Jim with his father Joseph "Rocky" Rockford

"This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave a name and message. I'll get back to you."

Jim fields his personal and business messages on an answering machine. The recorded message proclaims "This is Jim Rockford. At the tone leave a name and message. I'll get back to you." Some classic messages left on the machine included:

Trivia Note: Jim's address is also referred to as 29 Palm Road or 29 Cove Road or 2356 Pacific Coast Highway. Paradise Cove is actually a private beach north of Malibu with a gate to regulate pedestrians and drivers. Rockford's trailer was placed in the parking lot of the Sand Castle Restaurant, a real eatery on the beach at 28128 Pacific Coast Highway. William Conrad's house on Jake and the Fatman was the first house to the right of the restaurant. Paradise Cove was also on the Beach Boys' Surfin' Safari album cover and was used in filming the teenage sitcom GIDGET/ABC/1965-66.

Noah Beery, Jr., (a.k.a. "Pidge") who played the role of Joseph "Rocky" Rockford died at his Tehachapi, California ranch on November 11, 1994. He was 81. Earlier in his career Noah Beery, Jr. made his first screen appearance in Douglas Fairbanks' The Mark of Zorro (1920) which co-starred his father Noah Beery, Sr. as Sergeant Garcia (film star Wallace Beery was Noah Beery's Jr. uncle). In the 1950s Pidge played the role of Joey the Clown on the TV series CIRCUS BOY and later appeared on the weekly TV series THE QUEST (1981) and THE YELLOW ROSE (1983).

The Rockford Files left the air as a regular series in 1980 but continued as TV Movie of the weeks. They included:

The Rockford Files: I Still Love L.A. (1994)
The Rockford Files: A Blessing in Disguise (1995)
The Rockford Files: Friends and Foul Play (1996) 
The Rockford Files: Godfather Knows Best (1996)
The Rockford Files: If the Frame Fits...1996) 
The Rockford Files: Punishment and Crime (1996) 
The Rockford Files: Murder and Misdemeanors (1997)
The Rockford Files: If It Bleeds... It Leads (1999) 

When actor John Ritter died in 2003, James Garner joined the cast of the sitcom 8 SIMPLE RULES (FOR DATING MY TEENAGE DAUGHTERS)/ABC/2002+ as Grandpa Jim, the father of Cate Hennessy (Katey Sagal) whose husband Paul Hennessy dies unexpectedly (actor John Ritter who played Paul died in real life). The Grandpa Jim character helped the Hennessy family go through the grieving process and begin a new life with out Paul.

A year earlier, James Garner became the spokesperson for the Chevy "Like a Rock" campaign. A popular poem "Nobody Knows It But Me" from the TV spots imparted these lovely sentiments: