"You must be kidding! You absolutely must be kidding." He had turned from the square little car and stood facing his wife. In his hand he held a box of cold cereal.
"Judy, there isn't an inch of Wheaties left in this box. Leave it here."
"Martin, we shouldn’t waste food. It won't take up much room. Now I can hold it with me in front, and then when we get to the turnpike the kids can nibble on it...you're not mad, Martin?"
The young man grinned, and turned back to the car. "You win," he said. "I should have known. You always do."
Martin and Judy Milner carry their family with them as they trek cross-country filming Route 66 for CBS-TV. "It sounds exciting," Marty says, "but it's the toughest kind of life in the world. Judy's one in a million or we would have been divorced a month after we first went on the road."
Last year when their second child, Molly, was born, the Milners were separated for several months. Marty left Judy in their San Fernando Valley home to await the stork. He had to finish out the Route 66 season alone. "It was awful," he recalls. "I don't function as well without her. As tough as it is moving a family about the country every eight or ten days, it's worse not having them along."
It took a lot of getting used to. Judy is a Midwesterner, descended from plainsmen who came from the East in covered wagons. "That's what it must be," Marty explains, "why else would she be able to survive these trips."
Up early in the morning to get underway from one location site or another, Marty and Judy have a set routine for packing their car. In the first place, they always pack the car with a fight!
Not a real fight, we've never had one of those," Martin maintains. "But Judy keeps buying things, and the car's only so big. In Pittsburgh she bought an ironing board, in Butte, Montana she bought a highchair. But she'll never throw anything out. The car is so crowded now there's barely room for me to get in and drive. And there's four of us and the dog, plus Mrs. Miller, the housekeeper. It's a big load for a little car.
The car isn't exactly little. It's a Chevrolet Greenbriar, which is built on the lines of a box on wheels. It carries everything handily, or it did when they started out. As the time lengthens since they left Los Angeles, the car grows fuller, more cramped, and impossible to maneuver in. Still, Judy won't throw anything away.
"I'm sure there are people in some of the small towns we pass through who expect us to stop and sell some of our wares," Marty said, "but it ends up being a lot of fun, even with the crowding."
No one thought that Marty and Judy would want Route 66 because of the hardships involved. "We knew it was going to be a tough show when I signed for it," Marty remembers. "Judy and I talked it over. We both knew that for a married couple it couldn't be worse. We'd be on the road a great deal of the time. If she were with me we'd have new problems we'd never coped with before. If we were separated it would make life unbearable for both of us.
"But this show offered something new, and something challenging. I could have had other shows in Hollywood, some with more money. But this show is still a challenge after two years, and I'm still glad I decided to do it. So it Judy."
The busybodies in Hollywood had a field day when Judy first went out on the road with Marty. They were certain the traveling wouldn't last. "She can't take it," they opined. They were very wrong.
Marty had confidence in Judy, but for the first trip, on location in New Orleans, he went alone. It was tough, very tough. None of the crew had worked together before, the cast was unfamiliar with each other and with their parts. It was hectic. Through it all, Marty called Judy every night. Every call he'd make he'd assure her, "It's tough, but it'll be easier next time because you'll be along."
He wasn't so sure this was a good idea after those three backbreaking weeks. He knew how much he missed Judy, but was it fair to put a girl through an ordeal such as this? How about Amy, their first daughter, barely a year old? It was a tough decision to make.
It wasn't tough for Judy. "We've got to try it, Marty," she assured him the night he returned from New Orleans. "We can't be apart all that time. It'll be impossible."
So off they trotted. At first, of course, they never thought they'd get through the season. "If we arrive in a town with a lot of motels and all, it works out better," explains Marty, "but a lot of the places we go to on location are fair-sized cities. To be near the location we end up in a hotel. That's tough on the kids and it's tough on Cupcake."
Cupcake is the nondenominational canine that travels with the Milner entourage. If it weren't for him, the kids would go wild in the car. They spend more time worrying about Cupcake's comfort than they do about their own, and for that reason alone, Cupcake is an indispensable asset.
Marty and Judy offered grist for the Gossip Mills last year when Molly was expected. "First Judy came home early, and that got everyone wondering. Then when everyone discovered she was going to have our second child in a matter of months, some people even wondered why I wasn't home with her."
As it was, Marty very nearly missed being with Judy for the delivery. He flew in from Phoenix, Arizona, quite late in the afternoon. Judy was expecting at any moment. Getting off the plane, Marty was just beat. "Don't have it tonight," he kidded. "I'm too pooped to get you to the hospital." But in the time-honored custom of unexpected babies, Molly arrived at two the very next morning. Marty was so tired driving Judy to St. Vincent's hospital that looking back on it now he doesn't recall a thing. "God got us there," he says, "I wasn't in any shape to."
