I grew up watching reruns of The Rockford Files but never realized how much of an impression Garner made on me until I read his obit. That's the way it goes sometimes.
“Mr. Garner disdained the pretentiousness of the acting profession. “I’m a Methodist but not as an actor,” he wrote in “The Garner Files.” “I’m from the Spencer Tracy school: Be on time, know your words, hit your marks, and tell the truth. I don’t have any theories about acting, and I don’t think about how to do it, except that an actor shouldn’t take himself too seriously, and shouldn’t try to make acting something it isn’t. Acting is just common sense. It isn’t hard if you put yourself aside and just do what the writer wrote.”
Precisely the way I was taught to approach the profession and the craft of acting. And it certainly informs me a magician, as well.