James Garner was happy to learn that aspiring actress Lois Clarke had also attended a 1956 gathering for Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson without her +1.
They had met a few days earlier at a BBQ held by a friend, when they were both hanging out in the pool. “It was love at first sight,” Garner said.
“I was head over heels in love with this girl; she was stunning.” He wasted no time in inviting her to dinner that night, as well as every night for the next two weeks, leading up to the day they were married in the Beverly Hills courts on August 17, 1956.
His family was opposed to the marriage, citing the age difference as the key reason. “None of the doubters had considered how well Lois and I complimented one another.” “We identified benefits in things that others thought were flaws.”
Garner died in 2014 after being married for 57 years.
Clarke aspired to be an actress when she was younger, but after a few years she realized that the spotlight was not for her.
According to a cover story in one of the publications in 1985, Garner stated that she did not want “any of her husband’s public life.”
Their former home in Brentwood, California, was characterized by novelist Jane Hall as an “iron-gated house that… offers a view from every room, while the world remains walled outside.”