Early Life and Career
Garner was born Jack Edward Bumgarner in Norman, Oklahoma, on September 19, 1926, to Mildred Scott Meek and Weldon Warren “Bill” Bumgarner. He was the second of three brothers including actor James Garner (youngest) and Charles Bumgarner (oldest). The family operated a general store on Denver Corner in eastern Norman. The brothers were sent to live with relatives after their mother died, while Garner's father remarried several times.
Garner was a star athlete at Norman High School, playing on the state championship basketball team in 1945. Jack Garner played as a minor league baseball pitcher for a team affiliate with the Pittsburgh Pirates for eleven years. He then worked for several golf courses in Florida after leaving the minor leagues. Years later, brother James Garner wrote about Garner's athletic abilities in his memoir, "At Norman High, he was a point guard on a championship basketball team and quarterbacked an all-state football team...But his best sport was baseball: Jack was a pitcher in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization for 11 years. He was a better athlete than I was and a lot more outgoing. I was always in his footsteps." Later in life, Garner became a golf pro at the Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, California. His golf experience allowed him to coach at the country club and elsewhere. Garner taught Dan Aykroyd, his co-star in the 1996 film, My Fellow Americans, to properly swing a golf club for a scene in that movie.
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