Stuart Margolin, Emmy-Winning ‘Rockford Files’ Actor, Dies At 82

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As James Garner’s friend Angel, he won back-to-back Emmy Awards for the NBC detective drama. He was also a prolific television director.

Stuart Margolin, a veteran television actor and director who won two consecutive Emmy Awards for “The Rockford Files,” in which he played the mongoose friend of James Garner’s struggling detective character, and comically foul-mouthed, a hospice in December I died. Staunton, Virginia. He was 82 years old.

The Cause Was Complications From Pancreatic Cancer, Said His Wife, Patricia Margolin.

A veteran facial character actor who often appeared as an authority figure, Mr. Margolin made his debut in 1961 and remained a television mainstay for six decades. He also appeared on “Gunsmoke” and “M.A.S.H.” Appeared in episodes of as well as recent series such as “The X-Files” and “30 Rock” as a World War II veteran believed to be the possible biological father of network head Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin).

But she is best known for playing Evelyn “Angel” Martin on NBC’s “The Rockford Files,” which ran from 1974 to 1980. Departing from detective drama conventions, the series starred Garner as Jim Rockford, a private depressed. The investigator is plagued by criminals, money problems, dirty cops and his slick friend Angel, with whom he once shared a cell in San Quentin.

Author George V. Higgins wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Mr. Margolin embodied “radiated vulgarity and sly betrayal with winning charm”. He was twice awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series, in 1979 and 1980, and then reprised the role in a series of made-for-TV movies, as well as reuniting with Garner for the short-lived western. Brett.” Maverick”. ,

“Angel is a weasel,” Garner wrote in a 2011 memoir, “The Garner Files.” “He betrays Rockford over and over again. He’s always getting into trouble, and Rockford always has to bail him out. … I confess I’ve never understood why Rockford likes Angel so much.” , because he’s rotten to the core. But there’s something lovely about him. I don’t know what it is, but it’s all Stuart’s doing.”

Mr. Margolin began acting at the age of 8, playing Puck in a local stage production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. But he “didn’t have a strong desire to be an actor,” he recalled, and instead had “a propensity to show off, to show himself off,” a propensity for mischief that resulted in his expulsion from the public in Texas. schools, and drawing up a “long list of moving violations”.

By his early 20s, he was channeling that energy into the arts, moving into acting, songwriting, and eventually screenwriting and directing. Mr. Margolin wrote the screenplays for the television film “The Ballad of Andy Crocker” (1969), one of the first films to address the struggles of Vietnam veterans returning home from the war, and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show”. directed episodes of “Wonder Woman”, and “Touched by an Angel,” among many others. She received an Emmy nomination in 1987 for her work on “The Tracey Ullman Show.”

Naturally, he also directed a few episodes of “The Rockford Files,” after overcoming skepticism from network executives who questioned his performance as Angel.

Stuart Margolin, Emmy-Winning 'Rockford Files' Actor, Dies At 82
Stuart Margolin, Emmy-Winning ‘Rockford Files’ Actor, Dies At 82

“NBC didn’t want Stuart on the show, but I was crazy about him,” Garner wrote in his memoir. The actors had first worked together on “Nichols”, a Western that ran for one season, in which Margolin played Garner’s treacherous motorcycle-riding deputy, essentially a prequel to his Angel character. version was.

After Mr. Margolin appeared in the “Rockford” pilot, Garner continued: “NBC said they didn’t like his performance, but we put him in a second episode anyway, then a third. NBC still didn’t want it. And we were explicitly told not to use it again. It earned an Emmy nomination after that.

“Do you think we can make it to next year?” They said.

Mr. Margolin soon signed “a pretty good deal” with the network, as Garner said, appearing in about 40 episodes of the show.

Stuart Margolin, the second of four children, was born on January 31, 1940, in Davenport, Iowa. His mother was a housewife and his father was a salesman. Its products ranged from air conditioners to advertisements in the Yellow Pages. prompted the family to move to Dallas and Scottsdale, Ariz., where Mr. Margolin graduated from high school. After moving to California to study acting at the Pasadena Playhouse, she made her television debut. or in the comedy “Mrs. G Goes to College.” His older brother, Arnold, also worked in television, serving as an executive producer and writer on “Love, American Style”, an anthology comedy series that ran from 1969 to 1974. He appeared on the program.

His other directing credits Tasks include “The Glitter Dome” (1984), an HBO crime drama starring Garner, Margot Kidder, and John Lithgow, which Mr. Margolin also co-produced, starred in, and, in his spare time, wrote the score for. ,

By then she had appeared in the films “The Stone Killer” (1973) and “Death Wish” (1974) with Charles Bronson and “The Gambler” (1974) with James Caan. She was also a factory foreman in the Terrence Malick classic Days of Heaven (1978) and appeared in Blake Edwards comedies, including Julie Andrews’ secretary in S.O.B. (1981) and a burgeoning criminal in “A Fine Mess” (1986).

His marriage to Joyce Eliasson, a writer, and producer, ended in divorce. In 1982, he married Patricia Dunn, decades after they had met in a Texas courthouse, where Mr. Margolin was a defendant and Dunn was a “juvenile judge” participating in a reform initiative that would allow youths to be treated like their peers. was estimated by

Besides his wife, he is survived by three stepsons: Max Martini, actor; Christopher Martini, director; and Michelle Martini, costume designer; Also two brothers, one sister, and four grandchildren. Both stepchildren worked with Mr. Margolin in the 2020 film “What the Night Can Do”, which was directed by Christopher and featured a cast that included Max and Mr. Margolin, who also wrote the screenplay.

In a phone interview, his wife said that Margolin was working on “Candy Barr”, a musical based on the life of a notorious stripper and burlesque dancer whom she had interviewed decades earlier. The actor and dancer clearly hit it off: Mr. Margolin told the Toronto Star in 1989 that he and Barr once got so drunk in Los Angeles that they checked themselves into a hospital at 4 a.m., hours before they died. Tried. He had to appear on the set of “The Rockford Files” to play Angel.

Thankfully, the part of the thug was far from his most demanding role, even though it was the role he most enjoyed.

The Kashmir Files Ott

“I was very drunk,” he said with a smile. “He told me to settle in… So I went to the set that morning and did a take and he loved it. What else can you do?

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Ishika
Ishikahttps://storyonyou.com
Ishika Sharma(Pen Name) is an author from Chattisgarh. She writes articles on Fashion, Lifestyles and beauty. You are invited to join her on https://Storyonyou.com.

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