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Jim Rockford (television character)

James Scott Rockford
James Garner as "Jim Rockford".jpg
First appearance "Backlash of the Hunter"
Last appearance If It Bleeds... It Leads (TV movie)
Created by Stephen J. Cannell
Portrayed by James Garner
Information
Aliases Many, including "Jim Taggart" and "Jimmy Joe Meeker" (two used most often).
Gender Male
Occupation Private Investigator
Family Joseph "Rocky" Rockford (father), Unnamed mother

James Scott Rockford is a fictional character on the television series The Rockford Files. The character, played by James Garner, is a struggling private investigator operating in the greater Los Angeles area. Rockford is the principal character of the series, and Garner was the only actor to appear in every episode of the series.

Unlike many other fictional "private eyes", he is an ex-convict, albeit one who was falsely imprisoned (at San Quentin Prison) and later fully pardoned. One episode tells that because of the carelessness of his Parole officer, Rockford had to hire an attorney to be free of parole violations.

Rockford operates a small private investigation service out of his cluttered beachside mobile home in Malibu, California. The trailer was parked in the lot for Paradise Cove next to a restaurant. He specializes in cold cases, missing person cases and small-time insurance scams to avoid confrontations with police; he charges a flat rate of $200 a day plus expenses for each case, which, in a running gag, he seldom actually receives. He is consistently shown to be short on money; he typically wears sport coats and low-priced off-the-rack suits and his lone indulgences are an answering machine (the source of another running gag at the beginning of each episode) and the latest gold colored Pontiac Firebird Esprit automobile, traded in each year of the series for the newest model. (Garner did not like the look and handling of the 1979 model, so the 1978 was reused for the 1979–80 season; this was an apparent use of product placement in the series.)

Rockford shared many personality traits with the lead characters of two of Garner's previous series, Maverick's Bret Maverick and Nichols's Frank Nichols. Rockford was usually unarmed (he occasionally carried an unlicensed pistol but never used it) and, despite trying to avoid trouble and use reason and negotiation to solve problems, would sometimes be pressed into a fistfight as a last resort.


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