He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, which included The Great Escape (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964) with Julie Andrews; Cash McCall (1960) with Natalie Wood; The Wheeler Dealers (1963) with Lee Remick; Darby's Rangers (1958) with Stuart Whitman; Roald Dahl's 36 Hours (1965) with Eva Marie Saint; as a Formula 1 racing star in Grand Prix (1966); Raymond Chandler's Marlowe (1969) with Bruce Lee; Support Your Local Sheriff!

(1969) with Walter Brennan; Blake Edwards's Victor/Victoria (1982) with Julie Andrews; and Murphy's Romance (1985) with Sally Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination.

Fox and Cree Summer; The Notebook (2004) with Gena Rowlands and Ryan Gosling; and in his TV sitcom role as Jim Egan in 8 Simple Rules (2003–2005).

[16] After World War II, Garner joined his father in Los Angeles and was enrolled at Hollywood High School, where he was voted the most popular student.

He also qualified for a second Purple Heart (for which he was eligible, since he was hit by friendly fire which "was released with the full intent of inflicting damage or destroying enemy troops or equipment"),[21] but did not actually receive it until 1983, 32 years after the event.

[17][22][23][24] This was apparently the result of an error which was not rectified until Garner appeared on Good Morning America in November 1982, with presenter David Hartman making inquiries "after he learned of the case on his television show".

In 1957, he had a supporting role in the TV anthology series episode on Conflict entitled "Man from 1997," portraying Maureen's brother "Red"; the show stars Jacques Sernas as Johnny Vlakos, Gloria Talbott as Maureen, and Charlie Ruggles as elderly Mr. Boyne, a time-travelling librarian from 1997, and involved a 1997 Almanac that was mistakenly left in the past by Boyne and found by Johnny in a bookstore.

This included the famous "Shady Deal at Sunny Acres," upon which the first half of the 1973 movie The Sting appears to be based, according to Roy Huggins' Archive of American Television interview.

In the smash hit The Great Escape, Garner played the second lead for the only time during the decade, supporting fellow ex-TV series cowboy McQueen among a cast of British and American screen veterans including Richard Attenborough, Donald Pleasence, David McCallum, James Coburn, and Charles Bronson in a story depicting a mass escape from a German prisoner of war camp based on a true story.

The Americanization of Emily, a literate antiwar D-Day comedy, featured a screenplay written by Paddy Chayefsky and remained Garner's favorite of all his work.

[32][39][40][41][42][43][44] He next starred in the Cherokee co-production,[45] Norman Jewison's romantic comedy The Art of Love (1965) with Dick Van Dyke and Elke Sommer.

The Westerns Duel at Diablo (1966) with Sidney Poitier and Hour of the Gun (1967) with Garner as Wyatt Earp and Jason Robards Jr. as Doc Holliday followed, as well as the comedy A Man Could Get Killed (1966) with Melina Mercouri and Tony Franciosa.

), while in the frontier comedy Skin Game, Garner and Louis Gossett Jr. starred as con men pretending to be a slaveowner and his slave during the pre-Civil War era.

He appeared in two Disney films also starring Vera Miles as his leading lady, One Little Indian (1973), featuring Jodie Foster in an early minor role, and The Castaway Cowboy (1974) with Robert Culp.

Between 1978 and 1985, Garner co-starred with Mariette Hartley, who had made an Emmy-nominated appearance on The Rockford Files, in 250 TV commercials for Polaroid, a manufacturer of instant film and cameras.

[57] When Garner later made The Rockford Files television movies, he said that 22 people (with the exception of series co-star Beery, who died late in 1994) came out of retirement to participate.

Field and director Martin Ritt had to fight the studio, Columbia Pictures, to have Garner cast, since he was regarded as a TV actor by then despite having co-starred in the box office hit Victor/Victoria opposite Julie Andrews two years earlier.

[67] Garner played Wyatt Earp (whom he physically resembled) in two very different movies shot 21 years apart, John Sturges's Hour of the Gun in 1967 and Blake Edwards's Sunset in 1988.

Corral shootout and its aftermath, while the second centered around a comedic fictional adventure shared by Earp and silent movie cowboy star Tom Mix.

[citation needed] For the second half of the 1980s, Garner also appeared in several of the North American market Mazda television commercials as an on-screen spokesman.

[72] In 1995, he played lead character Woodrow Call, an ex-lawman, in the TV miniseries sequel to Lonesome Dove entitled Streets of Laredo, based on Larry McMurtry's novel.

In 1996, Garner and Jack Lemmon teamed up in My Fellow Americans, playing two former presidents who uncover scandalous activity by their successor (Dan Aykroyd) and are pursued by murderous NSA agents.

In 2000, after an operation to replace both knees,[74] Garner appeared with Clint Eastwood, who had played a villain in the original Maverick series in the episode "Duel at Sundown," as astronauts in the movie Space Cowboys,[75] also featuring Tommy Lee Jones and Donald Sutherland.

After the death of John Ritter in 2003, Garner joined the cast of 8 Simple Rules as Grandpa Jim Egan (Cate's father)[76] and remained with the series until it finished in 2005.

In addition to recounting his career, the memoir, co-written with nonfiction writer Jon Winokur, detailed the childhood abuses Garner suffered at the hands of his stepmother.

Lauren Bacall, Diahann Carroll, Doris Day, Tom Selleck, Stephen J. Cannell, and many other Garner associates, friends, and relatives provided their memories of the star in the book's coda.

[79]Garner was nominated for 15 Emmy Awards during his television career, winning twice: in 1977 as Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series (The Rockford Files), and in 1987 as executive producer of Promise.

[92] The team fielded cars at the Le Mans, Daytona, and Sebring endurance races, but is best known for raising public awareness in early off-road motor-sports events, in many of which Garner competed.

[105][106][107][108] Later, Garner, Steve McQueen and Burt Lancaster, became founding members of the Friends of the Santa Monica Mountains conservancy group, according to the book Transforming California by Stephanie S. Pincetl, but contested by Dash Stolarz, spokesperson for the state's Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy[102][104][109] In the 1980s, Garner worked against oil drilling offshore of Will Rogers State Beach.

[111] For his role in the 1985 CBS miniseries Space, the character's party affiliation was changed from Republican to Democrat, as in the book, to reflect Garner's personal views.