Vale: Martin Milner

US actor Martin Milner, best known for Adam-12 and Route 66, has died, aged 83.

He died at home on Sunday in California following a long illness.

Milner played Tod Stiles on Route 66 from 1960-­64, and followed as Officer Pete Malloy on police drama Adam­-12 from 1968­-75. In both shows he was the affable, grounded half of an on-screen duo.

All 166 installments of Route 66 were filmed on the road in cities across the US.

“We travelled with kids and a housekeeper,” Milner once said in a 2001 interview. “And it was before the days of motor homes and before the days of vans, really. We took our dog with us. It was a circus.

“Generally, we did two episodes in one town, to hold the moving down. So we’d go into town, do two episodes, get everything loaded in the truck, and if it was a long move — if, for instance, we were going from Montana to Chicago — the crew, with the exception of the driver, would fly home for a few days. But me and my family would travel with the trucks, because we had the kids with us.”

His first TV roles were on Dragnet while other credits included The D.A., Emergency!, Swiss Family Robinson, Nashville Beat, Life Goes On, Columbo, The Lone Ranger, Slattery’s People, The Twilight Zone, The Millionaire, The Rat Patrol and Murder, She Wrote.

Film credits included Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Sweet Smell of Success, Sands of Iwo Jima, Operation Pacific, The Captive City, The Saber and the Arrow, Francis in the Navy, Pillars of the Sky, Life with Father, Halls of Montezuma, The Long Gray Line, Marjorie Morningstar, Compulsion, Sex Kittens Go to College, and Valley of the Dolls.

Source: Hollywood Reporter