Editing James Garner (section)

===''Maverick'' (1957–1960)===

[[File:James Garner Karen Steele Maverick premiere 1957.jpg|thumb|right|upright|With [[Karen Steele]] in ''Maverick'']]
[[File:James Garner Louise Fletcher Maverick 1959.JPG|thumb|right|upright|With [[Louise Fletcher]] in ''Maverick'']]
[[File:James Garner Bret Maverick Jack Kelly Bart Maverick.JPG|thumb|right|upright|With [[Jack Kelly (actor)|Jack Kelly]] in ''Maverick'']]
After several feature film roles, including ''[[Sayonara]]'' (1957) with [[Marlon Brando]], Garner got his big break playing the role of professional gambler [[Maverick (TV series)#James Garner as Bret Maverick|Bret Maverick]] in the Western series ''[[Maverick (TV series)|Maverick]]'' from 1957 to 1960.<ref name="New York Times"/> In 1959, he was nominated for the [[Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series]] for his performance as Bret Maverick.<ref name="Yantz" />

Only Garner and series creator [[Roy Huggins]] thought ''Maverick'' could compete with ''[[The Ed Sullivan Show]]'' and ''[[The Steve Allen Show]]'' but for two years it beat both in the time slot. The show almost immediately made Garner a household name.<ref name="Indie2"/>

Garner was the lone star of ''Maverick'' for the first seven episodes but production demands forced the studio, [[Warner Bros.]], to create a Maverick brother, [[Maverick (TV series)#Jack Kelly as Bart Maverick|Bart Maverick]], played by [[Jack Kelly (actor)|Jack Kelly]]. This allowed two production units to film different story lines and episodes simultaneously, necessary because each episode took an extra day to complete, meaning that eventually the studio would run out of finished episodes to air partway through the season unless another actor was added.

Critics were positive about the chemistry between Garner and Kelly and the series occasionally featured popular cross-over [[List of Maverick episodes|episodes]] starring both Maverick brothers as well as numerous brief appearances by Kelly in Garner episodes. 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. Garner and guest star [[Clint Eastwood]] staged a fistfight in an episode titled "[[Duel at Sundown (Maverick)|Duel at Sundown]]", in which Eastwood played a vicious and cowardly gunslinger. Although Garner quit the series after the third season because of a dispute with Warner Bros.,<ref name="Indie2" /> he did make one fourth-season ''Maverick'' appearance, in an episode titled "[[List of Maverick episodes|The Maverick Line]]" starring both Garner and Jack Kelly that had been filmed in the third season but held back to run as the season's first episode if Garner lost his lawsuit against Warner Bros. Garner won in court, left the series, and the episode was run in the middle of the season instead.

The studio attempted to replace Garner's character with a Maverick cousin who had lived in Britain long enough to gain an English accent, featuring [[Roger Moore]] as [[Maverick (TV series)#Roger Moore as Beau Maverick|Beau Maverick]], but Moore left the series after filming only [[List of Maverick episodes#Fourth season (1960-1961)|14 episodes]]. Warner Bros. had also hired [[Robert Colbert]], a Garner [[look-alike]], to play a third Maverick brother named [[Maverick (TV series)#Robert Colbert as Brent Maverick|Brent Maverick]]. Colbert only appeared in two episodes toward the end of the season. That left the rest of the series' run to Kelly, alternating with reruns of episodes with Garner during the fifth season. Garner still received billing during the opening series credits for these newly produced Kelly episodes, aired in the 1961–1962 season, although he did not appear in them and had left the series two years previously. The studio did, however, reverse the [[Billing (performing arts)|billing]], at the beginning of each show and in advertisements during the fifth season, billing Kelly above Garner.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=74}}

Garner played the [[lead role]] in ''[[Darby's Rangers (1958 film)|Darby's Rangers]]'' (1958). Originally slated for a supporting role, he was given the lead when [[Charlton Heston]] turned down the part. He performed well as [[William Orlando Darby]], who was approximately Garner's age during World War II. Following Garner's success in ''Maverick'' and ''Darby's Rangers'', Warner Bros. gave Garner two more major theatrical films to be filmed during breaks in his ''Maverick'' shooting schedule: ''[[Up Periscope]]'' (1959) with [[Edmond O'Brien]] and the romantic drama ''[[Cash McCall]]'' (1960) with [[Natalie Wood]].<ref>{{cite news|title=James Garner: Obituary|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10978889/James-Garner-obituary.html|website=The Telegraph|access-date=14 July 2017|date=July 20, 2014}}</ref>