RIP, James Garner

Hendley was the new man in the "X" organization, an American surrounded on all sides by the British, save for two other countrymen.

Why three Americans were put here with all of the British officers wasn't exactly clear. Still, it worked out, at least in the short run, since Hendley - the scrounger - was exactly what the British needed for their escape - their "Great Escape," as it were.

Of course, in the end - after 50 of them were dead, 23 were returned and only three got away - it was Hendley who asked the obvious, yet almost completely unspoken question: Was it worth the price?

Hendley had guts, that's for sure. He took charge of the blind man. He stole a plane from a Nazi air base and flew it most of the way to Switzerland before he realized that he'd stolen a plane that didn't work. He survived the crash. He mourned his friend, the blind man, who couldn't see the ambush he was walking into until it was way too late, and even though, as he lie dying, all he said to Hendley was "thanks for getting me out."

The movie "The Great Escape" is one of TigerBlog's all-time favorites. It's a collection of tough guys who stand up to the Nazis and organize an incredible escape effort, only to realize that getting out of the camp and getting out of Germany were two different things.

It's also based on a true story, which means that there really were guys this tough in real life. And, in fact, there still are guys (and women) that tough, which gives TigerBlog hope for the world still.

Of all of the characters in "The Great Escape," TB's favorite has always been Hendley. Maybe it was the quiet, rational, realistic cool that Hendley had, instead of the overt bravado of some of the others.

Or maybe it was just the actor who played him, James Garner, who died over the weekend at the age of 86. When TB first heard the news, it struck him more than it does when most celebrities pass away.

For TB's money, the three coolest actors of all time are Paul Newman, Steve McQueen and James Garner. As of this weekend, all three are gone.

McQueen, MotherBlog's all-time favorite, lived to be only 50 before he died in 1980. His best role too was in "The Great Escape," where he played another American, Hilts, who is the king of the bravado cool. And the king of the cooler.

As for Garner, playing Hendley was the role TigerBlog remembers the most. It was hardly his only one.

He is most famous, probably, for playing Jim Rockford in "The Rockford Files." He was also a television star in "Maverick," and his movie credits surpass the 50 mark, including "Murphy's Romance," for which he was nominated for an Oscar, and "The Americanization of Emily," for which amazingly he was not.

TigerBlog loved Garner in "The Rockford Files" for many of the same reasons he loved him as Hendley, his quiet toughness, his ability to see everyone around him for what they were and for how grudgingly but forcefully he put up with the nuttiness around him.

For all of that, perhaps his best role came alongside Mariette Hartley in late 1970s and early 1980s Kodak commercials, where he was the henpecked husband and she was the relentless wife. There was an episode of "Barney Miller" where one of the side characters is talking about how the whole world is upside down, and to make his point, he says this: "Look at James Garner in 'The Great Escape.' Nazis couldn't build a prison big enough to hold him. And now he's gotta take lip from that snotty broad in those camera commercials. And she ain't even his wife."

Garner played off Hartley so perfectly while she did the same to him that it was impossible for the American viewer to believe they weren't actually husband and wife.

In reality, James Garner was married to the same women for 58 years, from the day in 1956 when they wed until the day he died. In fact (or at least according to Wikipedia), they had known each other for 14 days when they got married in 1956, and they never looked back.

Garner played a war hero in "The Great Escape." In real life, he was a soldier, wounded twice in the Korean War and earning two Purple Hearts. He turned to acting when he returned from the war, first in commercials, then on television and finally in movies.

He met his wife Lois at an Adlai Stevenson for President rally in 1956. Stevenson ran twice against Dwight Eisenhower and lost both times, in 1952 and again in 1956.

Stevenson was a Princeton grad, Class of 1922, which meant he graduated in the spring before the football season in which Princeton's Team of Destiny would go 9-0 and win the national championship. As part of that season, Princeton and Bill Roper defeated the University of Chicago - coached by Amos Alonzo Stagg 21-18 in Chicago in the first game ever broadcast on radio.

Does that count as enough of a reference to Princeton Athletics for today?

No? What if TigerBlog threw in that Erin McDermott, formerly the Executive Associate AD at Princeton, is now the Director of Athletics at Chicago? Is that enough?

What if threw in that John Mack, a 10-time Heptagonal champion, lives in Chicago and recently graduated from Northewestern Law School and passed the Illinois bar exam? Mack is also a former Roper Trophy winner, and the trophy is named for Bill Roper.

C'mon. That's like four paragraphs on Princeton Athletics.

Oh, here's another Princeton reference. TigerBlog didn't realize that Adlai Stevenson's father was Vice President of the United States under Grover Cleveland, who retired to Princeton and is actually buried in town.

Okay, one more. Yesterday TigerBlog was talking with a bunch of people when someone asked who the 14th President of the United States was. TigerBlog knew Lincoln was the 16th and that Buchanan preceded Lincoln. As he pieced it all together, he realized that the 14th was Franklin Pierce, and Franklin Pierce University plays sprint football now. Princeton is at Franklin Pierce on Oct. 3.

And that's all you get today. Give TB a break. It's not easy getting from James Garner to Princeton football.

And today is all about James Garner, one of TB's all-time favorites.

The world is a little less cool a place without him.