Martin Milner: A Darn Good Actor

I was cruising YouTube tonight and stumbled across the most adorable compilation video celebrating the career of actor Martin Milner. Now, unless you were watching television in the 1960's and 1970's or are a complete and utter nerd like myself... (My middle school years were spent lusting hard after Todd Stiles and Officer Pete Malloy)...there’s a strong likelihood that you have likely never heard of Martin Milner. After seeing this video, I feel compelled to pay tribute to a man who I consider to be one of the greatest, but unsung actors of the mid-twentieth century.

Milner's first screen appearance was in the 1947 film based on the popular book  Life with Father which starred William Powell and Irene Dunne. Milner, who was roughly sixteen at the time, played the role of "John Day" the second oldest son behind Clarence (Jimmy Lydon) from whose perspective the film adopts.

Milner worked steadily throughout the 1950's, appearing in dozens of the war films which flooded Hollywood in the years following World War Two. My personal favorite is Halls of Montazuma which features an all-star cast: Richard Widmark, Karl Malden, Robert Wagner, Richard Boone and Jack Webb. While Milner is still incredibly young and inexperienced in this film (especially compared to many of these seasoned, popular actors) his performance really stands out in the narrative. He gives a real sense of life to his character "Whitney," a young man trying to adjust physically and mentally to the horrors of wartime. In this role, his status as a youngster in the midst of this highly experienced cast really plays to his advantage. It is a powerful and stirring film, one that I highly recommend.

Between his varied film roles in the 1950's, Milner appeared in six episodes of the classic television series Dragnet starring Jack Webb. It is his partnership with Jack Webb that would provide the foundation for the later years of his career. Roughly ten years later in 1968, Milner was cast in the lead role of Officer Pete Malloy in Jack Webb's newest television series Adam-12. While Dragnet followed the day to day life of Sgt. Joe Friday operating out of (usually) the homicide division of the L.A.P.D., Adam-12 followed the everyday lives of the men in the uniformed patrol unit of the L.A.P.D. The narrative spotlighted the partnership of veteran Officer Pete Malloy and his partner Officer Jim Reed (Kent McCord), a rookie straight out of the police academy. Adam-12 was incredibly grounded in realism (Jack Webb consulted closely with the L.A.P.D. to ensure a sense of documentary like accuracy). While the narrative has been accused of being boring, the sense of reality that Webb strove to achieve serves as a testament to the strength of Milner's (and McCord's) acting. Both men were able to completely embody these characters from the dramatic action sequences, to the most banal of circumstances. The show, which ran from 1968 to 1974 ran toe to toe with Webb's other series Emergency! which chronicled the lives of paramedics and hospital workers in downtown Los Angeles. These shows created a mini environment on television, as the characters from both television series regularly crossed over to make appearances in the other. Milner was not a newcomer to television with Adam-12. 

In the early 1960's he starred in Route 66 opposite George Maharis and later Glenn Corbett. The show followed wealthy Todd Stiles (Milner) and Buzz Murdock (Maharis) as they drifted through the country on the famous Route 66. The show really was unique in that other than the presence of Todd and Buzz, there was very little consistency to the narrative. In each episode, the characters were in a different town dealing with different people. While Todd's beautiful car is better remembered than the show, the narrative allowed Milner the opportunity to further develop his acting. In each episode, he was faced with drastically different scenarios and was able to prove his versatility. Martin Milner was not simply a romantic lead, an action hero or a character actor. The varied narrative of Route 66 groomed him for the similar style of Adam-12.

It has been regularly documented in Hollywood that some of the most talented actors never receive credit for their work. Cary Grant never won an Oscar, neither did Richard Burton. Heck, how did Alfred Hitchcock never win an Oscar for his work. Throughout his forty year career, Martin Milner proved to be an incredibly talented and versatile actor. He could play a leading part, the second fiddle, and even the villain (Check out 1960's Thirteen Ghosts). His roles were never glitzy or over the top, he brought a sense of realism and likability to each part he took on.

My Favorite Martin Milner Roles: Check them out!

1.) Marjorie Morningstar (1958) Wally Wronkin
2.) Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Steven Dallas
3.) Compulsion (1959) Sid Brooks
4.) Halls of Montazuma (1950) Whitney
5.) Route 66 and Adam-12 of course!