'Adam 12' Star Martin Milner Dies at 83

[Mr. Television]

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/ma...66-1201587461/

Martin Milner, Star of ‘Adam-12,’ ‘Route 66,’ Dies at 83

Martin Milner, who starred on TV on “Adam-12” with Kent McCord and, earlier, on “Route 66” with George Maharis, died Sunday night, Diana Downing, a representative for his fan page, confirmed. He was 83.

Milner was also known for his roles as a jazz guitarist in the brilliant 1957 film “Sweet Smell of Success” and in the 1967 camp classic “Valley of the Dolls.”

Milner began acting in movies while a teen, after his father got him an agent, first appearing in the 1947 classic “Life With Father.” The film starred William Powell and Irene Dunne, and thus Milner, along with his co-star Elizabeth Taylor, bridged the generations in Hollywood between the golden age and contemporary era.

He appeared as Officer Pete Molloy alongside Kent McCord’s Officer Jim Reed in NBC’s “Adam-12” from 1968-75. Molloy was the seasoned, savvy veteran bringing along Reed who was, at first, a rookie.

The innovative series had a more realistic quality than previous cop shows: The partners, on which the show narrowly focused, would patrol with no idea what they would encounter through the course of the day, and viewers got to witness the highs and lows in their lives.

Milner had a long association with Jack Webb, whose Mark VII Ltd. produced “Adam-12” and had produced “Dragnet” since 1951. After Webb and Milner met on the set of the movie “Halls of Montezuma” in 1950, Webb cast Milner in various roles on “Dragnet” in the early ’50s, first on radio and then when the crime drama transitioned to TV, where Milner appeared in six episodes of “Dragnet” from 1952-55.

Milner even appeared as a drummer in the Webb-directed 1955 feature “Pete Kelly’s Blues.” (The actor did not know how to play the guitar, so he was not really playing in “Sweet Smell of Success.”)

Webb later chose Milner to star in “Adam-12” and directed the pilot episode; as a producer, Webb liked to do crossover episodes between his various series for promotional purposes; Officers Molloy and Reed were introduced on episodes of “Dragnet” and also appeared on episodes of the brief Mark VII show “The D.A.,” starring Robert Conrad, as well as on “Emergency.”

“Route 66” ran on CBS from 1960-64, about a decade before “Adam-12” and resolutely not produced by Webb: Written and lensed across North America and inspired by the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” the series followed Milner’s Tod Stiles and George Maharis’ Buz Murdock as they traveled from town to town in a Corvette, exploring social issues and the changing cultural landscape.

As “Adam-12” ended in 1975, Milner transitioned smoothly to the Irwin Allen-produced series “Swiss Family Robinson,” in which he played the paterfamilias. When that series proved short lived, Milner went on to appear in a variety of TV movies; there was also a guest spot on “Police Story.”

In the 1989 TV movie “Nashville Beat,” Kent McCord (who had a story credit) and Milner reunited onscreen, with McCord as a cop from L.A. who visits Milner, a onetime LAPD officer who moved to Nashville and rose to captain. Together they fight a man behind increasing gang activity.

Also in the ’80s Milner guested on “Fantasy Island,” “Airwolf” and “MacGyver” (playing MacGyver’s father), among other shows. On “Murder, She Wrote” he appeared in five different roles between 1985 and 1996.

After his last visit with Jessica Fletcher, the actor appeared on “Diagnosis Murder” in 1997 and thereupon retired from the screen.

Back at the beginning of his career, the young, clean-cut Milner appeared in a number of war movies, including two with John Wayne, “Sands of Iwo Jima” and “Operation Pacific,” and one with Richard Widmark, “Halls of Montezuma.” (The actor did a sizable number of war movies, of varying quality, over the course of his film career.) But Milner also did a teen-centered comedy and a teencentric social-issues drama.

He got his start in television early in his career and early in the history of the medium, guesting on “The Lone Ranger” in 1950 and recurring on eight episodes of “The Stu Erwin Show” in 1950-51.

Milner moved between film and TV throughout the 1950s.

