This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Martin Milner" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(May 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Martin Milner
Milner in 1960
Born	Martin Sam Milner (1931-12-28)December 28, 1931 Detroit, Michigan, U.S.
Died	September 6, 2015(2015-09-06) (aged 83) Carlsbad, California, U.S.
Alma mater	University of Southern California
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1947–1998
Spouse	Judith Bess "Judy" Jones ​ ​ (m. 1957)​
Children	4

Martin Sam Milner (December 28, 1931 – September 6, 2015) was an American actor and radio host. He is best known for his performances on two television series:Route 66, which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1964, andAdam-12, which aired on NBC from 1968 to 1975.

Milner was born on December 28, 1931,^[1] inDetroit, Michigan, the son of Mildred (née Martin), a Paramount Theater circuit dancer, and Sam Gordon Milner, who worked as a construction hand and later a film distributor.^[2] Sam was a Polish-Jewish immigrant.^[3] The family left Detroit when Milner was a young child, moved frequently, and settled inSeattle, Washington by the time he was nine. There he became involved in acting, first in school, and then in a children's theater group at the Cornish Playhouse.^[4]

When Milner was a teenager, he moved with his family to Los Angeles where his parents hired an acting coach and later an agent for him.^[5] Milner had his first screen test and began his film career with his debut in theWarner Bros. filmLife with Father (1947). Less than two weeks after that film was completed in August 1946, Milner contractedpolio.^[6] He recovered within a year and had bit parts in two more films, then was graduated fromNorth Hollywood High School in 1949. He immediately landed a minor role in the filmSands of Iwo Jima starringJohn Wayne.^[5]

Milner attended theUniversity of Southern California where he studied theater.^[7] He dropped out after a year in the fall of 1950 to concentrate on acting.^[8] He made his first television appearance in 1950 as a guest star in episode 28, "Pay Dirt", ofThe Lone Ranger. The same year, he began a recurring role as Drexel Potter on the sitcomThe Stu Erwin Show.

He had several more roles, both minor and major, in war films in the 1950s, including another John Wayne picture titledOperation Pacific (1951) andMister Roberts (1955), withWilliam Powell andHenry Fonda,James Cagney andJack Lemmon. On the set ofHalls of Montezuma (1950), he met and befriended actorJack Webb, and he began intermittent work on Webb's radio seriesDragnet.^[9]

In 1952, Milner began a two-year stint in the United States Army. Assigned toSpecial Services atFort Ord on California's Monterey Bay Peninsula, he directedtraining films^[5][6][10] and was both an M.C. and performer in skits for a touring unit created to entertain soldiers.^[8] Milner was encouraged by fellow soldier and future actorDavid Janssen to pursue an acting career when his time in the Army ended. Janssen and Milner served at Fort Ord with fellow future actorsClint Eastwood andRichard Long.^[11] While in the Army, Milner continued working forJack Webb, playing Officer Bill Lockwood (briefly the partner of Sgt. Friday) and other characters on theDragnet radio series on weekends. He also appeared on six episodes of Webb'sDragnet television series between 1952 and 1955.^[6]

After his military service ended, Milner had a recurring role onThe Life of Riley from 1953 to 1958. He also made guest appearances on numerous television shows, including episodes ofThe Bigelow Theatre,The Great Gildersleeve,TV Reader's Digest,Science Fiction Theatre,Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse,NBC Matinee Theater,The West Point Story,12 O'Clock High (Season 3, Episode 13, "Six Feet Under"),The Twilight Zone (episode: "Mirror Image"),Wagon Train andRawhide.

Milner was under contract at Hecht-Lancaster,Burt Lancaster's production company.^[5] He also acted in films, includingThe Long Gray Line (1955),Mister Roberts (1955),Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957),Sweet Smell of Success (1957),Marjorie Morningstar (1958), where he was able to draw on his Jewish roots playing the role of Wally Wronkin,Compulsion (1959), and13 Ghosts (1960). He later costarred inValley of the Dolls (1967), based on the best-selling novel byJacqueline Susann.^[6][9]

In 1960, Milner was cast asTod Stiles on the television seriesRoute 66, which ran from 1960 to 1964. Created byStirling Silliphant,Route 66 is about two regular but distinctly different young men in a car touring the United States. After the sudden death of his father left him penniless, save for a new Chevrolet Corvette, Milner's character travels across the United States in the Corvette, taking a variety of odd jobs along the way and getting involved in other people's problems. His traveling partner on his escapades is his friend Buz Murdock (played byGeorge Maharis), a former employee of his father's. During the series' third season,Glenn Corbett replaced Maharis, who claimed he was ill with hepatitis but later verified he wanted to break away to pursue other career opportunities.^[5][6][9] The show never regained its audience appeal with Corbett and was cancelled after a year.

