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George Maharis (born September 1, 1928)[1] is an American actor who portrayed Buz Murdock in the first three seasons of the TV series Route 66. Maharis also recorded numerous pop music albums at the height of his fame, and later starred in the TV series The Most Deadly Game.
Maharis was arrested November 21, 1974 and charged with committing a sex act with a male hairdresser in the men's room of a gas station in Los Angeles. 46 years old at the time, Maharis was booked on a sex perversion charge and released on $500 bail. Six years earlier Maharis had been arrested by a vice squad officer for lewd conduct in the restroom of a Hollywood restaurant; the officer said Maharis made a pass at him.
Maharis was one of seven children born to Greek immigrants in Astoria, Queens.[1] He attended Flushing High School and served in the United States Marine Corps for 18 months.[2]
He studied at the Actors Studio and appeared in off-Broadway productions of
Jean Genet's Deathwatch and
Edward Albee's The Zoo Story. He appeared on Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, Goodyear Television Playhouse, Stirling Silliphant's Naked City and Otto Preminger's Exodus, and in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow as Bud Gardner, one of Joanne Gardner's relatives who married Janet Bergman Collins.
In 1960, Maharis appeared as Buz Murdock in the TV series Route 66, which co-starred Martin Milner. Maharis was 32 at the time the series started, although the character he was playing was only 23. He received an Emmy nomination in 1962 for his continuing performance as Buz.
Maharis departed without completing his third season of the series, which saw him with health problems, including hepatitis.[3][4]
Maharis said he left Route 66 for health reasons, because of long hours and grueling conditions while shooting on location. "I have to protect my future", Maharis said in a 1963 interview. "If I keep going at the present pace, I'm a fool. Even if you have $4,000,000 in the bank, you can't buy another liver."[5]
Series producers Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard disputed Maharis' stated position, arguing that he desired to break his contract in order to make movies.[5] Maharis biographer Karen Blocher wrote that "the producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis's sexual orientation, and never trusted him again," and she speculated "in a less homophobic era, they might have communicated better, and worked things out."[6] After Maharis' departure, the show's appeal declined. Glenn Corbett acted in the role of Milner's new sidekick, Linc Case. A year later Route 66 was canceled.
For Maharis, a string of films followed, including Quick, Before It Melts
(1964), The Satan Bug and Sylvia (both 1965), A Covenant With Death and The
Happening (both 1967), and The Desperados (1969).[7] Returning to series
television in 1970, Maharis starred as criminologist Jonathan Croft in The
Most Deadly Game. The series lasted 12 episodes, ending in January 1971. He
modeled fully nude for the July 1973 issue of Playgirl magazine as one of the
first celebrities to do so.[8][9] Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Maharis had
featured roles in several television movies and also guest-starred on numerous
television series, including Mission: Impossible, Fantasy Island, Kojak,
McMillan & Wife, Barnaby Jones, Police Story, Switch, Cannon, Night Gallery,
and The Bionic Woman, as well as Murder, She Wrote in 1990.[7] He appeared as
Count Machelli, King Cromwell's War Chancellor in The Sword and the Sorcerer
(1982). He also starred with the Kenley Players in productions of Barefoot in
the Park (1967) and How the Other Half Loves (1973) and in national touring
company productions of Company and I Ought to Be in Pictures. In the 1980s, he
performed in Las Vegas. Doppelganger (1993) was his last motion picture role.[7]
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