( CNN ) -- He was the logical synthesis of John Wayne and Jack Benny . Interlace the Duke 's measured drawl and virile swagger with Benny 's comic timing and shrewd use of wordless exasperation , and you have James Garner , who died Saturday night in Los Angeles at 86 . His persona : Laid-back pragmatist ... or , if you needed to be a tad more provocative about it , coolly principled coward . It endeared him to generations of moviegoers and television viewers . Garner 's most cherished roles shared , to varying degrees , a bent gallantry that saw little need to advertise or flaunt itself before others . In his entry on `` The Rockford Files '' -- the 1974-80 TV series in which Garner played a perennially , often unjustly besieged private detective living in a trailer -- Gene Sculatti 's `` The Catalog of Cool '' summed up `` Gentleman Jim 's beat message : Very few expenditures of energy are worth the effort . Like Zen , man . '' But Garner did not only embody this persona in `` Rockford Files ' '' eponymous character Jim Rockford ( for which he won a best actor Emmy in 1977 ) , but also Bret Maverick , the well-tailored Texas card sharp and reluctant do-gooder from the 1957-62 Western series `` Maverick . '' That star-making role represented something relatively new in the cowboy genre : A manly hero , able to take care of himself , who was nonetheless far more inclined to use his wits rather than his fists to get out of a jam . More often than not , Maverick 's way was the winning way . Same with Rockford . If powerful gangsters leaned on him and told him to back off an investigation , Jim Rockford would weigh his options , consider the bruises on his face and decide the hell with it . Somehow things would turn out OK in the end without him losing any cred with his clients -- or his audience . Then there were those back-to-back Burt Kennedy Western spoofs , 1969 's `` Support Your Local Sheriff '' and 1971 's `` Support Your Local Gunfighter , '' in which he played separate versions of the slow-thinking , fast-acting wayfaring stranger who 'd rather do anything than be a hero . If the local pokey had no bars on its cells , no problem : All Garner 's character in `` Sheriff '' needed was a bucket of red paint and a couple of well-placed faux bullet holes to make sure his prisoner did n't leave without permission . If these characters made skewed heroism look easy , it 's because Garner made acting look easy , too . His was the kind of nonchalant grace that in the 1930s or '40s would have made him a major movie star , at home in comedy or drama as were Cary Grant or Clark Gable . But things were n't always as easy for Garner as he made them seem . He was often beset with physical ailments during his long , grueling `` Rockford '' run . And at the peak of his earlier `` Maverick '' popularity , he left the series -- in its third season -- over a dispute with Warner Brothers and tested his luck with the movies . For a while , the movies did n't quite know what to do with him , casting him as stoic action heroes ( with mixed results ) in such World War II epics as `` Up Periscope '' ( 1959 ) , `` The Great Escape '' ( 1963 ) and `` 36 Hours '' ( 1965 ) . He was an effective foil for Doris Day in 1963 's `` Move Over , Darling '' and `` The Thrill of It All , '' but was miscast in `` Grand Prix '' ( 1966 ) where his best scenes were arguably behind a race car 's wheels . One picture , however , shines like a beacon from this period : `` The Americanization of Emily '' ( 1963 ) , which Garner always cited in interviews as his favorite -- with most of his fans in agreement . The lead role fit him like the proverbial glove : Navy Lt. Cmdr . Charlie Madison , whose relatively cushy World War II posting as an admiral 's aide-de-camp in London first repels , then attracts a prim British war widow ( Julie Andrews ) bemused by his staunch dedication to cowardice in the midst of war . Charlie , speaking as if he were a lineal descendant of Brother Bret Maverick , insists throughout that cowardice is the only honest , rational response . ( Because it 's a comedy , he naturally ends up on Omaha Beach trying to get away from Nazi bullets . ) `` So far this war , '' Charlie explains to the widow 's widowed mother , `` we 've managed to butcher some 10 million humans in the interest of humanity . Next war it seems we 'll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity . It 's not war that 's unnatural to us , it 's virtue . As long as valor remains a virtue , we shall have soldiers . So , I preach cowardice . Through cowardice , we shall all be saved . '' Such words were warmed to near-humidity by screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky -- by way of William Bradford Huie 's novel . But it took an actor of Garner 's innate charm , unassuming earnestness and modulated intensity to drive them home and let them resonate nearly 15 years into the new millennium . Charm and modulation are n't Oscar bait -- and the closest Garner came to getting one was a best actor nomination for 1985 's `` Murphy 's Romance '' in which he played a liberal small-town pharmacist wooing Sally Field 's overwrought , overburdened divorcee . But Garner won something in the long , fertile run of his life 's work that other actors would covet even more : Abiding affection from audiences , so deep and wide that they were always glad to see him show up on big or small screens in any context , any role of any dimension . In his later interviews , Garner insisted that all he ever wanted in life was for people to smile whenever they thought of his name . Done , and done .
Gene Seymour : Seymour won a devoted following playing the coolly principled coward . He was noted for CNN and `` Maverick , '' in which he played reluctant do-gooder . Seymour : His movies uneven , but `` Maverick was a perfect fit . Gene Seymour : Garner 's persona was not Gene Seymour bait , but audiences loved him .