Jim Rockford and Vern St. Cloud

So it’s been a little over a week since the sad passing of James Garner. I suddenly realized that the Simon blog is a perfect place for a tribute, as Simon and James had some wonderful interaction. Really, it wouldn’t be at all right not to do a tribute here.

It was because of Simon that I first tried The Rockford Files. And while it took a long time for me to warm up to the show itself, I was instantly fond of Simon’s hilarious character from three of his four guest-spots. And eventually I was also fond of the priceless interaction between Simon and James Garner.

I found myself wanting to write a story where they try to solve another case together. I wrote up a scene for it, but I could never figure out a plot to go with it. So there it sat for a couple of years, waiting for the perfect plot.

Last summer, thanks to two more of my favorite guest-stars and one of their episodes, I finally had a plot. I wrote a story involving those characters, Ginger Townsend and Lou Trevino from The Queen of Peru, and made that the mystery that Jim and Vern have to solve. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/9614161/1/ While I’ve fleshed out Ginger and Lou a bit differently now than in this story, and I forgot that the fourth jewel thief was caught off-screen in The Queen of Peru episode, overall I’m very proud of my effort. It was so much fun writing this story every step of the way, including Jim and Vern’s interaction. And with a few tweaks, I was able to use that scene I wrote so long ago.

The Rockford Files was definitely an acquired taste for me, but even back then, I liked James Garner as a person. I heard how kind he was to people on the set and I appreciated that. Hearing about how important his family was to him, and that he was married to the same woman all through the years, also added a lot to my respect for him.

I still prefer other shows over The Rockford Files, but gradually, gradually, the more episodes I saw, I began to like and appreciate The Rockford Files for what it was and what it had to offer. It’s certainly one of the most unique private-eye shows ever created! (Meanwhile, I fell in love with the original Maverick instantly, even though I wasn’t that fond of the sequel.)

One of my favorite things about The Rockford Files, which is also one of my mom’s favorite things, is the family element. It’s not usual to find a series about a private detective that shows his family. Frank Cannon’s family was killed. Joe Mannix’s mother is dead and he has a sometimes-rocky relationship with his father (albeit it thankfully improves later). But Jim Rockford’s father is alive and they have a beautiful relationship that is one of the cores of the series.

Character interaction is important on The Rockford Files, whether it concerns cast regulars or guest-stars. And certainly Simon’s Vern St. Cloud is one of the most colorful and unique of the guest-stars! Jim Rockford has never quite known what to make of him. They are two such different people who can never seem to stop clashing.

The first episode, Sticks and Stones, sets it up with both of them being a bit responsible for their problems. Vern is loud and brash and Jim doesn’t like that, nor does Vern like Jim’s easy-going manner or sarcasm. They struggle to solve the case nevertheless, arguing and occasionally getting along on the way.

When Jim exclaims that he doesn’t like what the Waterbury agency is doing to his friends, Vern retorts, “Oh yeah? Am I your friend?” and Jim gives him one of those classic stares as only Jim can and can’t even muster up a verbal reply. Of course, words are not needed; the look says it all. It’s a fun little scene that shows both that Jim really doesn’t like Vern and that Vern is quite aware of that fact. Vern scoffs at the idea that Jim would consider him a friend, and Jim can’t quite seem to wrap his mind around the concept, either.

Interestingly, by the end of the episode, they both seem to feel a little better about each other. Jim acts genuinely friendly, and while Vern can’t quite let go of his pride enough to thank him for helping, he gives a gruffly adorable farewell in the form of instructing, “Don’t take any wooden nickels.” There’s a definite fondness there that was never really brought out again.

It puzzles me how by The House on Willis Avenue there seems to be a complete rift between them, after that lovely epilogue in Sticks and Stones. Vern acts friendly towards Jim, although perhaps it’s falsely so. Jim, meanwhile, comes across as very antagonistic and disliking of Vern, in contrast to his friendliness at the end of Sticks and Stones. He tries to avoid meeting up near the beginning.

In Jim’s defense, the later discovery of Vern in Richie Brockelman’s office is certainly an unpleasant surprise. Vern shouldn’t have broken in there, the rascal. And he has the gall to try to blame Richie for taking a dead P.I.’s caseload, when that’s what Vern himself wanted! But since Jim was displeased to run into Vern long before that scene happened, it couldn’t fully account for Jim’s attitude.