In 1951’s “I Want You,” starring Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire and Farley Granger, Milner’s character has been drafted for service in the Korean War, and his father pleads with Milner’s employer to declare the kid “indispensable,” which would mean he could continue working and avoid the fight. Milner’s employer, played by Andrews, refuses, and Milner’s character is later killed in action. Milner had not yet made it: Though his role (if not, perhaps, his performance) is central to the film, the New York Times did not mention him by name in its review.

The actor appeared in the film noir “The Captive City”; the comic fantasy “My Wife’s Best Friend,” starring Anne Baxter; and the Western “Springfield Rifle,” with Gary Cooper, to give a sense of the miscellany of assignments Milner was drawing in the early ’50s.

In 1955 he appeared in a small role in”Mister Roberts,” starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell.

By 1956 the tide had turned for Milner: He was now doing more television than film, perhaps frustrated that he was still relegated to little more than bit parts in A pictures and had to rely on B pictures for somewhat more substantive supporting roles. Still, he had a couple of his most memorable film roles ahead of him.

In 1957 he appeared in two pictures starring Burt Lancaster. The first was “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” in which Milner played James, the youngest of the four Earp brothers (at least in the movie). The second was “Sweet Smell of Success,” a very different film in which Lancaster played a caustic New York columnist who’s inappropriately possessive of his sister, who becomes romantically involved with Milner’s jazz guitarist; Lancaster’s character stops at nothing to destroy this relationship. Milner finally turned in an impressive performance in an A picture, and even got his mention in the New York Times: “Marty Milner is sincere and believable as her indomitable romantic vis-a-vis.”

He subsequently had decent supporting roles in A pictures “Marjorie Morningstar,” starring Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly, and “Compulson,” starring Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. Reviewing the latter, the Times said, “Mention should be made, too, of Martin Milner’s restrained depiction of her fiancé.”

Despite the success these newest film roles represented Milner was spending more and more of his time guesting on various TV series, and he seemed to decide that exploitation films would afford him more exposure. In 1960 he made two very silly, very bad movies with Mamie Van Doren and the horror film “13 Ghosts,” produced by William Castle. He was prominently featured in all of these.

But then “Route 66” changed the course of his career.

Martin Sam Milner was born in Detroit. Both his parents were in showbiz: His father was a film distributor, his mother a dancer.

Milner was a man of various interests. He tried Broadway in 1967 in brief-running “The Ninety Day Mistress.”

After he stopped acting, he co-hosted a radio show in Southern California, “Let’s Talk HookUp,” about freshwater and saltwater fishing, for a number of years. In the early 1970s he bought a 24-acre avocado farm where he lived with his family.

Survivors include Milner’s wife, Judith Bess “Judy” Jones, a former singer and actress to whom he had been married since 1957; daughter Molly; and sons Stuart and Andrew. Daughter Amy, who appeared in an episode of “Adam-12,” died of acute myeloid leukemia in 2004.

[Zoneboy]

Link

Martin Milner, who starred on TV on “Adam-12” with Kent McCord and, earlier, on “Route 66” with George Maharis, died Sunday night, Diana Downing, a representative for his fan page, confirmed. He was 83.

Milner was also known for his roles as a jazz guitarist in the brilliant 1957 film “Sweet Smell of Success” and in the 1967 camp classic “Valley of the Dolls.”

Milner began acting in movies while a teen, after his father got him an agent, first appearing in the 1947 classic “Life With Father.” The film starred William Powell and Irene Dunne, and thus Milner, along with his co-star Elizabeth Taylor, bridged the generations in Hollywood between the golden age and contemporary era.

He appeared as Officer Pete Molloy alongside Kent McCord’s Officer Jim Reed in NBC’s “Adam-12” from 1968-75. Molloy was the seasoned, savvy veteran bringing along Reed who was, at first, a rookie.

The innovative series had a more realistic quality than previous cop shows: The partners, on which the show narrowly focused, would patrol with no idea what they would encounter through the course of the day, and viewers got to witness the highs and lows in their lives.