Back on the road again, this time with two youngsters to worry about, the Milners found the going easier. Things settled into a pattern, as much as they possibly could. Having Mrs. Miller along helps immensely. She was housekeeper for Martin's parents for fifteen years, and when he married she just came along with him.
With Mrs. Miller along, Marty and Judy can concentrate on the details of room arrangements, where the eating will be done, what kind of laundry facilities there will be, and so forth and so on ad infinitum. Mrs. Miller worries about the children while their parents are busy with the thousand mundane worries of running a home on wheels.
Strangely enough now that they're getting used to the grind, Marty and Judy find they actually enjoy being on the road. There are other families along with them, members of the cast and crew. There's not a great deal of social life, however. Route 66, as one of the most successful hour shows on television, works hard for its quality. Some weeks they not only shoot late every night, they will even shoot on Sundays. This makes it one of the most expensive shows on the air.
Marty's co-star, George Maharis, is an occasional dinner guest. "But George doesn't seem very affected by our pro-marriage propaganda. He enjoys being a bachelor. That's fine with our Amy, though. She wants George to wait about fifteen years till he married. Then she hopes he marries her!
Marty always wanted to be an actor, starting at ten when he was starred (sic) in children's plays in Seattle, Washington. His parents were both involved in the theater, his mother as a dancer and his father as a film distributor. When Marty was in his mid-teens the family moved to Hollywood, where he entered a dramatic class. From there he picked up parts, finally getting his first movie role in Life With Father in 1947.
Show business wasn't always fun. Marty had a bout of polio that laid him low for many months and in 1952 he went into the Army for two years. Since then he's really hit his stride, in both movies and in over two hundred teleplays. Consequently, he was no greenhorn to the acting game when Route 66 entered his life two years ago.
"It was the most exciting thing that ever happened to me," he says. "Everything about this show has class. No one else dared try a TV show on location before. Now several shows are going to, I understand. But that's because of our success. We've got the best crew in the business on this show. They have to be. They don't last if they're not compatible."
Marty wasn't sure how well he'd get along with everyone when they started out. Living with a crew of creative people can be trying. They do have picnics at some towns on the route when they get an extra day between shows. They all get along well together, or, as Marty says, they'd be sent back to Hollywood. But the overall picture is one of hard work, and more hard work.
For Judy it's a test of a woman's patience and ingenuity. The troupe usually arrives in the town for the week's locationing in the evening. That way the cast and crew can get sleep before they start shooting. Late in the evening is not a good time t find laundries, and dry cleaning shops, food stores or what have you. Since Judy does all the cooking on the road, unless they're stuck in a hotel with no kitchen facilities, it means finding fresh groceries for supper. Food for the rest of the stay has to be bought the next day, because there usually aren't storage facilities for much food in motels.
Judy gets the car after Marty's left in the morning, but she's still got to track down all the necessary shops, stores, and gas stations. Through it all, they never fight. "Not big fights," according to Marty.
It's amazing that they never do fight. In Hollywood where marriages are made in publicity offices and fade faster than a summer storm, any excuse is perfectly acceptable for divorce. Just the fact that the man of the family is an actor seems to grant him free license to shed his wife when he feels like it. No girl would happily face Judy's daily ordeal. And to not only face it, but enjoy it, love it, and provide a happy homelife for your hard-working husband at the same time...Hollywood lexicons have no category that includes this kind of wife. She's on a plateau by herself.
Marty puts it succinctly: "I married a real woman. She is a wonderful wife because she knows it's a job and she works at it. We have little tiffs, of course. Every time we pack the car to move on we yell at each other. But we get along because when you're married it's your job to get along. Happy marriages don't just sit around waiting to happen. You've got to work at it."
Marty and Judy have one great interest in common that provides memories and a source of later pleasure for both. They are furnishing their Sherman Oaks home with early American antiques. On their travels they always include at least one antique purchased from each place they stop. It not only gives them fun while they're looking but when it's back in their California home it's a pleasant, lasting reminder of the trip.
Marty and Judy first met at a friend's dinner party. They didn't fall in love at first sight, but they enjoyed each other's company so much they began to date. Within a year they were married. This year ('62) they'll celebrate five years of wedded bliss and later this year the third little Milner will arrive.
Despite the difficulties and the obvious envy of less-happily married actors, Judy and Marty are building a happier home on wheels than most couples build with twelve months of the year to stay home and work at it. As for those antiques, they don't go into the Greenbriar. "We absolutely refuse to deal with a shop until I've asked one important question of the owner," says Marty. "Will you ship it home for us?" That car just can't take one more item!"