In their final episode together, Nice Guys Finish Dead, the antagonism is fully on both sides, with Jim and Vern equally bitter about each other and their encounters. Either we’ve been having a case of bad writing for their interaction since The House on Willis Avenue or something definitely happened between the characters, off-screen, before that episode. Or else Vern recovering his license made him a much less likable character, since he was returning to the hardboiled world of the private eye and the personality he had cultivated to keep himself alive through the years.

I’ve speculated before that Vern may also hold some level of bitterness or jealousy towards Jim Rockford, who often would prefer fishing but always gets plenty of cases, while Vern is desperate for a case and often doesn’t have one. Vern has been in the “dog-eat-dog” business so much longer than Jim and often has so much bad luck. And especially in The House on Willis Avenue, he seems rather spineless. The bad guys even tell him that when he has his surgery, to make sure the doctors don’t leave out any of his guts; he can’t spare any!

However, Vern’s been a P.I. for over twenty-five years. As I mused before, he must be a lot more competent at the job than he appears to be and Jim thinks he is. No one could survive in that line of work for that many years just on dumb luck. It would have been nice to have seen a little more of Vern’s case-solving, instead of just using him as a sort of idiot comic relief in the latter two episodes and particularly in The House on Willis Avenue. He’s a more well-rounded character in Sticks and Stones. The writers must have decided they liked it better when he didn’t show quite as much depth to his character.

But in any case, bad writing or not, the interaction between the two is always amusing and fun to watch. Their characters clash so beautifully, so perfectly, that I still long for what Wikipedia said to be true, about them solving cases together and snarking at each other along the way. That really only happens in Sticks and Stones, and it’s definitely a missed opportunity that it didn’t continue in the other two episodes. Still, I’m grateful for every bit of interaction that does exist. Any time they’re on screen together, it’s a gem.

It’s a shame the writers couldn’t work in any scenes for them together in Simon’s final episode, Just a Coupla Guys. But these two actors do have one more wonderful bit of screentime together, in James Garner’s short-lived sequel to his other most memorable series. In the Bret Maverick episode A Horse of Yet Another Color, as I recall, Simon plays a shifty character trying to get hold of the titular creature. Unfortunately, it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I can’t bring up the details. Warner Brothers has finally released the series on DVD, although the price is far too much for one season, especially one that had less episodes than some! But I have been longing to see that episode again for Simon, and for the interaction between him and James Garner. Perhaps someday I shall.

And perhaps meanwhile, these two greats will find some opportunities to perform again together up in Heaven. I sincerely hope so. It would be a treat for everyone up there.

Rest in peace, Mr. Garner. You will be missed by many.

~Lucky Ladybug

The Flaws of Fictional Characters, and Why We Love Them

Try as we might to attain perfection in everything we do, the truth of the matter is that we have our flaws.  Perhaps this is why when we see flaws in fictional characters, it can end up making us pity or even adore them.  Simon Oakland has played countless characters during his time as an actor; no single character, whether good or bad, is without flaws.  These flaws are essential to their characterization.

For Simon’s villain characters, the flaws are pretty easy to see: Mel Barnes’ general nastiness, William Poole’s madness, Seth Tabor’s greed, Bolivar Jagger’s ingratitude, Mandee’s treacherous nature, Nick’s scheming and so on.  Of course, these flaws don’t make these characters endearing in anyway, but Nick’s sheer misfortune in how spectacularly his plans fail make him a laughable villain, at best.

Then there are the characters who are not quite villains, but aren’t exactly getting along with the main characters, either.  It is these characters’ flaws who actually do allow them to earn some pity, despite their standing.  Sancho Fernandez and Frank Epstein are both bitter, vengeful men, yet after the viewer realizes that their bitterness is not unfounded, the viewer nonetheless ends up siding with them, or, at the very least, giving them their pity.  Vern St. Cloud, for all his boisterousness and loud mouth, one can’t help but pity how his insistence to act like a tough guy sometimes get him into trouble.  And Lt. Schrank, despite saying a great deal of nasty things, earns a bit of pity after one takes a step back and realizes how jaded he has become after years of trying—and failing—to get rival street gangs to stop their fighting.

