The series also stars Noah Beery Jr as Jim's father Joseph "Rocky" Rockford, a retired truck driver. Rocky offers words of wisdom, advice or even assistance in some episodes. Rocky frequently pressures his son to leave the PI business and take up safer, honest work, such as trucking.
Jim also has a close friendship with Dennis Becker, played by Joe Santos. Dennis is a Los Angeles Police Sergeant, later promoted to Lieutenant. Jim uses Dennis to get information, police computer checks and often makes him the hero of the case Jim was investigating.
Any time Jim is arrested in the first four seasons, he simply calls for his attorney Elizabeth "Beth" Davenport, played by Gretchen Corbett. Jim and Beth had a previous relationship, but remained friends until Beth went off to run her own private practice and later write legal fiction. In her absence Jim turns to John ‘Coop' Cooper, played by Bo Hopkins in the fifth season. Coop is a disbarred attorney who specialises in legal research, and gets embroiled in three of Jim's cases.
While Jim was in prison, he met Evelyn ‘Angel' Martin, wonderfully portrayed by Stuart Margolin. So named because he was always praying the hard cases not to hit him; Angel is sneaky and is always up to something illegal - often involving Jim in his swindles. As part of his parole, he works for his brother-in-law who owns a LA Newspaper.
From: TV.com
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2 comments:
One of my favorites. Great chemistry. Well worth your time to watch, Bart.
The Rockford Files is regarded as one of the finest private eye series of the 1970s, consistently ranked at or near the top in polls of viewers, critics, and mystery writers. The series offered superbly-plotted mysteries, with the requisite amounts of action, yet it was also something of a revisionist take on the hard-boiled detective genre, grounded more in character than crime, and infused with humor and realistic relationships. Driven by brilliant writing, an ensemble of winning characters, and the charm of its star, James Garner, the series went from prime-time Nielsen hit in the seventies, to a syndication staple with a loyal cult following in the eighties, spawning a series of made-for-TV movie sequels beginning in 1994.
For all of its ostensible rule-breaking, The Rockford Files hewed closely to the hard-boiled tradition in style and theme. The series' depiction of L.A.'s sun-baked streets and seamy underbelly rivals the novels of Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald.
The Rockford Files was as much about character and relationships as it was about crime and detection. The presence of Rockford's father was more than a revisionist or comic gimmick. Although "Rocky" and Jim's wrangling was the source of much humor, that humor was credible and endearing; their relationship was the emotional core of the show, underlining Jim's essential humanity--and subtly, implicitly, sketching in a history for the detective. By the same token, a tapestry of supporting and recurring characters gave Rockford a life beyond the case at hand.
As the preceding might suggest, The Rockford Files was underlined with a warmth not usually associated with the private eye genre. Rockford's most profound homage to the detective tradition was first-rate writing, and a body of superbly-realized mysteries. During its run the series was nominated for the Writer's Guild Award and the Mystery Writer's of America "Edgar" Award, in addition to winning the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series in 1978.
The Rockford Files ran for five full seasons, coming to a premature end in the middle of the sixth, when Garner left the show due to a variety of physical ailments brought on by the strenuous demands of the production. Yet Rockford never really left the air; not only has the series remained steadily popular in syndication and on cable, but eight made-for-television reunion movies aired on CBS between 1994 and 1999 (the first scoring blockbuster ratings). In addition, a loyal cult following celebrates the series on the Rockford Files Web site, and Internet discussion groups.
The Rockford Files marked a significant step in the evolution of the television detective with fully-developed characters and richly-drawn relationships. Cannell and company embraced and exploited their detective's private life. Jim Rockford was by virtue of his trailer, his dad, and his gun in the cookie jar, just that much more real.
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