George Maharis, Buz Murdock of Route 66, has died at the age of ninety-four. The Hollywood Reporter has an obituary.
After watching all of Route 66 in 2013, Elaine and I wrote fan letters to George Maharis and Martin Milner. Here’s one of them:
Dear Mr. Maharis,And George Maharis wrote back.
We spent a good part of April, May, and June watching the complete run of Route 66 on DVD. We’re writing to thank you — fifty years late — for the terrific work you did as Buz Murdock. We greatly enjoyed the series’s writing, camerawork, and, especially, the acting. Among our favorite Buz-centric episodes are “The Mud Nest” and “Even Stones Have Eyes.” We especially like Buz’s insistent optimism and willingness to believe in people, as when he tells the dancer Rosemarie Brown (Elizabeth Seal), “I see a champion.”
It is amazing to see a series that can range from tragedy to comedy, even slapstick, while always making room for fisticuffs, poetry, and progressive jazz. We’re both in our fifties — too young to have paid attention to Route 66 the first time around, but old enough now to realize how great the series was.
All best wishes,
*
The New York Times now has an obituary.
Related reading
All OCA Route 66 posts (Pinboard)
comments: 2
george maharis -- one the of the original heart throbs for young people.
as someone who grew up driving with my family across country many times, my dad told us at one point we had driven route 66 from beginning to end. this was in the mid-60s.
we drove back at one point from chicago in a corvair -- talk about no seat belts or really any seat in the back. my dad loved that car and my mom hated it.
depeche mode mix of the theme complete with photos of the route : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkB4COqwcW4
kirsten
I have a snapshot with me, maybe two years old, stretched out asleep on the back seat of the family Plymouth, probably coming home from the beach. Yikes. Even the car seats we had when our kids were little seem primitive by current standards,
Thanks for the Depeche Mode. That’s the Bobby Troup song they’re interpolating. The TV show had a theme by Nelson Riddle:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbvsqtPmaHc
There’s a meta moment in Route 66 with Tod and Buz in front of a store (I think) with a Nelson Riddle LP prominent in the window.
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