Bio: Martin Sam Milner was born December 28, 1931 in Detroit, Michigan. His mother, Jerre Martin, originally from Oregon, was a dancer with the Paramount Theater circuit. His father, Sam Gordon Milner, a Polish Jewish immigrant, was a film distributor. The Milners moved to Seattle when Martin was a baby and to Los Angeles soon after. At age 15, Martin's father got him an agent and he was chosen to play the role of "John Day" in Life with Father (1947), Warner Bros.' version of Clarence Day, Jr.'s popular Broadway play. Milner contracted polio shortly after filming was completed and his career was put on hold for a year as he recovered from the illness. After graduating from North Hollywood High School and studying for one year at the University of Southern California, Milner worked steadily in films during the years 1949-1960. He appeared in films such as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Marjorie Morningstar (1958) and Sweet Smell of Success (1957). He put his career on hold again when he was inducted into the Army in 1952 for two years. Shortly after joining the Army, he was assigned to the Human Research Division, where he directed military training films and served as Master of Ceremonies for a touring show based at Fort Ord, California. Milner married television actress and singer Judy Jones in 1957 and they have four children--Amy, Molly, Stuart, and Andrew.Milner met Jack Webb during the filming of Halls of Montezuma (1951) and later worked with him on his "Dragnet" radio show as well as the TV series Dragnet (1951). Milner appeared as 17-year-old high school student "Stephen Banner" in the episode "The Big Producer" in 1952. According to Webb's biography "Just the Facts, Ma'am", Webb owed Milner money from a card game. When Webb called him to the studio to pay him back, he offered Milner a role in the "Dragnet" radio show. After that, Webb continued to find roles for Milner until he offered him the role of "Pete Malloy" on Adam-12 (1968). Milner continued to appear in films throughout the 1970s and 1980s and made many guest appearances on television shows such as Murder, She Wrote (1984), the "Columbo" made-for-TV movies, MacGyver (1985), and Diagnosis Murder (1993). Milner was an avid fisherman and has been co-host of the syndicated radio talk show "Let's Talk Hook-up" since 1993. He also hosts fishing trips through "Let's Talk Hook-Up."Apart from the Webb connection, Milner starred as "Tod Stiles" in his own groundbreaking CBS-TV series, Route 66 (1960). The series was notable for its coast-to-coast location shooting, eloquent scripts by co-creator Stirling Silliphant and others, impressive guest casts, and a distinctive theme song by Nelson Riddle. The series allowed Milner to explore a range of characterizations as his nomadic travels in a Corvette convertible took him from job to job all over the United States, where he dug deeply into the lives of the people he encountered there -- with traveling companions "Buz Murdock" (George Maharis) and, after Maharis left the show, "Lincoln Case" (Glenn Corbett).
Tivia: Was the visual inspiration for the original illustrations of the superhero Green Lantern/Guy Gardner (created in 1968). Milner was 37 years old at the point.His role as veteran patrol officer Pete Malloy in Adam-12 (1968) inspired generations of kids to become cops. He got letters from policemen thanking him for "Adam-12". On Sept. 7, 2015, Los Angeles Chief of Police Charlie Beck said that the show and Milner "embodied the spirit of the LAPD to millions of viewers. His depiction of a professional and tough yet compassionate cop led to thousands of men and women applying to become LAPD officers, including me." [2015/09/07].Died peacefully on a Sunday night at his home in Carlsbad, CA, surrounded by his family.According to his audio commentary on a The Twilight Zone (1959) DVD, he initially turned down Adam-12 (1968) to appear in a play he thought would be more successful, but the play flopped.Married singer and actress Judith Bess Jones on February 23, 1957. They had four children together: two daughters, Amy and Molly; and two sons, Stuart and Andrew. Amy, the eldest daughter, died of acute myeloid leukemia in 2004.His memorial service occurred six days after his passing in Oceanside, CA, with law-enforcement and community members paying tribute to him.According to ex-Adam-12 (1968) co-star, Kent McCord, he said Milner was a strict performer, who drank just a little, who never drank during