September 1, 1928 – George Maharis:
“One unique aspect about Route 66 was it was shot on location all over America. Nobody else ever did that, to my knowledge. We worked six days a week, sometimes seven, because we were always behind schedule. You got up at 5 in the morning and you get back to your motel at 7 or 9 at night, sometimes even later. And when we’d move the company from one location to another, sometimes we’d lose two or three days of shooting.”
This piece is not about George Chakiris who is also gay, a singer, actor and artist. That George is still with us, turning 91 in two weeks. No, this one is about an equally delicious George.
On this very date, September 1, in 1974, I was present at an all-male, coke-fueled party in the Hollywood Hills. I was an invited guest of the host, a noted theatre and film producer, and hand selected, so to speak, to be the date for a certain Oscar-winning, non-closeted screenwriter. The party was in honor of the birthday of hunky George Maharis, who in mid-40s, was still the best-looking and sexiest man in a room of 50+ good-looking, sexy men.
Maharis was certainly friendly enough, but he was “hands-off” to me according to our host. I could not stop gaping and gasping at his strong sexual allure and perfect body, as he moved through the house and pool area accepting best wishes, wearing the tightest pants and a shirt open to the navel. Maharis had just posed nude for Playgirl magazine a few months before and having seen the whole package in print, I was finding myself a bit dizzy at seeing him in the flesh.
A few months after the party, Maharis was arrested and charged with having sex with a male in the restroom of a gas station. Maharis was booked on some sort of morals charge and released on $500 bail. Six years earlier, he had been arrested by a vice squad officer for lewd conduct for an incident in the restroom of a Hollywood restaurant; the officer claimed Maharis made a pass at him.
I was well acquainted with his acting from my father’s favorite television show, Route 66 (1960-64), a series so filled with hot cars and hot bods that I watched riveted, one of the few shows that my father and I shared. I usually joined my mother for Peyton Place (1963-66) or any of the many variety shows of the era. On Route 66, Maharis plays dangerous, hot headed “Buz Murdock”. The show reeked of youthful rebelliousness and restlessness in the 1960s. I tried not to show my excitement when watching it with my father.
Route 66 is about a pair of guys and a Corvette who roam the country together dressed in coats and ties for no apparent reason. Buz’s buddy “Tod” is played by equally hot, blond Martin Millner. Maharis received an Emmy nomination for his performance on the series in 1962.
Contrary to what we all thought at the time, the Corvette convertible the characters drove for this existential B&W series was not red, blue, or white, but brown, because it photographed better.
The series featured an amazing array of hundreds of cool guest actors, including from The Golden Age: Sylvia Sidney, Buster Keaton, Joan Crawford, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Rin Tin Tin, plus newcomers Robert Redford, Gene Hackman, William Shatner, and little Ronnie Howard. Julie Newmar was especially memorable as a motorcycle riding free spirit, a role she reprised in another episode. The great Ethel Waters guest-starred in a 1962 episode and was nominated for an Emmy Award, the first ever Emmy nomination for a Black female.
Route 66 has a silky cool jazzy theme song from Nelson Riddle that was a big hit on the pop charts.
An unusual element of the show was that it featured a sort of Shakespearean soaring dialog using free-verse poetry. Look at this from season one, episode four, The Man On The Monkey Board:
“Tod, I hope you live a long life and never know the blistering forces that sear and destroy, turn men into enemies and sweep past the last frontiers of compassion. Once you’ve seen that dark, unceasing tide of faces of the victims, the last spark of dignity so obliterated that not one face is lifted to heaven, not one voice is raised in protest even as they died…”
Route 66 had quite an impact on 1960s American Pop Culture, however, Maharis left the wildly popular show before the end of its run. Glenn Corbett finished the season as Tod’s new buddy, “Linc Case”. The series lasted only one more season with the new combination. There was much speculation about why Maharis was gone from the series. Rumors had it that Maharis left the series over a salary dispute, or that he was difficult, or that he and Milner were having problems getting along.
Maharis later said that he had contracted hepatitis in 1962 and that the long shoots were so grueling that working so hard would risk his health. He asked the producers to give him a less arduous schedule, but they refused.
Still, others in the know claim that Route 66 producer Herbert B. Leonard discovered that Maharis was gay and was having a hard time keeping his star’s sexual stuff away from the press. Leonard and Milner also claimed that Maharis used his illness as an excuse to break his contract so that he could break into films.
Maharis eventually did make some movies, mostly forgettable B-films. He also worked on stage and had a nightclub act, but nothing ever matched his success on Route 66, and the series never recovered from his departure.
Maharis also had a recording career, releasing seven albums between 1962 and 1966. He regularly appeared in Las Vegas in the 1970s and 1980s.
Maharis turned his back on showbiz in 1993 to concentrate on his career as a painter with gallery shows on both coasts. He left this world last spring, and to the very end, he was still trim and handsome. I really desired him on that Sunday afternoon, 49 years ago, and I continued to think that I still had a chance with him until his passing.
A 1973 photograph of Maharis by Ken Duncan, torn from a much treasured After Dark magazine, was on four different fridges in four different apartments, until it tuned yellow and brittle like me.
See World of Wonder writer Trey Speegle’s RIP here.
