George Maharis, the star of TV’s Route 66 on the cult fantasy movie The Sword and the Sorcerer, is lifeless at 94.
George Maharis, an enormous TV star within the sixties however most likely greatest recognized to JoBlo readers from his function in Albert Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer, is lifeless at 94. In response to social media posts through the actor’s caretaker, he really handed away on Wednesday, with the reason for demise not revealed. Maharis was a reasonably fashionable main man in his day, with him having starred within the hip TV sequence Route 66, through which he co-starred with Martin Milner as two younger males driving throughout the USA, getting concerned in adventures. Taking a web page from Jack Kerouac, the present made Maharis a star, however he left it prematurely because of being identified with hepatitis. In 1965 he starred in a reasonably good spy thriller referred to as The Devil Bug, which got here from the director of The Magnificent Seven and The Nice Escape, John Sturges, through which he performed a spy making an attempt to forestall a pandemic.
The movie, whereas well-reviewed, didn’t make Maharis a film star, and later within the decade, he guest-starred on the TV present Hullabaloo, along with his look (embedded under) a key inspiration for the same scene involving Leonardo DiCaprio because the (late) Rick Dalton in As soon as Upon a Time in Hollywood. In contrast to DiCaprio’s Dalton, he may really sing, with him scoring a prime 40 hit within the sixties for the track he sings right here, “Train Me Tonight.”
Maharis’s profession cooled within the seventies, with him primarily guest-starring on TV reveals like The Bionic Girl and Fantasy Island. Nevertheless, he had a success with Pyun’s The Sword and the Sorcerer, through which he performed Rely Machelli. He stepped away from performing within the mid-nineties and spent the final twenty years of his life residing in snug retirement.