Milner had a long association with Jack Webb, whose Mark VII Ltd. produced “Adam-12” and had produced “Dragnet” since 1951. After Webb and Milner met on the set of the movie “Halls of Montezuma” in 1950, Webb cast Milner in various roles on “Dragnet” in the early ’50s, first on radio and then when the crime drama transitioned to TV, where Milner appeared in six episodes of “Dragnet” from 1952-55.

Milner even appeared as a drummer in the Webb-directed 1955 feature “Pete Kelly’s Blues.” (The actor did not know how to play the guitar, so he was not really playing in “Sweet Smell of Success.”)

Webb later chose Milner to star in “Adam-12” and directed the pilot episode; as a producer, Webb liked to do crossover episodes between his various series for promotional purposes; Officers Molloy and Reed were introduced on episodes of “Dragnet” and also appeared on episodes of the brief Mark VII show “The D.A.,” starring Robert Conrad, as well as on “Emergency.”

“Route 66” ran on CBS from 1960-64, about a decade before “Adam-12” and resolutely not produced by Webb: Written and lensed across North America and inspired by the spirit of Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road,” the series followed Milner’s Tod Stiles and George Maharis’ Buz Murdock as they traveled from town to town in a Corvette, exploring social issues and the changing cultural landscape.

As “Adam-12” ended in 1975, Milner transitioned smoothly to the Irwin Allen-produced series “Swiss Family Robinson,” in which he played the paterfamilias. When that series proved short lived, Milner went on to appear in a variety of TV movies; there was also a guest spot on “Police Story.”

In the 1989 TV movie “Nashville Beat,” Kent McCord (who had a story credit) and Milner reunited onscreen, with McCord as a cop from L.A. who visits Milner, a onetime LAPD officer who moved to Nashville and rose to captain. Together they fight a man behind increasing gang activity.

Also in the ’80s Milner guested on “Fantasy Island,” “Airwolf” and “MacGyver” (playing MacGyver’s father), among other shows. On “Murder, She Wrote” he appeared in five different roles between 1985 and 1996.

After his last visit with Jessica Fletcher, the actor appeared on “Diagnosis Murder” in 1997 and thereupon retired from the screen.

Back at the beginning of his career, the young, clean-cut Milner appeared in a number of war movies, including two with John Wayne, “Sands of Iwo Jima” and “Operation Pacific,” and one with Richard Widmark, “Halls of Montezuma.” (The actor did a sizable number of war movies, of varying quality, over the course of his film career.) But Milner also did a teen-centered comedy and a teencentric social-issues drama.

He got his start in television early in his career and early in the history of the medium, guesting on “The Lone Ranger” in 1950 and recurring on eight episodes of “The Stu Erwin Show” in 1950-51.

Milner moved between film and TV throughout the 1950s.

In 1951’s “I Want You,” starring Dana Andrews, Dorothy McGuire and Farley Granger, Milner’s character has been drafted for service in the Korean War, and his father pleads with Milner’s employer to declare the kid “indispensable,” which would mean he could continue working and avoid the fight. Milner’s employer, played by Andrews, refuses, and Milner’s character is later killed in action. Milner had not yet made it: Though his role (if not, perhaps, his performance) is central to the film, the New York Times did not mention him by name in its review.

The actor appeared in the film noir “The Captive City”; the comic fantasy “My Wife’s Best Friend,” starring Anne Baxter; and the Western “Springfield Rifle,” with Gary Cooper, to give a sense of the miscellany of assignments Milner was drawing in the early ’50s.

In 1955 he appeared in a small role in”Mister Roberts,” starring Henry Fonda, James Cagney and William Powell.

By 1956 the tide had turned for Milner: He was now doing more television than film, perhaps frustrated that he was still relegated to little more than bit parts in A pictures and had to rely on B pictures for somewhat more substantive supporting roles. Still, he had a couple of his most memorable film roles ahead of him.

