The character, played by James Garner , is a struggling private investigator operating in the greater Los Angeles area. Rockford is the principal character of the series, and Garner was the only actor to appear in every episode of the series.
Unlike many other fictional "private eyes", Rockford is an ex-convict, albeit one who was falsely imprisoned at San Quentin Prison and later fully pardoned. One episode tells that because of the carelessness of his parole officer, Rockford had to hire an attorney to be free of parole requirements.
Except when being specifically threatened by hoods he gets along amicably with them, better than he does with high ranking police officers, who almost without exception despise him. Rockford operates a small private investigation service out of his beachside mobile home in Malibu, California. The trailer was parked in the lot for Paradise Cove next to a restaurant. To avoid confrontations with the LAPD, he will not take on open police cases. He also refuses to do domestic cases.
He specializes instead in cold cases , missing person cases and small-time insurance scams. At one time, in addition to other clients, he worked on a retainer basis for a major insurance company, but the company scrapped the deal when a case went sour, and Rockford lost the annual income.
Over the years he was involved in several cases for which his investigative efforts should have gained him significant bonuses, but he was never able to collect them. He is consistently shown to be short on money, or trying to keep creditors at bay; he typically wears sport coats and low-priced off-the-rack suits and his lone indulgences are an answering machine the source of another running gag at the beginning of each episode and the latest gold colored Pontiac Firebird Esprit automobile, traded in each year of the series for the newest model.
