Biography of james gardener article

(1928-2014)

Synopsis

James Garner, born James Scott Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma, on April 7, 1928, rose to fame as the star of the Western TV series Maverick (1957-60). He went on to star in hit films such as The Great Escape (1963), Grand Prix (1966) and the Oscar-winning Victor Victoria (1982). He earned an Oscar nomination for Murphy’s Romance (1985) and a Golden Globe Award for Decoration Day (1990). Garner died on July 19, 2014 at the age of 86.

Early Life

Born James Scott Bumgarner on April 7, 1928 in Norman, Oklahoma, James Garner's early childhood in the Great Depression-era Dust Bowl was marked by hardships. He is the youngest of three sons. When he was only four years old, he lost his mother, Mildred Bumgarner, who was half-Cherokee. His father, Weldon Warren "Bill" Bumgarner, eventually abandoned James and his brothers Charles and Jack, leaving them in the care of relatives. The Bumgarner boys reunited with their father after Bill remarried a few years later. But their home life was far from happy, as their new stepmother was physically and verbally abusive to her stepsons. She and Weldon Bumgarner eventually divorced.

Remaining in Oklahoma when his father moved to Los Angeles, James Garner soon dropped out of school. At age 16, he lied about his age in order to join the Merchant Marine during the last year of World War II. After that, he decided to try living in California with his father, during which time he briefly attended Hollywood High School. But Garner didn't finish school there, either, abandoning his classes to take a job as a model for Jantzen bathing suits. "I made 25 bucks an hour!" he remembered. "That's why I quit school. I was making more money than the teachers."

It didn't last long, though. In 1950, Garner became the first Oklahoman drafted into the United States Army during the Korean War. Two battlefield injuries and Purple Hearts later, Garner returned to the Unit

American actor (1928–2014)

This article is about the American actor. For other uses, see James Garner (disambiguation).

James Scott Garner (néBumgarner; April 7, 1928 – July 19, 2014) was an American actor. He played leading roles in more than 50 theatrical films, which included The Great Escape (1963) with Steve McQueen; Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964) with Julie Andrews; Cash McCall (1960) with Natalie Wood; The Wheeler Dealers (1963) with Lee Remick; Darby's Rangers (1958) with Stuart Whitman; Roald Dahl's 36 Hours (1965) with Eva Marie Saint; as a Formula 1 racing star in Grand Prix (1966); Raymond Chandler's Marlowe (1969) with Bruce Lee; Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969) with Walter Brennan; Blake Edwards's Victor/Victoria (1982) with Julie Andrews; and Murphy's Romance (1985) with Sally Field, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He also starred in several television series, including popular roles such as Bret Maverick in the ABC 1950s Western series Maverick and as Jim Rockford in the NBC 1970s private detective show, The Rockford Files.

Garner's career and popularity continued into the 21st century with films such as Space Cowboys (2000)

American lawyer and author (1946–2021)

James Nelson Gardner (May 5, 1946 – April 10, 2021) was an American lawyer, author and lobbyist. He was also a complexity theorist and proposed a "Selfish Biocosm" hypothesis, which argues that intelligent life eventually emerges as the architect of baby universes.

Gardner was a graduate of Yale College and Yale Law School. He studied philosophy and theoretical biology. He was also an amateur cosmologist, and has published peer-reviewed articles which have been published in Complexity and the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. He was also a former U.S. Supreme Court clerk and a former Oregon state senator.

Gardner died on April 10, 2021.

Biocosm hypothesis

See also: anthropic principle and Cosmological natural selection

In the book Biocosm: The New Scientific Theory of Evolution: Intelligent Life Is the Architect of the Universe (2003) Gardner presented the "Selfish Biocosm Hypothesis" in which he says that there is a cycle of cosmic creation, in which highly evolved intelligences with a superior command of physics spawn one or more "baby universes," designed to be able to give birth to new, intelligent life. Thus, the ability of the present universe to support intelligent life as well as it does is not an accident, but the result of evolution in a long chain of the creation of more and more "bio-friendly" universes. Originally presented in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Gardener's "Selfish Biocosm" hypothesis proposes that life and intelligence have not emerged in a series of Darwinian accidents but are essentially hardwired into the cycle of cosmic creation, evolution, death, and rebirth. He argued that the destiny of highly evolved intelligence is to infuse the entire universe with life, eventually to accomplish the ultimate feat of cosmic reproduction by spawning one

A member of the law faculty since 2001, Bridget and Thomas Black SUNY Distinguished Professor James A Gardner is a highly regarded specialist in constitutional and election law. He is a prolific scholar who has published six books and more than 60 articles and book chapters.  According to Election Law Blog and Brian Leiter’s Law School Reports, Gardner is the 8th most frequently cited scholar in the field of election law.

Gardner’s books include Comparative Election Law (Edward Elgar Publishing: 2022), Election Law in the American Political System (Aspen : 2020), What Are Campaigns For? The Role of Persuasion in Electoral Law and Politics (Oxford University Press) and Legal Argument: The Structure and Language of Effective Advocacy (Carolina Academic Press).  His articles have appeared in Columbia Law Review, Michigan Law Review, Texas Law Review, International Journal of Constitutional Law, American Journal of Comparative Law, and many other venues.

He has taught at Western New England University, William and Mary, the University of Connecticut and Florida State University. In 2012, he held the Fulbright Visiting Research Chair in the Theory and Practice of Constitutionalism and Federalism at McGill University in Montreal, and in 2015 was the Federalism Scholar in Residence at the European Academy’s Institute for Comparative Federalism in Bolzano, Italy. In 2018, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Barcelona.

Gardner served as interim dean from December, 2014, to June, 2017 and vice dean for academic affairs from 2005-2012.

Gardner received his BA from Yale University in 1980 and his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1984. From 1984 to 1988, he practiced law in the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.