In 1957 he appeared in two pictures starring Burt Lancaster. The first was “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,” in which Milner played James, the youngest of the four Earp brothers (at least in the movie). The second was “Sweet Smell of Success,” a very different film in which Lancaster played a caustic New York columnist who’s inappropriately possessive of his sister, who becomes romantically involved with Milner’s jazz guitarist; Lancaster’s character stops at nothing to destroy this relationship. Milner finally turned in an impressive performance in an A picture, and even got his mention in the New York Times: “Marty Milner is sincere and believable as her indomitable romantic vis-a-vis.”

He subsequently had decent supporting roles in A pictures “Marjorie Morningstar,” starring Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly, and “Compulson,” starring Orson Welles, Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman. Reviewing the latter, the Times said, “Mention should be made, too, of Martin Milner’s restrained depiction of her fiancé.”

Despite the success these newest film roles represented Milner was spending more and more of his time guesting on various TV series, and he seemed to decide that exploitation films would afford him more exposure. In 1960 he made two very silly, very bad movies with Mamie Van Doren and the horror film “13 Ghosts,” produced by William Castle. He was prominently featured in all of these.

But then “Route 66” changed the course of his career.

Martin Sam Milner was born in Detroit. Both his parents were in showbiz: His father was a film distributor, his mother a dancer.

Milner was a man of various interests. He tried Broadway in 1967 in brief-running “The Ninety Day Mistress.”

After he stopped acting, he co-hosted a radio show in Southern California, “Let’s Talk HookUp,” about freshwater and saltwater fishing, for a number of years. In the early 1970s he bought a 24-acre avocado farm where he lived with his family.

Survivors include Milner’s wife, Judith Bess “Judy” Jones, a former singer and actress to whom he had been married since 1957; daughter Molly; and sons Stuart and Andrew. Daughter Amy, who appeared in an episode of “Adam-12,” died of acute myeloid leukemia in 2004.

[Bonniegirl]

Oh No!!! RIP Martin! My Father looked a lot like him but with darker hair! I was just thinking of Adam 12. I was about to post on Randolph Mantooth's thread how he guest starred on Adam 12! Than I saw on here Martin Milner had passed!! Sad!!

[Zoneboy]

Didn't realize we had a separate board for "Adam-12" or else I just forgot.

Martin

[Mr. Television]

Adam 12 was a great show and one of the more realistic police shows of the 1970's. I've also been catching Route 66 on Me-TV. That's a pretty good show too. R.I.P. Martin. You were a TV legend.

[Mickey4ever]

Sorry to hear this news, but he gave many years of enjoyable entertainment. I remember him in 'Life With Father' as a youngster, and he certainly moved on in movies and television.

[Tankeryanker]

End of Watch 09-07-2015

[ponytail]

That is so sad. Adam-12 was one show we all watched.

[AB]

Rest in peace. He was a wonderful actor in both Adam-12 and Route 66.

[Mr. Television]

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...08-column.html


Appreciation Martin Milner's less-is-more style drove 'Route 66,' 'Adam-12'

Martin Milner, who died Monday in Los Angeles at the age of 82, acted in many movies and many episodes of many television shows in a career that lasted half a century. But he'll be best remembered for two television series, "Route 66," which ran on CBS from 1960 to 1964, and Jack Webb's "Adam-12," on NBC from 1968 to 1975 — shows born at opposite ends of a decade split down the middle culturally, socially and politically, and yet similar in many respects.


Both star two men and an automobile — a Chevrolet Corvette in the first instance, and an LAPD patrol car in the second; many scenes are played on wheels. Both were episodic, semi-anthologies, in which the main, recurring characters were also somewhat beside the point. Both were shot almost entirely on location, "Route 66" in 25 states and "Adam-12" all over Los Angeles.



And although they come at it from opposite directions, each is doggedly engaged with real-world issues, with ideas of order and disorder, freedom and responsibility. The Kennedy-era "Route 66," whose working title was "The Searchers," was inspired by Jack Kerouac's recently published "On the Road," whereas "Adam-12," which rode in with the law-and-order Nixon administration, descended from Webb's "Dragnet."