Route 66 was shot on location, so Milner spent nearly four years traveling the US for the series, sometimes taking his wife and children along.^[6]

Milner appeared on Broadway once in the short-lived comedyThe Ninety Day Mistress in 1967.^[12]

By the mid-1960s, Milner and Jack Webb had a long-established working relationship. Milner had appeared in numerous episodes of both the radio and television versions of the seriesDragnet, and had worked with Webb in the filmsHalls of Montezuma (1950) andPete Kelly's Blues (1955).^[13]

In 1968, Milner returned to television as seven-yearLAPD veteran uniform patrol Officer Pete Malloy inAdam-12, a Webb-produced police drama.Kent McCord played his partner, rookie Officer Jim Reed. The series ran from 1968 to 1975. Like Webb'sDragnet, it was based on real Los Angeles Police Department procedures and cases.^[14]

Milner was Webb's choice for Malloy in part because of his relative youth and prior acting credits and because of his on-camera driving experience from his days onRoute 66.^[15] He guest-starred in three episodes ofEmergency! between 1972 and 1976, during and afterAdam-12's run on NBC, the first of which, and the best known, was the pilot movieThe Wedsworth-Townsend Act.^[16]

In 1971, Milner portrayed the murder victim in the premiere episode ofColumbo titled "Murder by the Book". AfterAdam-12, Milner starred as Karl Robinson in a television series version ofThe Swiss Family Robinson (1975–1976), produced byIrwin Allen.^[12] Most of his later work was as a guest star, includingMacGyver (as the protagonist's father);Airwolf;Murder, She Wrote; andRoboCop: The Series. In 1983, Milner hosted a morning radio wake-up show on AM 600KOGO in San Diego.^[17][18]

In 1990, Milner teamed again with Kent McCord in the cable TV-movieNashville Beat (1990), onThe Nashville Network. The story was co-written by McCord, who played an LAPD detective who works with his former partner, played by Milner, in Nashville, Tennessee. In 1992, Milner guest-starred on five episodes of ABC'sLife Goes On.

After retiring from acting, Milner co-hosted a radio show about fishing calledLet's Talk Hook-Up on San Diego-area sports stationXETRA AM 690 (now XEWW).^[6]

In 1998, Milner took part in a documentary film,Route 66: Return to the Road with Martin Milner, in which he drove a 1961 Corvette from Chicago to Santa Monica.^[12]

In May 1956, Milner met singer and actress Judith Bess Jones^[9] at a Hollywood dinner party. They were married on February 23, 1957, in Waukegan, Illinois.^[19] They had four children together.^[20]

In February 2003, Milner's eldest daughter Amy, who appeared in an episode ofAdam 12, was diagnosed withacute myeloid leukemia.^[9][21] She died in December 2004.^[22]

On September 6, 2015, Milner died of heart failure at his home inCarlsbad, California, at age 83.^[23] His remains were cremated.^[24]

Wikimedia Commons has media related toMartin Milner.

• Martin Milner atIMDb 
• Martin Milner at theInternet Broadway Database
• Martin Milner at theTCM Movie Database

• 1931 births
• 2015 deaths
• 20th-century American male actors
• Jewish American male actors
• American male film actors
• American male radio actors
• American male stage actors
• American male television actors
• American people of Polish-Jewish descent
• Male actors from Detroit
• Male actors from Seattle
• United States Army personnel of the Korean War
• Military personnel from Detroit
• USC School of Dramatic Arts alumni
• North Hollywood High School alumni

• All articles with dead external links
• Articles with dead external links from March 2020
• Articles with permanently dead external links
• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Articles needing additional references from May 2017
• All articles needing additional references
• Use mdy dates from September 2015
• Articles with hCards
• Commons category link from Wikidata
• IBDB name template using Wikidata
• TCMDb name template using non-numeric ID from Wikidata