife. They were so persuasive that Ms. Hartley had a shirt printed with the declaration “I am not Mrs. James Garner.”
His one Academy Award nomination was for the 1985 romantic comedy “Murphy’s Romance,” in which he played a small-town druggist who woos the new-in-town divorced mom (Sally Field) with a mixture of self-reliance, grouchy charm and lack of sympathy for fools.
Even Rockford, a semi-tough ex-con (he had served five years on a bum rap for armed robbery) who lived in a beat-up trailer in a Malibu beach parking lot, drove a Pontiac Firebird and could handle himself in a fight (though he probably took more punches than he gave), was exasperated most of the time by one thing or another: his money problems, the penchant of his father (Noah Beery Jr.) for getting into trouble or getting in the way, the hustles of his con-artist pal Angel (Stuart Margolin), his dicey relationship with the local police.
“Maverick” had been in part a sendup of the conventional western drama, and “The Rockford Files” similarly made fun of the standard television detective, the man’s man who upholds law and order and has everything under control. A sucker for a pretty girl and with a distinctly ’70s fashion sense — he favored loud houndstooth jackets — Rockford was perpetually wandering into threatening situations in which he ended up pursued by criminal goons or corrupt cops. He tried, mostly successfully, to steer clear of using guns; instead, a bit of a con artist himself, he relied on impersonations and other ruses — and high-speed driving skills.
Every episode of the show, which ran from 1974 to 1980 and more often than not involved at least one car chase and Rockford’s getting beaten up a time or two, began with a distinctive theme song featuring a synthesizer and a blues harmonica and a message coming in on a newfangled gadget — Rockford’s telephone answering machine — that underscored his unheroic existence: “Jim, this is Norma at the market. It bounced. Do you want us to tear it up, send it back or put it with the others?”
In his 2011 autobiography, “The Garner Files,” written with Jon Winokur, Mr. Garner confessed to having a live-and-let-live attitude with the caveat that when he was pushed, he shoved back. What distinguished his performance as Rockford was how well that more-put-upon-than-macho persona came across. Rockford’s reactions — startled, nonplused and annoyed being his specialties — appeared native to him.
His naturalness led John J. O’Connor, writing in The New York Times, to liken Mr. Garner to Gary Cooper and James Stewart. And like those two actors, Mr. Garner usually got the girl.
Mr. Garner came to acting late, and by accident. On his own after the age of 14 and a bit of a drifter, he had been working an endless series of jobs: telephone installer, oil field roughneck, chauffeur, dishwasher, janitor, lifeguard, grocery clerk, salesman and, fatefully, gas station attendant. While pumping gas in Los Angeles, he met a young man named Paul Gregory, who was working nearby as a soda jerk but wanted to be an agent.
Years later, after Mr. Garner had served in the Army during the Korean War — he was wounded in action twice, earning two Purple Hearts — he was working as a carpet layer in Los Angeles for a business run by his father. One afternoon he was driving on La Cienega Boulevard and saw a sign: Paul Gregory & Associates. Just then a car pulled out of a space in front of the building, and Mr. Garner, on a whim, pulled in. He was 25.
Mr. Gregory, by then an agent and a theatrical producer, hired him for a nonspeaking part in his production of Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” which starred Henry Fonda, John Hodiak and Lloyd Nolan. It opened in Santa Barbara and toured the country before going to Broadway, where it opened in January 1954 and ran for 415 performances. Mr. Garner said he learned to act from running lines with the stars and watching them perform, especially Fonda, another good-looking actor with a sly streak.
“I swiped practically all my acting style from him,” he once said.
James Scott Bumgarner was born in Norman, Okla., on April 7, 1928. His paternal grandfather had participated in the Oklahoma land rush of 1889 and was later shot to death by the son of a widow with whom he’d been having an affair. His maternal grandfather was a full-blooded Cherokee. (Mr. Garner would later name his production company Cherokee Productions.)
His first home was the back of a small store that his father, Weldon, known as Bill, ran in the nearby hamlet of Denver. His mother, Mildred, died when he was 4. When he was 7, the store burned down and his father left James and his two older brothers to be raised by relatives; when his father remarried, the family reunited, but James’s stepmother was abusive, he said in his memoir, and after a violent episode at home, he left.