In "Route 66," Milner's Tod Stiles and his successive dark-haired partners — played by George Maharis and Glenn Corbett in turn — cruise the country, living life; it is an early-'60s network television impression of an existential quest. Their travels bring them up against all sorts of people, but significantly the show spends time among the laboring class in a way nearly unthinkable in television today. Though the stories can run to melodrama, "Route 66" is aesthetically of a piece with New Wave and kitchen-sink cinema, its low-overhead, off-the-street, art-house contemporaries.


"Adam 12" does its work within Webb's famous, just-the-facts house style. (Kent McCord, as Jim Reed, is the dark-haired partner there, to Milner's older, wiser Pete Malloy; as in "Route 66," Milner drove the car.) Although it has the flat, overlit look of most television of its time, and a certain stylistic stiffness, it too means to represent a from-the-files, only-the-names-changed actuality. If the men of "Route 66" illustrate Bob Dylan's soon-to-be-recorded observation that to live outside the law you must be honest, the point of "Adam-12" is that living inside the law makes you honest by definition — it's the rules that make you free.

Although there is action in both series — fistfights, that old exercise of manliness, are a regular feature of "Route 66," while "Adam 12" requires its policemen sometimes to knock down a door, draw a gun or chase a perp — the characters are observers of the action as much as or more than they are participants. They might deliver a character to judgment, but they don't deliver the judgment.

They help the story along, often crucially, but it isn't about them. They ask questions and make comments, and sometimes a joke, but mostly they listen while others talk.

And so for the viewer, much of watching Milner consists in watching him watch; indeed, much of what we know about his characters — in both series, the background is sketchy — is expressed in these moments, in how he reacts to what the world is showing him, and how those reactions evolve. It's often said that good acting is good listening, and Milner was a minor master of the art of attention. He draws you in most when he appears to do the least; he was powerful because he was present.

[Mr. Television]

http://deadline.com/2015/09/martin-m...ar-1201516908/


“He was one of the great guys in our industry, and one of the greatest friends and co-workers that anyone could imagine,” McCord told Deadline. “Our children were the same age and our families spent holidays together. He became one of my dearest and closest friends. He was a great human being.”

They had been friends for nearly 50 years – one of Hollywood’s longest running friendships. “I got a call from Marty’s son last night that he had passed away,” McCord said. “I saw him about three weeks ago, so it wasn’t a shocking surprise. He and I had a wonderful friendship for all these years. I knew him as a fan first from Route 66. Glenn Corbett, who was a friend of mine, replaced George Maharis on Route 66. I was cast first in Adam-12, and when he learned that Marty was going to be on Adam-12, he said, ‘You’re just gonna love this guy.’ And he wasn’t wrong.”

Their first encounter was in 1965 on the set of Gidget, the TV series, where Milner was guest starring and McCord was a young background player. Two years later, they were starring together on Adam-12, and remained friends ever since.

Before shooting the pilot for Adam-12, producer Bob Cinadar had them go on ride-alongs with LAPD officers, and one day they wound up together at the Van Nuys jail. “We were standing around at a staging area,” McCord recalled, “and Marty kind of yawned and said, ‘I can never sleep before I start one of these,’ and I thought, ‘Thank God. He’s not the only one.’ It immediately put me at ease. He was the consummate professional.”

On hiatus, sometimes the two friends would just take off and drive around the country together to promote the show. “If we went east, we’d rent a car and drive to the next appearance,” McCord laughed. “We’d call the NBC affiliate in Indianapolis and say we were coming to town and they’d put us on the morning news show. People would say, ‘You guys look like you like each other,’ and the truth of it is that we did. We had such a good time. We had a lot of fun together. I can’t say enough good things about him. I got so lucky.”

[MichaelKeith]

He will be missed by many fans. I have the first couple of seasons of Route 66 and Adam 12 on DVD and really enjoy watching them.

[Coffeecup]

It is so nice that they stayed close after leaving the show they worked. A lot of us never see or try to see the people we once knew.

[Flying Dutchman]

Now there was a TV actor I liked alot. He was why I watched Adam 12. R.I.P. Martin Milner.

[OH Nuts!]

He was a great actor and may he rest in peace.