{"id":576327,"date":"2023-05-28T05:33:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T02:33:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/george-maharis-star-of-route-66-dies-at-94\/"},"modified":"2023-05-28T05:33:32","modified_gmt":"2023-05-28T02:33:32","slug":"george-maharis-star-of-route-66-dies-at-94","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/george-maharis-star-of-route-66-dies-at-94\/","title":{"rendered":"#George Maharis, Star of \u2018Route 66,\u2019 Dies at 94"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n George Maharis, who starred as the brooding Buz Murdock on Route 66<\/em> before he quit the acclaimed 1960s CBS drama after contracting hepatitis, has died. He was 94.<\/p>\n

\n Maharis died\u00a0Wednesday at his home in <\/span>Beverly Hills, his longtime <\/span>friend<\/span> and caregiver Marc Bahan told<\/span> Th<\/span><\/em>e Hollywood Reporter<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n Route 66<\/em>, created by\u00a0Stirling Silliphant\u00a0and\u00a0Herbert B. Leonard, featured the Hell\u2019s Kitchen native Murdock and Martin Milner\u2018s Yale dropout Tod Stiles touring the highways of America in Tod\u2019s Chevrolet Corvette, encountering adventure along the way.<\/p>\n

\n The show \u201cwas 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\u2019t rely on anybody else to do it for them,\u201d Maharis told The Seattle Times<\/em> in 2008.<\/p>\n

\n All 116 installments of the series<\/a> over four seasons starting in October 1960 were filmed in cities across the U.S., making for a grueling production schedule.<\/p>\n

\n Midway through the third season in late 1962, Maharis came down with hepatitis, was hospitalized for a month and missed several episodes. (On the show, it was explained that Buz was in a Cleveland hospital battling an \u201cecho-virus,\u201d and Tod got a new travel<\/a>ing companion, Lincoln Case, played by Glenn Corbett).<\/p>\n

\n Maharis returned to Route 66 <\/em>but didn\u2019t stay long, suffering a relapse. \u201cThe doctor said, \u2018If you don\u2019t get out now, you\u2019re either going to be dead or you\u2019re going to have permanent liver damage,\u2019 \u201d Maharis recalled<\/a> in a 2007 interview.<\/p>\n

\n Maharis, who had received an Emmy nomination in 1962 for playing Buz, said it took him more than two years before he was able to regularly work again.<\/p>\n

\n The dark-haired actor ventured into movies, starring in John Sturges\u2019 The Satan Bug<\/em> (1965), a sci-fi thriller for The Mirisch Co. and United Artists, but he never attained the rebel-stardom his TV popularity augured.<\/p>\n

\n Maharis was born on Sept. 1, 1928, in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York, one of seven children to Greek immigrants. He attended Flushing High School and spent 18 months with the U.S. Marines.<\/p>\n

\n He aspired to become a singer but became interested in acting and studied with Sanford Meisner and Lee Strasberg at The Actors Studio, then did a parody of fellow Method actor Marlon Brando on the NBC comedy Mister Peepers<\/em> in 1955.<\/p>\n

\n Maharis landed his first big role in an off-Broadway production of Jean Genet\u2019s Deathwatch<\/em> in 1958 and app<\/a>eared in Edward Albee\u2018s first produced play, The Zoo Story<\/em>, also off-Broadway, two years later.<\/p>\n

\n He portrayed an underground freedom fighter for Otto Preminger in Exodus<\/em> (1960), and on the CBS soap Search for Tomorrow<\/em>, he starred as a gambler who mistreated his wife.<\/p>\n

\n On an April 1959 episode of Naked City<\/em>, the gritty ABC series created by Silliphant, Maharis appeared as a character who longed to see the world, and that installment served as a pilot for Route 66<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n During production of Route 66<\/em>, Maharis somehow found time to fly to New York City to record a 1962 album for Epic Records, and he had a single that made to No. 25 on the Billboard charts, \u201cTeach Me Tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n After he became sick, Maharis asked that his hours on Route 66<\/em> be reduced, but producers refused. In the 2007 interview, he discounted talk that he used his condition to break his contract in order to jump into the movies. A lack of chemistry between Milner and Corbett contributed to Route 66<\/em> being canceled in March 1964.<\/p>\n

\n Maharis\u2019 first movie after his starring turn on television was the light comedy Quick Before It Melts<\/em> (1964). He then starred as a private detective opposite Carroll Baker in Sylvia<\/em> (1965), in A Covenant With Death<\/em> (1967) and, as a hippie, in The Happening<\/em> (1967).<\/p>\n

\n In the 1970s, Maharis turned back to TV. He, Ralph Bellamy and Yvette Mimieux portrayed criminologists on the short-lived series The Most Deadly Game<\/a><\/em>, and he was a prizefighter on the 1976 miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man<\/em>. He also appeared on such shows as Marcus Welby, M.D.<\/em>, Night Gallery<\/em>,\u00a0McMillan & Wife<\/em>, The Bionic Woman<\/em> and Fantasy Island<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n Maharis later made occasional ventures back into film, which included playing a resurrected warlock in The Sword and the Sorcerer<\/em> (1982), and his last onscreen appearance came in The Evil Within<\/em> (1993).<\/p>\n

\n In July 1973, he posed nude for Playgirl<\/em> magazine, becoming the second actor (after Lyle Waggoner) to do so.<\/p>\n

\n Survivors include a brother and sister.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n