George Maharis

With his Mediterranean good looks and his charisma, this actor/singer/painter was leading man material. He didn't have the career that he deserved though. Perhaps the fact that he never cared to carefully conceal the fact that he is gay played a major part in this.

Tall, dark and handsome, not to mention a charismatic rebel of 60s Hollywood, actor George Maharis (real Greek family name is Mahairas) was born in 1928 in Astoria, New York as one of seven children. His immigrant father was a restaurateur. George expressed an early interest in singing and initially pursued it as a career, but extensive overuse and improper vocal lessons stripped his chords and he subsequently veered towards an acting career.

Trained at the Neighborhood Playhouse with Sanford Meisner and the Actor's Studio with Lee Strasberg, the "Method" actor found roles on dramatic TV, including a few episodes of "The Naked City," and secured an early name for himself on the late 1950s's off-Broadway scene, especially with his performances in Jean Genet's "Deathwatch" and Edward Albee's "Zoo Story". Producer/director Otto Preminger "discovered" George for film, offering the actor a choice of five small roles for his upcoming film Exodus (1960). George chose the role of an underground freedom fighter.

One of the episodes George did on the police drama "The Naked City" series ("Four Sweet Corners") wound up being a roundabout pilot for the buddy adventure series that would earn him household fame. With the arrival of the series Route 66 (1960), the actor earned intense TV stardom and a major cult following as a Brandoesque, streetwise drifter named Buzz Murdock. Partnered with the more fair-skinned, clean-scrubbed, college-educated Tod Stiles (Martin Milner, later star of Adam-12 (1968)), the duo traveled throughout the US in a hotshot convertible Corvette and had a huge female audience getting their kicks off with "Route 66" and George. During its peak, the star parlayed his TV fame into a recording career with Epic Records, producing six albums in the process and peaking at #25 in the US, in 1962, with the single Teach Me Tonight.

His next single, Love Me As I Love You, peaked at #54:

His next hit single, Baby Has Gone Bye Bye, made #62:

He also had two Hot 100 hit singles in 1963. Don't Fence Me In made #93:

His last single to hit the Hot 100, also in 1963, That's How It Goes / It Isn't There peaked at #88. Here's the latter:

He had some great moments with other artists too. Here he is, together with the unique Judy Garland:

Here's a very interesting curiosity: The Animals, Dionne Warwick, Joe & Eddie, and George Maharis, with Dylan's It Ain't Me Babe, and Blowin' In The Wind, on a US TV show in 1965.

During the middle of the Route 66's third season peak, Maharis abruptly left the series. Maharis told the story that he had contracted infectious hepatitis in 1962, and that the shoots were so grueling that to continue would risk his health. He asked the producers to give him a less arduous schedule, but they refused, and he left the show, to be replaced by Glenn Corbett in the role of  Lincoln Case. However, others relate a different scenario. Route 66 producer Herbert B. Leonard found out that Maharis was gay and was having a hard time keeping his star’s sexual activities away from the press. Maharis also used the illness, Leonard said, as an excuse to break his contract so that he could get into movies. Co-star Martin Milner and a Route 66 writer-producer confirm this version.

According to Karen Blocher, who is working on a book about Maharis and has interviewed him for the project, the reality of why Maharis left Route 66 is a combination of the two. She writes, “The producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis's sexual orientation, and never trusted him again. Maharis, for his part, started to feel that he was carrying the show and was going unappreciated. So when he got sick, and came back, and started griping about the working conditions, the producers assumed it was all a ploy to either get more money or else get out of his contract and go make movies. In a less homophobic era, they might have communicated better, and worked things out instead of letting each other down.”

For whatever reason, Maharis left. His replacement, ruggedly handsome Glenn Corbett, failed to click with audiences and the series was canceled after the next season. Back to films, the brash and confident actor, with his health scare over, aggressively pursued stardom with a number of leads but the duds he found himself in - Quick Before It Melts (1964), Sylvia (1965), A Covenant with Death (1967), The Happening (1967), and The Desperados (1969) prime among his list of disasters - hampered his chances. The best of the lot was the suspense drama, The Satan Bug (1965), but it lacked box-office appeal and disappeared quickly.

Moreover, a 1967 sex scandal (and a subsequent one in 1974) could not have helped. In 1967 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. On November 21, 1974, Maharis was arrested 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.

To be honest, I saw The Happening as a child and I liked it. What was not to like: it contained one of my favorite songs by the Supremes, there were three very good looking men (Maharis, Michael Parks and Robert Walker Jr.), the star was an actor I liked (Anthony Quinn), it was Faye Dunaway's second movie part (the following one would be Bonnie and Clyde) and she was gorgeous and the rest of the cast also included some excellent actors like Martha Hyer, Milton Berle, Oskar Homolka, Jack Kruschen and Clifton James. Was it a good film? Probably not. I haven't watched it since to really have an opinion. However, there's no way I'm not including the song by the Supremes.

Maharis has also recorded six albums, four of which charted in the US Top 200. His first, George Maharis Sings! (1962), was his biggest hit, peaking at #10. It contained Teach Me Tonight, as well as I Want To Be Wanted, the album's opening song:

The album's final track was After The Lights Go Down Low:

His next charting album was Portrait In Music (1962). It peaked at #32. In it, there was Love Me As I Love You. Also in this album was They Knew About You:

His next charting album was Just Turn Me Loose! (1963). It peaked at #129. It contained Baby Has Gone Bye Bye, and Don't Fence Me In. Also included was What Kind Of Fool Am I?:

His final charting album was Where Can You Go For A Broken Heart? (1963). It peaked at #77. Here's the title track:

Finally, from non-charting album Tonight You Belong To Me (1964), here's Always In My Heart:

Returning to TV in the 70s, George returned to series TV with the short-lived The Most Deadly Game (1970) co-starring fellow criminologists Ralph Bellamy and Yvette Mimieux (who replaced the late Inger Stevens who committed suicide shortly before shooting was about to start). The decade also included a spat of TV-movies including the more notable The Monk (1969) and Rich Man, Poor Man (1976). In between he appeared in Las Vegas nightclubs and summer stock, and was one of the first celebrities to pose for a nude centerfold in Playgirl (July 1973).

His last years brought about the occasional film, most notably as the resurrected warlock in The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) and an appearance in the horror thriller Doppelganger (1993). With his "bad boy" glory days behind him, Maharis' TV career ended rather routinely with guest parts on such popular but unchallenging shows such as "Fantasy Island" and "Murder, She Wrote".

Maharis' later years were spent focusing on impressionistic painting. He has been fully retired since the early 1990s. He is still alive and well and in an excellent shape for an 88-year-old man.