George Maharis

Actor George Maharis was a familiar leading man on television who became a star in the early 1960s playing Buz Murdock on the gearhead favorite, "Route 66." For two and a half seasons, Maharis, paired with Martin Milner, cruised the famed highway looking for adventure and meeting a steady flow of guest stars every week.

Serious, dark, and shot on location, the episodic "Route 66" was a breath of fresh air during a time when most American television shows turned away from the gritty realities of everyday life. "Leave It to Beaver" it was not. Maharis left the show partway through the third season because he was unable to work due to contracting hepatitis, a claim that was initially refuted by the show's executives, who believed that the hot-shot young actor wanted to work on feature films instead.

The actor did make the leap to the big screen, most notably in the science fiction thriller "The Satan Bug," the melodrama "Sylvia," and "The Happening," an attempt to cash in on the burgeoning anti-establishment youth market. He returned to television in 1970 as a regular on the Aaron Spelling show "The Most Deadly Game," but the show was cancelled after a season.

Scandal followed the actor once again when he posed for Playgirl magazine in 1973 and the following year was arrested for having sex with a male hairdresser in a men's gas station bathroom in Los Angeles. The ruggedly handsome, charismatic actor retired from acting in 1993. George Maharis died May 24, 2023 at the age of 94.