working hours, except for the 1 night while shooting. They were shooting a scene that winter, since it was so cold, Milner needed to have a shot of brandy to stay warm and the two didn't have a lot of dialogue to do, so, they got into the interior of the car, later, where he snuggled in and he had fallen asleep.Has played the same character (Officer Peter Malloy) in four different series: Dragnet 1967 (1967), Adam-12 (1968), The D.A. (1971) and Emergency! (1972).Milner, at age 28, shot to fame in 1960 with co-star George Maharis in the iconic TV drama Route 66 (1960), 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 "Buzz 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 actors--early in their careers--as Robert Redford, Alan Alda and Gene Hackman. As much a star of the show as Milner and Maharais was Route 66 itself. Although it has sine been bypassed in favor of bigger, faster interstates, the iconic highway stretched unbroken from Chicago to the Pacific Ocean during the show's heyday and was venerated as strongly contributing to the country's 20th-century westward migration. "Route 66" was the ONLY television program filmed entirely on location in the early 1960s, moving to new towns and cities for each new episode. Ironically, however, the action often took place off the highway. "The problem was that once you get into Oklahoma and Texas on the route, the scenery is flat and boring," Milner recounted in a 1997 interview. "Pictorially it just wasn't very interesting." Maharis, who became ill with hepatitis and missed part of the third season, left "Route 66" at the end of that year amid rumors of a contract dispute. Maharis was replaced by Glenn Corbett, who played a war hero trying to cope with civilian life. The magic was gone, however, and the show lasted just one more season.Owned an avocado farm.Milner and Adam-12 (1968) co-star Kent McCord were reunited in a Nashville Beat (1989) on the Nashville Network. McCord played an L.A. cop visiting his friend Milner, an ex-L.A. cop who became a Nashville cop.His forthright manner and wholesome looks made him a popular choice to play cops, military officers and other authority figures.Two television shows in which he starred and for which he is probably most famous, Route 66 (1960) and Adam-12 (1968), are both renowned for filming primarily on location as opposed to on a Hollywood sound stage.His passions were "family and fishing, in that order" as he told People Magazine during an interview in 1995.In 1968 he signed on to another "buddy" series, Adam-12 (1968) This time he was Officer Pete Malloy, a veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department assisted by rookie cop Jim Reed, played by Kent McCord. "I had a long, long friendship with Marty and we remained friends up 'til the end," McCord said. "He was one of the really true great people of our industry with a long, distinguished career--wonderful films, wonderful television shows, pioneering shows like Route 66 (1960). He was one of the great guys. I was lucky to have him in my life." The series was produced by Jack Webb, who applied the same realistic treatment of police procedures that he had in his "Dragnet" TV shows, in which he was Sgt. Joe Friday. During the seven-year life of "Adam 12" both Reed and Malloy won promotions. Milner had met Webb years before "Route 66" when both were appearing in Halls of Montezuma (1951), and Webb had hired Milner for an early radio version of "Dragnet." Later Milner appeared in several episodes of Dragnet (1951). When he was in the US Army stationed at northern California's Ford Ord, he would sometimes visit Los Angeles and look Webb up. "Even though there wasn't a part for me in 'Dragnet' that week," Milner recalled in 1989, "Jack would write one in so I could collect $125".Served in the Army from 1952-54.Father of four children: Andrew Milner, the late Amy Milner, Stuart Milner and Molly.Has been a co-host of "Let's Talk Hookup", a radio show for fly fishing enthusiasts, since 1993.Family moved to Seattle where he worked as a child actor in local plays, and then moved to Los Angeles, where his movie career began in his early teens.His father, Sam, was a film distributor, and his mother, Mildred, known professionally as Jerre Martin, was a dancer with the Paramount Theater circuit.Top-billed in two iconic television series with numbers in their title: Route 66 (1960) and Adam-12 (1968).His remains were cremated. His ashes were given to his wife, Judith.