He worked in Oklahoma, Texas and Los Angeles, where his father finally resettled. He went briefly to Hollywood High School but returned to Norman, where he played football and basketball, to finish. In 1950, when the Korean War broke out, he was drafted.
Mr. Garner’s first Hollywood break came when he met Richard L. Bare, a director of the television western “Cheyenne,” who cast him in a small part. That and other bit roles led to a contract with Warner Bros., which featured him in several movies — including“Sayonara” (1957), starring Marlon Brando and based on James Michener’s novel set in Japan about interracial romance — and sliced the first syllable from his last name.
His first lead role was in “Darby’s Rangers” (1958) as the World War II hero William Darby, a part he was given after Charlton Heston walked off the set in a dispute with the studio over money. At about the same time he was cast as the womanizing gambler Bret Maverick, the role that made him a star.
Alone among westerns of the 1950s, “Maverick,” which made its debut in 1957, was about an antihero. He didn’t much care for horses or guns, and he was motivated by something much less grand than law and order: money. But you rooted for him because he was on the right side of moral issues, he had a natural affinity for the little guy being pushed by the bully, and he was more fun than anyone else.
“If you look at Maverick and Rockford, they’re pretty much the same guy,” Mr. Garner wrote. “One is a gambler and the other a detective, but their attitudes are identical.”
In a Maverick-like (or Rockford-like) move, Mr. Garner left the series in 1960 after winning a breach-of-contract suit against Warner Bros. over its refusal to pay him during a writers’ strike. He did not return to series television for a decade.
He found steady work in movies, however. In “The Children’s Hour” (1961), an adaptation of Lillian Hellman’s play, he played a doctor engaged to a schoolteacher (Audrey Hepburn) accused of being a lesbian. He appeared uncomfortable in that earnest role, but he was winning and warm in “The Great Escape” (1963), the World War II adventure about captured Allied fliers plotting to break out of a German prison camp, as Bob Hendley, the resourceful prisoner known as the Scrounger.
In 1964 he starred with Julie Andrews in “The Americanization of Emily,” which he called his favorite of all his films. He played the personal attendant of a Navy admiral, a fish out of water and the voice of the movie’s pacifist point of view.
Written by Paddy Chayefsky, it included perhaps the longest and most impassioned speech of his career: “I don’t trust people who make bitter reflections about war, Mrs. Barham,” he said, in part. “It’s always the generals with the bloodiest records who are the first to shout what a hell it is. And it’s always the widows who lead the Memorial Day parades.”
Mr. Garner was often injured on the job; during the Rockford years, he had several knee operations and back trouble. More seriously, in 1988, he had a quintuple bypass operation, which cost him his job as spokesman for the beef industry.
After surgery, he made a vigorous return to work. He appeared in the television films “My Name Is Bill W” (1989), starring James Woods as a founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, and “Barbarians at the Gate” (1993), based on the best-selling book about the leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco; in “My Fellow Americans” (1996), a comic adventure in which he and Jack Lemmon played feuding former presidents who find themselves framed by the sitting president and end up together on the lam; and in the romantic film “The Notebook” (2004).
He also reprised his Rockford character in several television movies and appeared in the movie version of “Maverick” (1994) as Marshal Zane Cooper, a foil to the title character, played by Mel Gibson.
Mr. Garner, a lifelong Democrat who was active in behalf of civil rights and environmental causes, always said he met his wife, the former Lois Clarke, in 1956 at a presidential campaign rally for Adlai Stevenson, though in “The Garner Files” Mrs. Garner said they had actually met at a party earlier. She survives him, as do their daughter, Greta, known as Gigi; and Mrs. Garner’s daughter from a previous marriage, Kimberly.
Persuasively ambivalent as a hero of westerns, war movies and detective stories, Mr. Garner’s performances may have reflected his feelings about his profession.
“I was never enamored of the business, never even wanted to be an actor, really,” he told The New York Times in 1984. “It’s always been a means to an end, which is to make a living.”
訃告
反英雄賭俠與真正的演員
2014年07月23日
詹姆斯·加納一聲出演過50多部電影。1985年，他因出演浪漫喜劇《墨菲羅曼史》獲奧斯卡提名。James Garner, a lantern-jawed actor who appeared in over 50 films and was nominated for an Oscar for 1985’s “Murphy’s Romance,” was perhaps best known for his TV roles in “Maverick” and “The Rockford Files.”
