The Kirkoff Case

Rockford plays well off of creeps. In the first episode of TRF he is hired by actor James Woods (who runs neck-and-neck in the Late 20th Century Creepstakes with Christopher Walken) in the role of Larry Kirkoff, a rich twenty-something who probably murdered his parents.The great thing about Rockford and creeps is that his reactions to them are based more on distaste than moral indignation. He is willing to work for Kirkoff to try to prove his innocence, despite the fact that everyone (including Rockford, more or less) believes that he's guilty. When he tells a red-herring heavy at the beginning of the show that he's working for Kirkoff, the man is genuinely outraged. ("You must be hard up for money!").

We viewers gets the vicarious pleasure of watching Rockford channel our contempt for Kirkoff, as well as the more subtle and illicit thrill of resenting Kirkoff's contempt for Rockford (and us). Rockford is willing to take Kirkoff's money, but he's not going to let that affect his demeanor toward the guy. For Rockford, this is pretty close to the definition of integrity.


The lure of a $20,000 payday ($87,000 in 2009 dollars) keeps Rockford on the case even after he makes a half-hearted attempt to quit.

LK:  "No one can be in a racket like yours without being influenced by money."
JR:   "Not me."
LK:  "Especially you."
JR:   -- ambiguous silence --

Julie Sommars plays the female lead, Tawnia Baker, and their relationship dashes through multiple stages, beginning with a bit of screwball flirtation.



TB:  "What do you do when you're not chasing cowboys?"
JR:   "I sell greeting cards."
TB:  "Is there much money in that?"
JR:   "Christmas and Easter aren't too bad, but Mother's Day just sort of lays there."
TB:  "Sign of the times."

She drugs him, turns feral when he disrupts her gold digging, and they eventually reach a truce over hamburgers at a drive in, after mutually abandoning an expensive restaurant. By the end of the show she almost becomes a client. The sexual tension is muted as they fly through these role changes. While Rockford does not do a lot of old-school elbow guiding, he does drive her car when they go out. (For the record, Sommars was 32 when the show was shot.)

Rockford also glides through four non-Rockford identities in a mere 49 minutes:  messenger, old friend from Chicago, importuning insurance salesman, and corporate executive from Kirkoff Industries. The virtuosity with which he slides into and out of these improvised, throwaway roles is a hallmark of the Rockford modus operandi and one of the principal pleasures of the show.

Physically, Rockford is on the wrong end of the vast majority of the violence in this episode.

TB:  "You've been fighting!"
JR:  "No, the other guys did the fighting. I just stood there and took it."

He is drugged, held at gunpoint, kidnapped, severely beaten (he loses, then finds, a tooth), has his headlights kicked in, and is literally beaten to the punch by a union thug he tries to nail with a cheap shot. ("You've seen that before."  "Yeah, a couple of times.") As usual, the police are of little help, despite Becker's conditional sympathy. ("You're not exactly Princess Margaret in this department. Every time you come in here with a bloody nose morale goes up by ten points.")

He is initially glib in the face of the worst of these threats ("Does your mother know what you do for a living?"), but quickly changes his tune. In the wake of the tooth-loosening beating we get another glimpse into the humanity of the Rockford character, as imagined by TRF's writers. The chief thug croaks "I'm gonna give you some advice." This line must have been used in dozens of crime dramas prior to 1974, in film and on TV.  Rockford's response to this cliche? "I could use some advice, believe me." At that point he sounds nothing but sincere. The only other detective I can imagine saying that is Nick Charles, though Nick never really got his martinis jostled, and would probably have redirected the line to into an arch reference to his difficulties managing his strong-willed wife.     


Rockford proves that Kirkoff did not kill his mother, but still believes he killed his father. In the end, Kirkoff earns a bit of sympathy by confessing to that crime. His real motivation in hiring Rockford was to uncover the partial truth, so he could then be free to reveal the rest --a nice twist of character to end the first show.