I didn't know the background of why Maharis left the show in 1963, and had already composed this blog post when I noticed some additional material, which was new to me. I'll put it below the fold. I just remember the TV show, which — in my memory — is simply about 2 handsome young men in a Corvette. It was on TV in the years when I was 9 to 12 years old.
“Route 66” began in 1960, and Mr. Maharis left the show in 1963. His co-star, Martin Milner, got a new partner, played by Glenn Corbett, and the series continued for one more season. Mr. Maharis attributed his departure to health reasons (he was suffering from hepatitis), but Karen Blocher, an author and blogger who interviewed him and other principal figures on the show, wrote in 2006 that the story was more complex.
Herbert B. Leonard, the show’s executive producer, “thought he’d hired a young hunk for the show, a hip, sexy man and good actor that all the girls would go for,” Ms. Blocher wrote. “This was all true of Maharis,” she went on, “but not the whole story, as Leonard discovered to his anger and dismay. George was gay, it turned out.”
Ms. Blocher attributed Mr. Maharis’s departure to a number of factors. “The producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis’s sexual orientation, and never trusted him again,” she wrote, adding, “Maharis, for his part, started to feel that he was carrying the show and going unappreciated.”
Mr. Maharis was arrested in 1967 on charges of “lewd conduct” and in 1974 on charges of “sex perversion” for cruising in men’s bathrooms.
ADDED: You can stream "Route 66" free on Roku.
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39 comments:
He was born too early. Now he could cruise men and women's restrooms without any issues at all.
"One Adam 12, code 22 at Tudbury's Department store..." Yeah, I know, I'm not a nice person.
Route 66, or "How we cleaned On The Road up for the proles". Maharis was a man out of his time, but he lived long enough to see the world change. Boy did the girls in my life ever like him back in the day. He was almost as popular as Ricky Nelson. Now we know what the mystery was behind that hunky guy who just disappeared. Shame that happened. RIP.
To me, Route 66 was worth it just for the Nelson Riddle theme song. Nothing else speaks of that time like that tune did. Never missed it as a kid, which my parents thought a bit strange. It was all about the Corvette.
We were watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood yesterday and there's a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character mentions that he was on a shortlist to play the Steve McQueen character in the Great Escape. Asked who else was on the short list, DiCaprio says - the three Georges: Peppard, Mahiris, and Chakiris. Now I know the first two. Now I'll have to google Chakiris.
I guess George in those days is like Chris today (Pine, Hemsworth, Pratt, and Evans).
"The Chevrolet Corvette seen in the first episode ("Black November", October 7, 1960) is a 1960 model; for the rest of that season the show used a 1961 model. Chevrolet provided vehicles throughout the show's run, upgrading to new models with each season." (Google search)
I absolutely remember watching "Route 66", for whatever reason I cannot say. My folks must have had it on. I do recall that it seemed without much of a plot. Even then I could get that much. And I do remember that George Maharis was the handsome one. RIP to him.
Also, on the side, another RIP. This one to Claudia Rosett. A great journalist/reporter for WSJ for years. A real reporter. Did the digging, got into the details, and could write. We don't see much of that at all these days. She was the only print journalist to be an eyewitness to the Tiananmen Square massacre. Also broke the UN Oil for Food scandal. By comparison, today's reporters uncover that Trump peed in a bed in Russia. Even if he didn't.
My favorite episode is Season 1, Episode 20 - "Like a Motherless Child." Directing, acting, writing were all in top form.
In the Wikipedia article cited in the post, Maharis also said, "Some actors wouldn't touch a series, but they're just like summer stock. A show a week jazz. The series taught how to maintain my integrity and not get sucked in by compromise. Guys wrote the show who had never seen it.... I worked with two-and-a-half years of directors but only five had talent. Usually they'd stick a camera in front of you and expect you to recite. You have to fight for your standards. Then what happens? They call you difficult. But that shouldn't make any difference. In the last analysis, it's your own standards, your own belief that you are doing something good, that sells a show."
I loved George Maharis and that show but looking back I realize it was all terribly gay. He must have been some hustler!
Those accents! Wow.
That intro was hard to watch without a smirk, knowing what I know now.
I would have been 7 to 10, and I know the show was often on, but I guess my older brother was the only one watching it. I can't recall a single episode or incident.
Good one, Temujin. RIP Rosett.
Wait! So this was a show about two well groomed, nicely dressed guys wandering around the country in a little two seater sports car, with all that luggage, looking for "kicks"; but George Maharis' off-screen homosexuality was the real problem?
Maharis was known to be a homosexual... and that killed his career back then. He could not keep it 'low profile' like a lot of them did.
+1 Mezzrow @8:09am!
+1 Mezzrow @8:09am!
Also, on the side, another RIP. This one to Claudia Rosett. A great journalist/reporter for WSJ for years. A real reporter. Did the digging, got into the details, and could write. We don't see much of that at all these days. She was the only print journalist to be an eyewitness to the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Also, unlike reporters today, she wrote about it. Even as GHW Bush tried to cover up the massacre. He sent his NSC to reassure the CCP that all was good.
My older brother, who was in his teens when the series was on, absolutely adored the show. I have watched some of the reruns, have the series on DVD (which I bought for him) and find it a slice of life for the early '60's. RIP George, and RIP my brother Greg, who was always the coolest.
Vicki from Pasadena
I've always confused in my head George Maharis with George Chakiris. But in truth, I couldn't describe Maharis and I might be able to describe Chakiris.
I loved the show. What difference did it make if he was gay? Geezus, the producers of every Rock Hudson movie knew he was gay. For that matter, this was known about a bunch of other male and female stars, like Tab Hunter, Troy Donahue, and the great Barbara Stanwyck. So I don't believe Maharis's preference had anything to do with it. At no time in Hollywood history did you did you futz with the on-screen chemistry that put a show on the air and money in your pocket.