詹姆斯·加納(James Garner)是一位充滿幽默感、英俊瀟洒的男主角，遊刃有餘地在影視之間轉換，但他最著名的角色，還要算是在20世紀50年代西部片風格電視劇《賭俠馬華力》(Maverick)中飾演的親切可愛的賭徒布萊特·馬華力(Bret Maverick)，以及70年代電視劇《回頭是岸》(The Rockford Files)中飾演的古怪偵探吉姆·洛克福特(Jim Rockford)。他於周六晚上在洛杉磯家中逝世，享年86歲。
負責其公關事務的詹妮弗·艾倫(Jennifer Allen)說他是自然死亡。
加納是真正的影星，但作為演員，他身上有某種自相矛盾的東西：他有着突出的下巴和肌肉發達的運動員身材，能令人消除敵意的機智既加強又削弱了他的肉體魅力。他出演過50多部電影，其中大部分是情節劇。在他的著名早期作品之一，1964年的《艾米莉的美國化》(The Americanization of Emily)中，他飾演一個怯陣的海軍軍官，這為他奠定了形象——最令他感到自如的還是那種打破傳統者，有缺點或者不太靠譜的英雄，這在《賭俠馬華力》之前就已經確立。
他是個不動聲色的喜劇演員，特別擅長傳達生活中細微的着魔時刻。他最令人難忘的角色之一是20世紀70年代末到80年代初一個總是慌慌張張的寶麗來攝像機推銷員，還有在滑稽的廣告中扮演煩惱的丈夫，瑪麗特·哈利(Mariette Hartley)扮演他尖刻的妻子。這兩個角色非常有說服力，以至於哈特女士有一件襯衫，上面印着：「我不是詹姆斯·加納的夫人。」
1985年，他因在浪漫喜劇《墨菲羅曼史》(Murphy』s Romance)中的角色而獲得奧斯卡提名，那是一個小鎮藥劑師，向剛來到鎮上的離婚母親（莎莉·菲爾德[Sally Field]飾）求愛，他性格獨立，愛發牢騷，對愚笨的人缺乏同情。
洛克福特以前是個騙子，性格里有一半惡棍的成分，曾經因為被控持械搶劫坐過五年冤獄，他住在馬裡布海灘停車場一個破舊的拖車裡，開着龐蒂亞克火鳥車，愛打架（雖然可能挨打比打人的時候多），他大部分時間裡都在為各種事情而生氣：財務問題、父親（小諾亞·比里[Noah Beery Jr.]飾）喜歡惹麻煩或者搗亂、他的騙子夥伴安格爾（Angel，斯圖爾特·馬格林[Stuart Margolin]）的詐騙行為，他和當地警方之間岌岌可危的關係。
《賭俠馬華力》在某種程度上是對傳統西部片的反諷，而《回頭是岸》也是拿標準的電視劇偵探形象開玩笑——那種男人中的男人，捍衛法律與秩序，一切事情都在他的掌控之下。洛克福特迷戀漂亮姑娘，有明顯的70年代時尚感——他最喜歡鮮艷的犬牙花呢外套——他一直都在兇險的境地中徘徊，被暴徒犯罪分子或腐敗墮落的警察追捕。他盡量避免開槍，而是使用自己騙子藝術家的才能，依靠扮演他人與其他詭計，以及高速開車的技巧——在大部分情況下都能成功。
這部劇於1974年至1980年上映，每一集都至少有一場飆車戲，洛克福特也得挨一兩次打，劇集開頭的主題歌非常與眾不同，使用了合成器效果和布魯斯口琴，還有一段從新奇的小東西（洛克福特的電話應答機）里傳出來的留言——這段話更加強調出他不是什麼英雄：「吉姆，我是諾瑪，現在在市場。它在跳動。你希望我們把它切開，送回去還是和其他東西放在一起？」
在他2011年與瓊恩·維諾克爾(Jon Winokur)合著的自傳《加納檔案》(The Garner Files)中，加納承認，自己有着息事寧人的態度，但人若犯我，我必犯人。他飾演的洛克福特與眾不同的一點，正是他那種遭人欺負多於大男子主義的性格。洛克福特對待事物的反應——大吃一驚、大惑不解與憤憤不平成了他的特長——彷彿他天生如此。
