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Off Beat: Henry J. Kaiser set Garner’s TV career into motion

By Tom Vogt, Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter
Published: January 11, 2015, 4:00pm

Maybe Henry J. Kaiser was the real maverick.

This summer, an online history link featured a 1959 photo of two guys with big grins on their faces.

One of them was in the news a couple of weeks ago in a more somber setting. James Garner was on The Associated Press list of notables who died in 2014.

The vintage photo unexpectedly popped up during a July search for information about how Henry J. Kaiser — the other guy in that photo — influenced Vancouver in the 1940s.

His shipyard brought thousands of families here for wartime jobs. The site included a hospital, established in a former prune orchard overlooking the Columbia River. After the war, the hospital became part of a transformation of American health care, the Kaiser Permanente system.

So what was the photo of Kaiser and Garner, dressed as Bret Maverick, all about? After Garner died in July at age 86, the Kaiser Permanente website noted that Henry J. didn’t just launch ships; he launched Garner’s TV career.

The industrialist wanted a national presence and asked ABC to come up with a TV show he could sponsor. The network pitched “Maverick.”

As Bryan Culp described the process on the health-care system’s website, “Kaiser polled his managers on the idea of underwriting a Sunday night TV Western. There were 31 votes against and one vote in favor, Kaiser himself.”

It was just another example of Kaiser’s maverick-like approach to business, Garner noted in his biography, “The Garner Files.”

Kaiser brought efficiencies that helped his workers, including those in Vancouver, launch ships at a record-breaking pace.

Kaiser didn’t have a hand in the filming of “Maverick,” but its producers had a similar prefab approach, Garner wrote. “Maverick” was assembled using as much off-the-shelf components as possible, including recycled scripts, old Warner Bros. movie footage and second-hand wardrobe.

Garner said his costume included the hat and vest once worn by Errol Flynn, as well as a coat worn by Gary Cooper.

Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.

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Columbian Science, Military & History Reporter