Route 66 TV Star Martin Milner Passed Away

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Route 66 TV Star Martin Milner Passed Away
Martin Milner (right) played Tod Stiles with sidekick George Maharis (left) as Buz Murdock.


The iconic “Route 66” TV show was ostensibly about two young men and their adventures traveling across America, exploring social issues of the era.

But to Corvette enthusiasts, the show was much more than that – a prime vehicle to see their favorite car on a weekly basis.

Sadly, one of the stars of the show – Martin Milner – passed away Sunday at his home in Carlsbad, Calif., at the age of 83.

In “Route 66,” Milner played Yale dropout Tod Stiles with sidekick George Maharis as streetsmart New Yorker Buz Murdock.

They traveled across the United States in a series of Corvette convertibles, becoming entwined with the problems of the people they met.

The show was shot on location, with weather determining where filming took place.

“We’d start late in the summer in the north, say in Cleveland, or in New England,” recalled Milner. “Then we’d go south as the winter came, so we’d be warmer.”

Despite the show’s success, Milner later downplayed his status as a star.

“I was never a celebrity,” he told People magazine in 1995, “just a working actor.”

Indeed, a TV Guide story in 1963 noted that Maharis was by far the most popular actor on the show, at least based on letters from fans. Maharis received about 5,000 letters a week, while Milner averaged around 1,800.

However, series co-creator Sterling Silliphant said that while teens were crazy about Maharis, “he bores their parents stiff. He’s too primitive. The adults like Marty because he’s a gentleman. They only tolerate George because Marty seems to like him.”

In the end, it was the wholesome Milner, not the sexy Maharis, who made it all the way until the show ended in 1964. Maharis left briefly to battle infectious hepatitis, then left for good, complaining that the producers worked him too much after he returned and caused a relapse.

“Maharis and I got along fine – until I found out he didn’t like me,” Milner said in an interview with TV Guide.

Milner got a new traveling buddy in 1963 when Glenn Corbett showed up as a returning Vietnam War veteran named Linc Case.

Milner had become close with “Dragnet” star Jack Webb in the 1950s, and that relationship resulted in Webb offering Milner a new “buddy role” as Officer Pete Malloy opposite Kent McCord’s Officer Jim Reed in “Adam-12,” a popular police drama which ran from 1968 to 1975 and focused on the two men’s daily activities as LAPD officers.


Source:
LA Times

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