James Scott Garner

James Scott Bumgarner was born on 7 April 1928 in Norman, Oklahoma, the youngest of three sons of Weldon Warren Bumgarner and Mildred Scott Meek Bumgarner. His mother died when he was five. At sixteen, near the end of the Second World War, he joined the Merchant Marine.

Drafted into the Army during the Korean War, he served fourteen months in Korea as a rifleman with the 5th Regimental Combat Team, then part of the 24th Infantry Division. He was wounded twice: first by mortar shrapnel to his face and hand, and again on 23 April 1951, when friendly fire struck as he dove into a foxhole. He received the Purple Heart for the first wound; the second reached him only in 1983, thirty-two years later. He also earned the Combat Infantryman Badge and left the Army as a corporal.

After the war he took up acting and, first credited by his studio as James Garner, made the name his own. He became one of the best-loved actors of his generation, starring in Maverick and The Rockford Files and in films including The Great Escape. He married Lois Clarke in 1956. He died of a heart attack at his home in Los Angeles on 19 July 2014, aged 86.