Hollywood legend James Garner was one of America’s most beloved actors – but he was also the terrorized target of psychotic stalkers, as revealed in explosive FBI files exclusively obtained by The National ENQUIRER!
The 146-page dossier – hidden from the public for decades – includes a letter ominously signed by the Black Panther Party that promises to kill James over an interracial sketch on the NBC comedy show “Laugh-In.”
What’s more, another incident had “The Rockford Files” star threatened with murder if he didn’t play real-life detective for a crazed mental patient!
The film and television icon passed away on July 19, 2014, after a heart attack at the age of 86 – less than a month before his 58th wedding anniversary with his wife, Lois.
Now The ENQUIRER has the chilling scoop on official government documents that reveal the homicidal threats that James hid from his adoring public!
The actor’s life was first threatened in 1969, after an appearance on “Laugh-In” where he flirted with African-American actress Chelsea Brown – asking her: “Your place or mine?”
“That dam honky James Garner can be delt with too permanently [sic],” read the chilling letter signed by a member of the Black Panther Party in Chicago.
The letter-writer also threatened to “blow up the [Laugh-In] studio, killing enough honkies to make Hitler blush.”
An FBI field report concluded the letter-writer “should be considered dangerous,” adding: “On 3/13/69 James Garner, movie actor, telephonically contacted the Los Angeles Office at which time he acknowledged the receipt of a letter identical to the one received by [redacted].
“Mr. Garner said he is due to travel to Chicago and will arrive in Chicago on Monday, 3/17/69 … and will depart Chicago on Wednesday, 3/19/69.”
FBI agents spoke with James and advised the actor on contacting Chicago police to provide protection during his stay. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover personally signed off on a lab report that showed “nine latent fingerprints of value” were discovered, but the author was never identified.
James would face another threat in a 1983 letter obtained by the FBI. A confused and deranged fan had contacted the actor in his role as Jim Rockford, with the lovestruck lunatic demanding that the fictional detective help him track down a very real actress.
“If you don’t help me I am going to kill you! That’s laying the facts down!” the man wrote James.
While the name of the actress was withheld by the FBI, the ranting Romeo told James: “As you know I want you to work for me in your spare time in finding a actress named [redacted]. I will pay you good money to do it.”
James was also assured that his new “client” was perfectly sane: “Just because you can read my brain you probably are laughing at me because you think I am a nut. Well let me inform you I am not crazy.”
In a bizarre twist, the writer revealed in another letter that he was already institutionalized, demanding that James visit him in the hospital – further ranting: “If you don’t you will die. I will have no choice but to kill you! And I’m not playing any Mickey Mouse games. You got no choice to help me or be prepared to die.”
An FBI investigation confirmed the man had committed a bank robbery and was residing in Atascadero State Hospital,a “California institution in which are incarcerated mentally disordered sex offenders and the criminally insane.”
The report added that any further investigation was dropped – in light of the threat being sent from inside a secure mental facility.
