Route 66 Blues

Geno Lawrenzi 12:23 Jun 16th, 2020 Land Based

(The year was 1960. I was an aspiring journalist and writer

living in Phoenix, AZ. And two creative television producers

came up with a new TV series called "Route 66.")

Two good looking young guys travel around the United States in a blue Corvette, looking for adventure, romance and jobs.

That was the theme for ‘Route 66,’ a television series created by Herbert Leonard and Sterling Silliphant.

And you know what? It worked.

The series aired in 1960, the year I took my Army Basic Training at Ft. Ord, CA. My younger brother John and I had been living in Phoenix, AZ.

The TV series really hit home for my brother and me.

True:

We didn't travel around the country in a new Corvette. BUT! We did go through a series of cars -- a BMW convertible, an Impala, a Pontiac and other vehicles that toted us about until they gave up their ghosts.

"Route 66" came closer to telling the story of America in the 1960s than any other television series in history. The characters…

…blonde-haired Todd Stiles and dark-haired Buz Murdock were a couple of free-spirited hippies that many viewers felt were loosely based on the characters Jack Kerouac created for his best-selling novel "On The Road."

The TV series upset Kerouac to the point that he actually considered filing a lawsuit against the television producers. The suit was never filed and the successful series produced 116 shows that ended in 1965.

My brother Leg and I loved the series and followed the shows which were shot on location around the country. The plots followed my own life so closely it was almost uncanny.

I would move from state to state working on locations, while Stiles and Murdock, played by Marvin Milner and George Maharis, would find jobs in a California winery, on a Maine shrimp boat, on an offshore oil rig and in small towns that dotted the American landscape.

I used to love the plots that Silliphant created.

He wrote nearly all the shows for the series and he had a brilliant creative mind.

He would have Maharis or Milner get involved with a local beauty, the daughter of a politician or leading citizen in town.

Or their Corvette would break down and they would have to hang around a place until it could be repaired.

Or something darkly dangerous would occur to trap them until they could figure their way out of the situation.

Silliphant would often throw guest stars into his plot:

During the four-year run of the series he used:

Boris Karlof, Peter Lorre, James Caan, Joan Crawford, Ben Johnson, Jack Lord, Lee Marvin, Walter Matthau, Robert Redford, Rod Steiger, Rip Torn, Tuesday Weld and Walterner in his stories.

And who could forget the theme from "Route 66," played by Nelson Riddle? It was glorious! It made you want to travel.

My brother and I were living in Phoenix when we somehow became owners of a small but racy British sports car. We owned the BMW for about six months and we drove it around the Grand Canyon State to places like Show Low, Payson and Tucson.

We played the parts of carefree young men on the prowl and the local beauties loved it. When we stopped at an A&W Root Beer stand in one small town, two local girls in shorts came up to our car and asked if we raced it. We fold them a wonderful fabricated story that I am sure they didn't believe.

I actually met Martin Milner in Arizona. He had ended the "Route 66" series and was starring in "Adam 12" and had stopped in Phoenix to do some production work. He was very gracious and talked about the former series with warmth and affection for his co-star George Maharis.

I asked him what the color of the Corvette was since the series had been filmed in black and white.

"We had several different Corvettes that we used, but it was generally light blue," he said, laughing.

That got me to thinking…

Maybe I could create a TV series about two poker players who traveled around the country in a sports car...say a red Corvette or a black BMW...and they could be broke in Las Vegas trying to raise enough cash to enter a poker tournament at Binion's Horseshoe or The Orleans Casino...yeah.

That would work!