Though the generation just ahead of mine knew him for Route 66, I always knew Mr Milner for his longer-running role as Officer Pete Malloy on the Jack Webb series, Adam-12.
Malloy was the senior of the two cops riding in the patrol car coded "Adam-12," mentoring rookie Jim Reed (Kent McCord). Being a Jack Webb show, shot in cooperation with the LAPD, it was a very straight-shooting sort of affair, but they did tackle (with a bit less surrealism than their predecessor, Dragnet), the social issues of the late 60s and early 70s, as tough, fair, sometimes overwhelmed, but always dutiful public servants.
I often look back on that show, and its predecessor, as an idealized notion of what cops should be, what they tried to be, even in the face of the changes of that period. For myself, the cognitive dissonance between the public problems — shootings, paramilitarism, civil forfeiture, corruption — of today's police, and the ideals of that Adam-12 era, are what most bring home to me how times have changed.
But I digress. Milner was a fine actor — unambitious, gratified for his chance in the spotlight, but not driven to stay in Hollywood any longer than necessary. He died on Sunday at 83.
Thank you, sir, for many years (mostly in reruns) of entertainment.
NOOOOOO! :'(
Bummer. He actually got his start on radio, opposite Webb on "Dragnet."
used to watch Adam-12 all the time. Loved it.
I enjoyed this series when I was little of course, it was reruns then, but Adam-12 was very good series.
My dad grew up watching Adam-12, and I grew to love it, too with all the reruns airing to this day. Being Los Angeles natives, it was always fun to see the sites we remember and the LAPD Mopars/AMCs that my father remembered as a kid. What a great loss to LA history and TV history, I will greatly miss him.
+Theron Bretz Actually, he was in movies in 1947, before he encountered Webb (in The Halls of Montezuma, 1950). His work on the Dragnet radio show was in 1952, and he also appeared multiple times on the TV show. (http://mercurie.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-late-great-martin-milner.html for more .)