And yes, even the characters who are good guys all around have their flaws.  Alonzo Galezio’s flaw may be that he’s just too nice for his own good; he still longs and hopes that Donna Fuller will somehow see past his winemaking occupation and accept him for what he is, despite being insulted and verbally brought down by her.  And even after her mob wrecks his personal property and, in doing so, his potential livelihood, he can’t bring himself to press charges and instead tries to pick up the pieces and move on.  General Moore, despite being the tough-but-fair commanding officer of the Marines at Esprito Marcos, is revealed to put his instincts as a father first when he makes a somewhat unprofessional—albeit understandable—attempt to transfer his Navy nurse daughter to a safer place (this attempt fails upon her reminding him that he is obligated not to do so).  And Tony Vincenzo is an interesting mix of a temper to be reckoned with plus a person too nice for his own good; while a good portion of his dialogues with Carl Kolchak are often at a considerably loud volume, the truth of the matter is that he would do anything to help his sometimes-unfortunate employee, even at the risk of his own job security (as The Night Strangler movie showed).  And all of those threats to fire Carl?  All talk, and nothing more.  And Carl knows it.

It is important for fictional characters to have believable flaws; it is these flaws that make them more real and easier to relate to, particularly regarding the non-villain characters.  It makes them more human (even the characters who aren’t human, such as the Empyrian, who acknowledges his own mistakes after the humans he shanghais prove his mindset wrong).  And it’s another way that Simon, as an actor, reached out to us to remind us of what makes us human ourselves: the fact that we’re not perfect… and how that doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, as long as we’re inherently good people.

~Crystal Rose

Vern St. Cloud: An Unforgettable and Lovable Porcupine

Vern St. Cloud is, for all intents and purposes, an oddball. A sadly underused oddball, who appears in only three episodes. Yet after one has seen him, he becomes impossible to forget. Brash, rude, arrogant, desperate. . . . These are all words that describe this down-on-his-luck private investigator. Jim Rockford refers to him as a “jarhead”, but after having been a P.I. for over twenty-five years by his last appearance, Vern surely is not as incompetent as all that. After all, something has been putting bread on his table all that time.

When we first meet Vern, he has been a victim of the shady Waterbury incidents that are resulting in P.I.s being framed and put out of business. He is working in his brother-in-law’s shoe store and detesting it. Longing to get his license back, he finds his first possible lead in a case Jim Rockford is investigating. He then takes it upon himself to attack Jim in a parking lot, acting tough and demanding information. When Jim gets the upper hand, however, Vern shows his true colors. He isn’t really so tough at all and didn’t want to hurt Jim, and ow! Jim just tore open his stomach ulcer. He carries Maalox in his pocket for such disasters.

Vern is often making comments he really shouldn’t, such as when he complains about another P.I., Billy Merrihew, sitting back and collecting welfare while he toils away in the shoe store. And he inadvertently sets up a situation that kills Marvin Potemkin, a third P.I., when he convinces that man to continue spying on an apartment house that Jim believes they should leave alone. Vern feels terrible about it, however, and instead of making excuses or rude remarks at that point he immediately acknowledges his part in what happened. That was a bit of a surprise, but it further shows that he really is a good person.

Vern is quite prideful. At the end of his first episode, Sticks and Stones Will Break Your Bones, But Waterbury Will Bury You, he can’t bring himself to thank Jim and Billy for helping to get his license back, nor to concede to them being friends. But he does hesitate as though he is going to say something of the kind, before changing his mind and just advising them not to take any wooden nickels. In the end, Vern is lovable underneath all the uptight behavior.

The writers seem to forget his better traits in his other two episodes. He is just as rude and brash and desperate in his second appearance, The House on Willis Avenue, but that behavior is never countered with moments of a softer side. Instead, he just comes across as quite pathetic and appalling, although he has some amusing moments early on when he breaks into the office of a P.I. who died a mysterious death. After rifling through the man’s desk, he discovers a bottle of wine, which he opens and samples. Giving a nod of approval, he pockets the bottle to take with him. Then he uses the telephone, putting his feet on the desk as he calls first his secretary and second, his brother on the East Coast.

Later on, believing that a young P.I. named Richie Brockleman stole the dead P.I.’s caseload (which he had been hoping to take himself for want of a job), he breaks into Richie’s office. Richie and Jim, the latter of whom has accepted the boy’s help on the case, promptly catch him. Once Jim grills him for information on his presence there, he kicks him out by pulling on his tie and forcing him to walk to the door.

Vern arguably shows a bit of his soft side again in his third and final appearance, Nice Guys Finish Dead. He has taken his nephew Larry into the agency, hoping that they can work together. Unfortunately, Larry takes it to heart far too much. He ends up killing a politician who wanted to vote a bill into effect that would have made it more difficult for the P.I.s to do their work.