他身上這種自然天成令《紐約時報》撰稿人約翰·J·奧康納(John J. O』Connor)把他和賈利·庫珀(Gary Cooper)和詹姆斯·斯圖爾特(James Stewart)相提並論，和這兩個演員一樣，加納也常常抱得美人歸。
加納很晚才從事表演行業，而且是出於意外。14歲以後，他就得自己謀生，幾乎是個流浪者，做過很多工作：電話安裝員、石油鑽工、司機、洗盤工、門衛、救生員、雜貨店店員和推銷員，後來，在宿命的指引下，他當上了加油站侍者。在洛杉磯給客人加油時，他遇到一個名叫保羅·格里高利(Paul Gregory)的年輕人，他在附近賣冷飲，但是想當經紀人。
幾年後，加納在朝鮮戰爭期間入伍服役，他在戰鬥中兩次受傷，獲得兩個紫心勳章。退役後他替父親的公司在洛杉磯給人鋪地毯。一天下午，開車駛過拉辛尼加大道時，他看到一塊標誌牌「保羅·格里高利與合作夥伴」。正在這個時候，一輛車子駛離這棟建築門口，加納一時興起，把自己的車開進車位停了下來。那年他25歲。
格里高利當時是經紀人兼舞台劇製作人，他僱用了加納，讓他在自己製作的赫曼·沃克(Herman Wouk)的戲劇《凱恩號嘩變》(The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial)中飾演一個沒有台詞的角色，該劇由亨利·方達(Henry Fonda)、約翰·霍迪亞克(John Hodiak)和勞埃德·諾蘭(Lloyd Nolan)主演。首演是在聖塔芭芭拉，之後在全國巡演，最後於1954年1月回到百老匯，上演415場。加納說，和明星對台詞，看他們表演時，他學會了表演，特別是亨利·方達，他也是一個有着狡黠性格的英俊演員。
「我的表演方式幾乎全是從他那裡偷學來的，」他曾說。
加納原名詹姆斯·斯科特·巴姆加納(James Scott Bumgarner)，於1928年4月7日出生於俄克拉荷馬州諾曼市。他的祖父曾參與1889年的俄克拉荷馬州土地哄搶熱，後來同一位寡婦有染，被寡婦的兒子開槍打死。他的外祖父是純正的印第安切羅基人（加納後來把自己的製片公司命名為切羅基製片公司）。
他的第一個家是在丹佛附近的小村莊，父親威爾登（Weldon，綽號比爾）開的一家小商店後面。他的母親米爾德萊德(Mildred)在他四歲那年去世。他七歲那年，商店被燒毀，父親把詹姆斯和兩個哥哥交給親人撫養；父親再婚後，一家人重聚了，但加納在自傳中寫道，繼母虐待他們。在一次暴力事件之後，他離開了家。
他曾在俄克拉荷馬、德克薩斯和洛杉磯工作，後來他的父親也在洛杉磯定居。他曾經短暫地在好萊塢中學讀書，但最後還是回到諾曼打橄欖球和籃球，直到念完高中。20世紀50年代，朝鮮戰爭爆發後，他應徵入伍。
加納第一次在好萊塢出演角色是在遇到理乍得·L·貝爾(Richard L. Bare)之後，貝爾曾導演西部片風格電視劇《夏安族人》(Cheyenne)，加納在其中飾演了一個小角色。這個角色與其他小角色為加納贏得一紙與華納兄弟公司的合同，公司安排他在一系列電影中亮相，包括1957年由馬龍·白蘭度(Marlon Brando)主演的電影《櫻花戀》(Sayonara)，這是根據詹姆斯·米切納(James Michener)的小說改編的，是一個發生在日本的跨國戀故事。公司還把他的姓由「巴姆加納」改成了「加納」。
他第一次擔任主角是在1958年的《達比游擊隊》(Darby』s Rangers)中飾演「二戰」英雄威廉·達比(William Darby)，原本的主演查爾頓·赫斯頓(Charlton Heston)因為片酬與製片公司發生爭執，退出該片，他才得到這個角色。與此同時，他得到機會飾演好色的賭徒布萊特·馬華力，這個角色使他成了明星。
