LOS ANGELES (AP) – Martin Milner, whose wholesome good looks helped make him the star of two hugely popular 1960s TV series, “Route 66” and “Adam-12,” has died.
He was 83. “Adam-12” co-star Kent McCord, who spoke to Milner’s children, said Milner died Sunday. He said the family is doing well, but gave no other details.
Milner, who began his career as a teen actor, shot to fame in 1960 with co-star George Maharis in the iconic TV drama “Route 66,” which found two restless young men roaming the highway author John Steinbeck had dubbed “The Mother Road” in a red Corvette convertible.
Milner was Tod Stiles, a young man born to wealth but suddenly broke when his father died and left him nothing but the new Corvette. Maharis was Buz Murdock, a hardened survivor of New York City’s Hell’s Kitchen.
Together they toured the country in Tod’s new Corvette, meeting all kinds of people and becoming involved with their lives. The series was said to have been inspired by Jack Kerouac’s novel “On the Road” and it featured such weekly guest stars as Robert Redford, Alan Alda and Gene Hackman in some of their earliest roles.