| Before there was James Garner, a gold Firebird and a catchy theme song, there was an idea. That idea was conceived in the brain of Roy Huggins. His concept was for a show involving a P.I "who handles only cases the cops have closed without bringing the culprit to justice". Huggins had previously worked with Garner on the TV series Maverick, and knew he could play the perfect wry, Maverick-like P.I. But I get ahead of myself. At this time, Huggins was developing a show about an undercover cop, called Toma and starring Tony Musante. The original story was intended to be an episode of Toma, wherin a case Toma is working on is closed, so he suggests the client hire his P.I. friend, Tom Rockford. Huggins gave his story outline to Stephen J Cannell, who was a writer/producer on Toma. Cannell fleshed out the story, adding key characters like Angel Martin and Rocky Rockford. At some point (probably due to production problems involving Musante), it was decided to develop Rockford as a stand-alone TV movie, separate from Toma. After James Garner was added, "Tom" Rockford became Jim Rockford. Whatever happened to Toma, you ask? After one season it was cancelled by ABC, and later reworked to be Barretta starring Robert Blake. |