One of the three best theme songs in TV history.
The greatest TV theme song ever.
Did they ever let George drive the vette?
It’s not as though you can have the actor as your boyfriend. You’re in love with the character he plays. That is fictional and you’re entitled to your fantasies. Who he really is is unattainable, whatever he’s into in his personal life. It shouldn’t matter.
Curiously, the only episode I have any particular remembrance of is the one where they are "almost lynched in Garth" as Tod says at the start of the clip. It guest starred Keir Dullea. Written by Stirling Syliphant.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0690429/plotsummary/?ref_=tt_ov_pl
I've heard of the show but never seen it. They drove around ... and did what?
Two guys driving around the SW in a Corvette??
The jokes write themselves!!
George Maharis never reached my consciousness until his passing away. I was born a couple of years too early for his TV show.
Just saw him taking part singing in a Bob Dylan Medley in a TV show from 1965. He's horrendous, almost William Shatner bad. For some reason Dionne Warwick and the Animals take part in this fiasco.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBe8zZ0OKlk
Never watched the show but, in clicking around as we did then, I think I saw a close up of a pair of hands covered in crude oil pulling on a chain and a vertical pipe looking like a drill bit or something. Boys got a macho job that episode, I think.
I was in my mid teens at the time, not planning to have another guy in the passenger seat if and when I had a car.
To add to what Cassandra said, when I was a little boy my grandmother on my maternal side was griping about Rock Hudson. I think it was prompted by an ad for McMillan and Wife, when she told me that she'd seen him (Rock) when she was in High School and went to the beach with her friends. They all recognized the Movie Star but were startled to see him in close perhaps almost intimate contact with his male lover there. It shocked her. But to me it was one of many small incidents that tended to "normalize" for me that some people were different. My mother shared the same revulsion for "people like that" because she realized Elton John was gay too right after I purchased his first greatest hits album, but by the time I was an adult the act was still revolting but I really liked the people I was friends with who happened to be homosexual, both male and female.
I don't care if he was gay but it's really rather tragic how hoodwinked women were about their Ideal Men.
And funny.
Tom T. said...
"I've heard of the show but never seen it. They drove around ... and did what?"
madAsHell said...
"Two guys driving around the SW in a Corvette??
The jokes write themselves!!"
Only one episode took place near Route 66, so the show was more like a sanitized version of Kerouac and not so much a travelogue. They were all over the USA. It was more about two guys encountering local drama and how they reacted to it, helping out sometimes when the situation called for it. I still enjoy the series, but some episodes are better than others.
Second greatest TV theme song; first goes to Lalo Shifrin's "Mission: Impossible"
Blogger Gulistan said...
We were watching Once Upon a Time in Hollywood yesterday and there's a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character mentions that he was on a shortlist to play the Steve McQueen character in the Great Escape. Asked who else was on the short list, DiCaprio says - the three Georges: Peppard, Mahiris, and Chakiris. Now I know the first two. Now I'll have to google Chakiris.
https://getyarn.io/yarn-story/417e1788-bf76-482a-9198-89909a35034d
Fantastic music, sexy car, solid writing & good talent - only an OK show though as I remember. I was a little young for it, but I've seen a couple of episodes.
RIP George. Kind of surprised that we didn't see more of him.
Seems kind of like Sue Lyon's story. Very good looking and pretty damn skilled at their job. But, it just didn't work out.
Great show. Got me to buy two Corvettes (AND a maroon Members Only jacket). And definitely agree that the theme song is one of the all time best. Perfectly captured the concept and aura of the show.
But THE best and most memorable theme song for me is still the one from "Peter Gunn".
Greatest TV theme song ever? Not even close. That honor belongs to either Hawaii Five-0 or the Rockford Files, imho.
Tom T. said...
"I've heard of the show but never seen it. They drove around ... and did what?"
See that is the thing. Maharis was known to be a homosexual and he didn't hide it. So here was this show about two young men and the word got out he was gay and back then the advertisers (who pay for the show) surely wouldn't want that the be presumed it was two homosexuals...
No doubt today the woke TV producers might have that very kind of show and call it "The Gay Route 66".
BTW we did what that show and it was pretty good. Usually had moral ending (like lots of shows back then.)
They got their pricks on Route 66.
I missed entire layers of meaning on TV. From Route 66 I was supposed to get clues as to cool cars, fashionable clothes, and American society, but I'm not sure I saw it as any more real than the cartoons, to the extent I watched at all.
I always pair this show with 77 Sunset Strip, probably for no better reason than the numbers.
"Hollywoodland" with Affleck playing George Reeves has a scene where another guy is hired first for the Superman series but scratched when they find out he's gay.
Best theme music? Not this one. Mission Impossible and Peter Gunn are stronger IMO.
If you're ever on Route 66 you can get out of your car and look around. Everywhere you stop you will find old automotive debris...broken tailights, old hubcaps and side mirrors, as well as beer bottles and cans. There must have been a car crash every 10 feet of that road over the years.
RIP, George. His best acting on Route 66 was in an episode called "The Mud Nest." He thinks he found his birth mother. I love Route 66's theme but the best for me will always be the theme music for Mannix.
"I've always confused in my head George Maharis with George Chakiris" — Greek names and Greek good looks.
As a car freak coming of age when that came on, I was awestruck. Freedom/Corvette? What could be better. Had a traveling Route 66 in a Corvette fantasy ever since.
I tried to stream reruns last year & found they were early woke & preachy. Couldn't finish two episodes.
Still have the Route 66 fantasy though
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