LOS ANGELES (AP) – George Maharis, a good-looking stage actor who became a symbol of American youth in the 1960s when he toured the country in a Corvette convertible on the hit TV series “Route 66,” his has passed away.
Mark Pahn, the Maharishi’s friend and caretaker, said in a Facebook post that he died on Wednesday. hollywood reporter ban said, which first reported Maharis’ death, said he died at his home in Beverly Hills, California, after being diagnosed with hepatitis. He was 94 years old.
In “Route 66”, Mahris played Buzz Murdock, a hardened survivor of Hell’s Kitchen in New York City. Played by Martin Milner, who died in 2015, was Todd Stiles, a young man who rose to wealth after his father’s death with nothing but a shiny new Corvette.
The couple decided to hit the highway that highway author John Steinbeck called the “Mother Road”. Each week brought a new adventure in a new city, and the crowds flocked.
Route 66 was the rare series at the time to be filmed on location, moving to new cities and towns for each new episode. It featured guest stars from future stars including Robert Redford, James Caan, Robert Duvall and Alan Alda in some of their earliest roles.
The veteran highwayman himself has been the star of the show, like Mahree and Milner. Since being abandoned in favor of larger, faster highways, it stretches steadily from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean and has been revered as the driving force behind the country’s westward migration in the 20th century.
Rumored to be based on the Jack Kerouac novel “On the Road”, “Route 66” spawned its hit song, an instrumental by Nelson Riddle. The most popular track, “(Get Your Kicks On) Route 66,” was not associated with the series.
The Maharishis left the show after Season 3 – it would have lasted another year without them – and never achieved the same fame again.
He regained control of the name introduced to later generations in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, when fictional actor Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, said he was asked to appear in “The Great Escape”. Steve McQueen was cast in the role. With three Georges: “Peppard, Mahris and Shakris”.
A New York native, one of seven children born to Greek immigrants, Maharishi actually grew up in Hell’s Kitchen. His parents ran a successful restaurant and wanted George to join the family business.
In a 2007 interview she said, “Growing up in Hell’s Kitchen, at least for me, was about ‘I’m not going to be here’.” “Life is about traveling and going. I had to go out.”
He hoped to become a singer, but suffered damage to his vocal cords, so he turned to acting. After training with Lee Strasberg and Sanford Meisner at the Actors Studio, he began performing Off-Broadway plays.
Excellent reports of her work in Edward Albee’s comedy “Zoo Story” and her performance in the television drama “Naked City” have attracted attention. After a small role in the movie “Exodus” and a few other parts, he landed on “Route 66” in 1960.
After leaving the series, Mahri was cast in films like ‘Quick Before It Melts’, ‘The Satan Bug’, ‘Sylvia’. “A Pact with Death”. “events”. “Villains” and “Earth Invaders”.
In 1970, he returned to weekly television, playing a criminal scientist in “The Deadliest Game”, but the show lasted only one season.
Mahry continued acting in the following decades, also starring in television movies such as ‘Escape to Mindanao’, ‘Murder on Flight 502’, ‘Disaster in the Sky’, ‘Crash of Flight 401’ and ‘Death in Space’. TV series including “Fantasy Island,” “The Bionic Woman” and “Murder, She Wrote.”
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The late AP entertainment writer Bob Thomas provided biographical material for this story.