George Maharis, who starred in Route 66 and Fantasy Island has died.
Maharis died Wednesday at his home in Beverly Hills, his longtime friend and caregiver Marc Bahan told The Hollywood Reporter.
Route 66 starred Maharis and Martin Milner who roamed the highways of America in a Chevy Corvette, encountering random adventures.
Maharis told The Seattle Times in 2008 that the show,
was really kind of a searching or what you may have seen hundreds of years ago where the people came over the mountains to go from one place to the other to find a better life, a place where they belonged, and they didn’t rely on anybody else to do it for them.”
Beginning in 1960, over 100 installments were filmed in cities across the U.S. During production Maharis somehow found time to record an album with a single that made the Billboard charts in ’62 with Teach Me Tonight.
The good-looking actor ventured into movies, starring in 1965’s The Satan Bug but he never reached the level of his TV stardom.
In July 1973, he posed nude for Playgirl magazine, after Carol Burnett Show star Lyle Waggoner did it first.
Maharis turned back to television in the 70s with
- A short-lived series, The Most Deadly Game
- The 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man
- Marcus Welby, M.D.
- McMillan & Wife
- The Bionic Woman
- Fantasy Island
His last onscreen appearance was 30 years ago in 93’s The Evil Within.
George Maharis was 94.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
