In the late 1970s, James Garner (Rockford) appeared in a series of commercials for Polaroid cameras opposite which actress?

During the late 1970s and into the early 1980s, Mariette Hartley appeared with James Garner in a series of television commercials advertising Polaroid cameras. These television commercials with Garner and Hartley were very popular; they helped to make Polaroid, an American company founded in 1937 profitable and successful.

From 1978 to 1985, after doing solo spots for his sponsor (Polaroid), Garner began a string of Polaroid camera ads opposite the wacky Mariette Hartley. They made classic ads (250 in all). In 15-, 30- and 60-second segments, they performed in a faux marriage where they were a wisecracking couple who beguilingly complemented each other. Many people thought they were really married. They weren’t!

They were two great comic characters in the commercial world. Ad pundits compared them to Beatrice and Benedick (the will-they, won't-they lovers in Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing"). It was noted that the rapport they brought to the advertisements were better, looser, and more vital than 90 percent of whatever the ads had designed in them or publicly displayed.

When talking about Garner, Hartley stated, “He taught me so much about comedy. We’d shoot the legalese, you know, the first 20 seconds or so, and then we’d ad lib, improvise, our tongues in our cheeks. People got attached to us in the ads, and nobody could do that sort of thing with such grace and humor as Jimmy. I just loved working with him [Jim Garner].”