ACTOR James Garner, best known for his prime-time television roles as the wisecracking frontier gambler in “Maverick” and as an ex-con turned private eye in “The Rockford Files,” has died at age 86, Los Angeles police confirmed early Sunday.

    Garner, who built a six-decade career playing ruggedly charming, good-natured anti-heroes and received the highest honor of the Screen Actors Guild in 2004, was found dead from natural causes Saturday night at his Los Angeles home, according to police.

    Garner underwent surgery for a stroke in 2008, two years after appearing in his last big-screen role as a wealthy grandfather for a film adaptation of the book “The Ultimate Gift.”

    An Oklahoma native, Garner entered show business in the 1950s after serving in the Korean War and first rose to fame in the TV western “Maverick,” a sardonic alternative to the more serious frontier shows then popular on American prime time.

    He was Bret Maverick, a cardshark and ladies man who got by on his wits instead of a gun and would just as soon duck a fight as face a showdown.

    Garner left the ABC show in 1960 in a contract dispute with producers but brought his “Maverick”-like alter ego to a series of films, including “Thrill of It All” and “Support Your Local Sheriff!”

    Garner once said his screen persona as an easy-going guy smart enough to steer clear of a fight actually ran only so deep.

    With his wry, low-key presence, good looks and thick dark hair, Garner was hailed by some as Hollywood’s next Clark Gable or Cary Grant.

    But he ended up scoring his next big hit on the small screen in the 1970s, starring as canny private detective Jim Rockford, a wrongly accused ex-convict starting life over in a beachfront trailer home, in “The Rockford Files.”

    The show ran on NBC from 1974 until Garner abruptly quit the series in 1980. He reprised Rockford for several TV movies in the late 1990s.

    (SD-Agencies)