"This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave your name and message. I’ll get back to you.”

Thus began every episode of The Rockford Files, one of the most enduring series in television history. James Garner stars as Jim Rockford, a private investigator whose no-nonsense style was sharpened by five years in prison — for a crime he didn’t commit. Noah Beery Jr. is Jim’s dad Joseph “Rocky” Rockford, still trying to get his forty-something son to pursue a more stable career. Stuart Margolin plays Angel, Jim’s prison buddy and “the worst con man in the business.” And Joe Santos and Gretchen Corbett provide support as homicide detective Dennis Becker and Jim’s lawyer (and occasional lover) Beth Davenport. 

 Garner was the rare star who moved seamlessly from television to feature films and back again. Big screen or small, his low-key charisma and self-effacing charm worked in any era, from the Old West saloons of Maverickto Rockford’s beachfront trailer in 1970s Southern California. And nobody understood that better than Roy Huggins, creator of Maverick and co-creator of The Rockford Files. “Rockford was Maverick as a private eye,” Huggins told the Archive of American Television in 2016. 

Garner was nominated for five Emmys for The Rockford Files, winning once. Margolin won two as Angel and the series took home the award for Outstanding Drama Series in 1978. Look for familiar faces like Tom Selleck, Rita Moreno, and Isaac Hayes in recurring roles. And fair warning: Mike Post’s iconic theme song — a top 10 hit in 1975 — is an earworm you’ll be humming for the foreseeable future. 

Notable guest stars: Lindsay Wagner, Ned Beatty, Stefanie Powers, Hector Elizondo, Mariette Hartley, Louis Gossett Jr., Joan Van Ark, Abe Vigoda, Nita Talbot, Larry Hagman, Lauren Bacall, Robert Loggia, Erin Gray, James Woods, Kim Richards, Gerald McRaney, Bibi Besch, Simon Oakland, Jess Walton, Noble Willingham, Kathi Browne, Bill Mumy, Diana Muldaur, Sorrell Booke, Dionne Warwick, Larry Manetti, Roger E. Mosley 

Created by Roy Huggins and Stephen J. Cannell 

 CAST

James Garner, Noah Beery Jr., Joe Santos, Stuart Margolin, Gretchen Corbett