《賭俠馬華力》於1957年首播，和當時的眾多西部片不同，它的主角是個反英雄。他不怎麼喜歡駿馬和槍支，動機也不是法律和秩序之類宏大的東西，而是金錢。但他處在道德問題中正確的一方，所以你會支持他，他對那些被暴徒欺凌的小人物有一種天然的親近感，而且比其他人都有趣。
「馬華力和洛克福特其實是很相似的人，」加納寫道，「一個是賭徒，一個是偵探，但他們的態度是一模一樣的。」
1960年，加納控告華納兄弟公司在編劇罷工期間拒付他報酬，官司獲勝後，他以馬華力式的風格（或者說洛克福特式的風格）離開了這部連續劇。之後十年間他都沒有出演過電視劇。
不過他在電影中不斷上鏡。1961年的《雙姝怨》(The Children』s Hour)是根據莉莉安·赫爾曼(Lillian Hellman)的話劇改編的，他在其中扮演一個醫生，與奧黛麗·赫本(Audrey Hepburn)飾演的學校教師訂婚，她被指責是女同性戀。飾演這樣正經的一個角色讓他覺得很不自在，但他在1963年的《大逃亡》(The Great Escape)中的角色就顯得溫暖迷人，影片是關於一場「二戰」中的冒險，被俘的盟軍飛行員們計劃從德軍戰俘營中逃出去，加納在其中飾演足智多謀的囚犯鮑勃·亨得利(Bob Hendley)，綽號「乞丐」。
1964年，他和朱莉·安德魯斯(Julie Andrews)聯合出演了《艾米莉的美國化》，他說這是自己最喜歡的影片。他在其中飾演一位海軍軍官的私人助理，在整個環境中顯得格格不入，是影片中代表和平主義的聲音。
影片的編劇是帕迪·查耶夫斯基(Paddy Chayefsky)，加納在片中發表了一番演說，或許是他整個演藝生涯中最長、也是最激情洋溢的一番話：「我不信任那些痛苦地反思戰爭的人，巴漢姆女士，」他說，「總是那些有着最血腥紀錄的將軍們最先出來叫喊戰爭有多可怕。而總是那些寡婦們走在陣亡將士紀念日遊行隊伍的前列。」
加納經常在拍片時受傷：在拍洛克福特系列的時候，他動過幾次膝關節手術，背部也有傷。更嚴重的是，1988年，他動過一次心臟搭橋手術，令他失去了牛肉工業代言人的工作。
手術後，他活躍地重返表演事業。他在1989年詹姆斯·伍茲(James Woods)主演的電視電影《我是比爾·W》中亮相，飾演一個匿名戒酒會的創始人。還有1993年的《門口的野蠻人》(Barbarians at the Gate)，這部根據暢銷書改編的作品，講述RJR納貝斯克餅乾公司的融資收購故事。1996年的《總統拍檔》(My Fellow Americans)是個喜劇冒險故事，他在其中與傑克·萊蒙(Jack Lemmon)飾演兩個長期不合的前總統，最後發現他們都被現總統陷害，只得一起逃亡。此外他還在2004年愛情電影《戀戀筆記本》(The Notebook)中出演角色。
他在若干電視電影中重演了洛克福特這個角色，還在1994年《賭俠馬華力》的電影版中出現，飾演馬華力的死對頭澤恩·庫珀元帥(Marshal Zane Cooper)，馬華力由梅爾·吉布森(Mel Gibson)出演。
加納終生都是民主黨人，是民權運動與環保法案中的積極活動人士。他的妻子原名洛伊斯·克拉克(Lois Clarke)，他經常說自己是在1956年阿德萊·斯蒂文森(Adlai Stevenson)競選總統的集會上遇見她的，但在《加納檔案》中，加納夫人說兩人其實在之前一次派對上就認識了。她仍然在世，兩人的女兒格麗塔（Greta，綽號吉吉）以及加納夫人與前夫所生的女兒金伯利(Kimberly)也在世。
加納在西部片、戰爭片與偵探故事中令人信服地演出了主角身上的矛盾性，或許正反映出他對自己這一行的感情。
「我從未迷戀過這一行，甚至從沒想到自己會成為演員，真的，」1984年，他在接受《紐約時報》採訪時說，「這只是一種謀生手段而已。」
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