Gay actor George Maharis has died (Stan)

Stan just posted this at his site and he asked me if  I would repost it here (I will gladly):

Gay actor George Maharis has died

 

George Maharis has died.  He was many things.  But I've read the obit at THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER and at DEADLINE and they both ignore the man was gay. 

I knew he was gay when I was a kid.

It was the eighties.  I was watching one of my favorite programs and all excited because it was a two-parter and that meant that the next day there would be another episode with the storyline.

The next day?  It was in syndication.  It was a 70s show.  THE BIONIC WOMAN -- a great show starring a great actress Linsday Wagner.  I liked THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN but I loved THE BIONIC WOMAN.  Jamie was so cool and so friendly and bionic.  

So I'm bragging about this episode at dinner and my aunt was at dinner because she was staying with us while her house was being painted (inside of the house).  So she watches the second part with me the next day.  She enjoys it too and I'm thinking maybe Bob Welton, the police officer on the show, we'll be back for another episode later on.

Probably not, my aunt said.

Why?  

He's gay, the actor is gay, said my aunt.  

The actor playing Bob Welton in that two-parter who had such great chemistry with Lindsay Wagner.  This was in the 80s.

It's now 2023 and they can't note that the man who just died was gay?

I called C.I. to make sure and she said, yeah, he was gay.  She was surprised it wasn't in the obits.

But it's not.  Which is why I'm calling y post "Gay actor George Maharis has died" -- gay actor to burn the closet down.

My aunt knew, in the 80s, that he was gay and that he wouldn't get a continuing part on the show -- or any other -- because of it.

WIKIEPDIA notes:

In 1960, Maharis appeared as Buz Murdock in the TV series Route 66, which co-starred Martin Milner. Maharis was 32 at the time the series started, although the character he was playing was only 23. He received an Emmy nomination in 1962 for his continuing performance as Buz.

Maharis departed without completing his third season of the series, which saw him with health problems, including hepatitis.^[3][4]

  

Maharis said he left Route 66 for health reasons, because of long hours and grueling conditions while shooting on location. "I have to protect my future", Maharis said in a 1963 interview. "If I keep going at the present pace, I'm a fool. Even if you have $4,000,000 in the bank, you can't buy another liver."^[5]

Series producers Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard disputed Maharis' stated position, arguing that he desired to break his contract in order to make movies.^[5] Maharis biographer Karen Blocher wrote that "the producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis's sexual orientation, and never trusted him again," and she speculated "in a less homophobic era, they might have communicated better, and worked things out."^[6] After Maharis' departure, the show's appeal declined. Glenn Corbett acted in the role of Milner's new sidekick, Linc Case. A year later Route 66 was canceled.^{[citation needed]} 

 

It's a single sentence ("sexual orientation" and "homophobic era") and nothing else in the entire entry.

 

 Back in 2020, David Ehrenstein wrote:

George Maharis has enjoyed a long career. But for all the different roles he’s played on stage and screen, he’s most famous for the TV series Route 66. It was obviously inspired by Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. But Maharis and co-star Martin Milner played the most buttoned-down “bohemians” ever seen — riding their sports car from place to place and interacting with people in a style more like that of friendly grocery clerks than beatniks.

Strikingly handsome as is clear from this photograph…

10 x 8″ (25 x 20 cm.) photo, fine.

Maharis had a difficult time being his gay self, being obliged, as all actors were at that time, to stay in the closet. Arrested twice for having sex with men in restrooms (1967 and 1974), Maharis still managed to secure work up until 1993. At 92, he is officially retired and is still quite the looker.

 

 In 2012, GAY INFLUENCE noted:

Hollywood actor George Maharis (b. 1928) was arrested November 21, 1974 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. Six years earlier 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.

Well, now that we have that out of the way...

Best known for his role as Buz Murdock on the hit 1960s CBS television series Route 66, Maharis had just posed nude for Playgirl magazine the year before his 1974 arrest. Route 66 was a 1960-1964 series about two guys and a Corvette who roamed the country together – often dressed in coats and ties, for no apparent reason. I kid you not. Maharis received an Emmy nomination for this role in 1962. However, Maharis left the wildly popular show before it ended its run, and there has been much speculation as to why.

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 (in the role of Tod) and a Route 66 writer-producer confirm this version.

Maharis eventually did break into movies, but they were all forgettable B-grade films. Maharis also played stage roles, but nothing ever matched his success as Buz on Route 66, and the TV show never recovered from Maharis’s departure.

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.”

Maharis also had a singing career, releasing seven albums between the years 1962 and 1966, a time period that overlapped his appearance on Route 66. Maharis regularly appeared in Las Vegas nightclubs during the 1980s. Video below.

 

From 2016, here's another from GAY CULTURE LAND:

 

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.

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.

 

Here's his top ten hit "Teach Me Tonight."

 

And here he is performing the song.

 

 

 

He was incredibly talented.  I can remember that two-parter of THE BIONIC WOMAN to this day.  He should have had a lot more work.  Homophobia had a big impact on his career.

 

Going out with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"