James Garner was fourteen years older than Isaac Hayes. I’m quite sure, however, that his character was supposed to be far older than the actor himself. Genuinely, the implication seems to be that his criminal life is at least as old as the actor. He’d been in prison since before Jim was there. He’s come into the show after having served twenty years for a murder he didn’t commit. The episode aired in 1976; Gandy’s listed as having been in prison since 1955. That would have meant, given Isaac Hayes was born in 1942, that the whole thing went down when he was thirteen. Obviously, this isn’t true.
Jim comes home to discover Gandolph Fitch sitting on his doorstep. Gandy has been released from prison after serving a twenty-year sentence for murdering his girlfriend, Lilah McGee. Jim owes Gandy $1500 for a crap game from when they were in prison together. Gandy insists that Jim work it off by finding the real killer. Jim does not want to do this for any number of reasons, but fine, he doesn’t feel as though he has a lot of choices. Slowly, Jim comes to believe him.
Gandy was railroaded because he’s a big, tough black guy. It’s as much the “big, tough” part as the “black” part, by the sound of it—he was fairly out of control. It’s mentioned that he pulled every other tooth out of someone’s head for trying to pay for Lilah’s services after he convinced her to quit sex work. With a rusty pair of pliers. But the “black” part didn’t help; his former attorney actually has a file labeled “B&B” for “broke and black.” Though by the sound of it, he also has a “broke and brown” one. If the broke part were all that mattered, to him and to society, he wouldn’t put in the second initial.
The show makes it very clear that we’re looking at a lot of people without a lot of options. Eunice Charles (Lynn Hamilton) became a sex worker because that was the option she felt she had. Gandy became hired muscle because that was what he was good at. He didn’t have much in the way of other options, either. He’s not an educated man. He’s no good at thinking ahead—the concept of inflation has clearly never occurred to him, and that’s just for starters. I can’t help wondering how different it could’ve been if any of these people had had an education.
Southern California for Tourists: Gandy and I come from much the same territory. The murder took place in Pasadena, which is where I went to high school. The fact that both Gandy and Beth come from Pasadena should tell you a lot about the city, honestly—it’s the kind of city that definitely comes with both housing projects and a street actually known as Millionaires’ Row. Today, it’s the most actually integrated part of Los Angeles according to census data, but that hasn’t always been true. Still, it means that I get all of Gandy’s geographical references; when he says he was “up on Lincoln,” I start trying to remember if I know of any bars over by Muir High School. He even mentions the Altadena line, and Altadena’s where I lived. I think the park we see in the climax is where my eighth-grade picnic was; if so, I have a picture of myself there.
Take Care of Rockford Files: Squeezed by Gandy as soon as he shows up. Held at gunpoint, fist fight.
Gandy is an interesting attempt by a fairly white show and entirely white creative team to address the Black experience. I don’t think this entirely succeeds, though later appearances are a bit less labored.
Yeah, it probably would’ve helped to have, I don’t know, black writers on the show. But for network TV in the ’70s, that’s crazy talk. I do like Gandy, though, and he’s involved in one of my all-time favourite moments on the show.