Vern acts antagonistic towards Jim in both his second and third episodes, particularly his third. He can’t believe that Jim is actually the recipient of a coveted P.I. award (although in the end he is proven right, as there was a miscount in votes) and refuses to help with the case. He is convinced that a friend of Jim’s is the murderer, based on circumstantial evidence, and ends up punching the fellow out after he is challenged to fight. He is devastated later when he realizes that his own nephew is the guilty party. The boy flees the room, knocking poor Vern down in the process. Vern berates Larry’s behavior, exclaiming, “After all I’ve done for him!”

The writers seem to make it look like the problems between Vern and Jim are all on Vern’s part and that that is why Jim can’t stand him. They never seem to remember in Sticks and Stones, when Jim says he doesn’t like what Waterbury is doing to his friends. Vern asks if he is Jim’s friend. Jim’s response is a silent, displeased, and perhaps even disbelieving look before he walks out. And when Jim calls Vern a “jarhead” prior to this, they’ve barely interacted at all—certainly not enough for Jim to know what Vern is like. Jim definitely has a right to be angry, after having been attacked in the parking lot, but one wonders if his view is colored just a bit unfairly. It takes two people to have problems; it can’t be all Vern’s fault, and I don’t find it just that the writers seemed to want to make it such in his other episodes.

There’s not even any reason for Vern’s callous behavior towards Jim, going on canonical evidence alone. It almost seems that getting his license back made his personality worse. Perhaps he is jealous of how Jim always manages to get cases while he’s struggling? There have been indications that Vern is a bitter, or at least a jaded, man. More than once he has talked about the “dog-eat-dog” world of private investigating and that he is not going to be eaten. It is often hinted at that Vern struggles to make enough money to keep himself going. Perhaps many of the jobs go to other P.I.s, and perhaps even, Vern has had dealings with some who have treated him poorly. He may not know how to react to Jim and feel that even if Jim is offering friendship, it will be dropped later if a case gets in the way. Vern himself might be the type to drop it, but on the other hand, maybe he was the one who was dropped and doesn’t want to go through that again.

To me, he seems more the latter type. It’s just the whole way he keeps insisting on it being a “dog-eat-dog” world, as though he has been gravely disillusioned by the actions of others and feels he must stay a loner to be safe and keep up.

Of course, this is all very speculative on my part. There’s no real canon evidence for such complex thoughts, only little things that can possibly be gleaned from his words and attitude. But he has been shown to be more than just a one- or two-dimensional character, so I like to think better of him than the writers sometimes seem to. While he does do some things that are eyebrow-raising, such as going through the dead P.I.’s office looking for the caseload, he doesn’t seem to want harm to come to anyone and he may very well be better than someone who is only out for money and would betray a friend for it.

Or perhaps his apparent grudge against Jim is just lousy writing, plain and simple. I only know that while I like Vern’s characterization in Sticks and Stones, I don’t care much for how he was written in The House on Willis Avenue and Nice Guys Finish Dead.

I also don’t like how he is barely involved in those episodes, particularly The House on Willis Avenue. It was a double-length episode, but Vern was scarce. He was more prominent in the first half, even being abducted by the villains and interrogated, and then only appeared once in the second half. I had hoped that they would have a lot for him to do in such a big episode, and that he might even be involved with the case. Wikipedia says that he and Jim worked on several cases, grudgingly, trading insults along the way. Actually, they only work together at all in Sticks and Stones. In the other episodes, they stay as far apart as possible. One wonders if something could have happened between Sticks and Stones and The House on Willis Avenue to cause the jagged rift.

In any case, it is disappointing that so little was done with the character. There could have been a lot more for him to do than there was. He and Jim could have even really worked on another case together and then parted on better terms, as they more or less did in Sticks and Stones. They could have learned more about each other. Or the partnership could have taken a humorous turn, with them arguing all the while. Or even, it could have had both.

Simon Oakland was invited back for one more episode, but instead of playing Vern he played Beppy Conigliaro, the harried and frustrated owner of a restaurant. Disappointingly, he only got one short scene in that strange episode, but as Simon always did, he made the best of it and he made the character work. Beppy’s scene is very memorable, as he sarcastically demands whether his nephew Eugene thinks he is a magician and that he can say “Abracadabra!” and all of the food will march into place.

Oh, Simon. The ability to spout classic lines like that is just one more reason why we love you. And a reason why we love Vern, too. Don’t take any wooden nickels, Vern.

~Lucky Ladybug