In his quiet, unassuming way, Martin Milner is accomplishing something some of the biggest names in show business have never been able to achieve--a bona fide, topnotch hit on all three networks.
He started with "Route 66," the first of the wanderlust epics, which became a great popular success and lasted four seasons on CBS. From that he hopped into "Adam-12," whose steady drawing power for seven years on NBC was a big factor in the rise of cop shows.
He barely had a chance to catch his breath before he was drawn by Irwin Allen into "The Swiss Family Robinson," already acknowledged as a solid staple in its first season on ABC, where it battles even and sometimes surpasses Walt Disney in the Sunday night 7-8 rating game.
"They signed me for this even before 'Adam-12' had been cancelled," Marty mentioned. "Nobody would admit that 'Adam' was through and I had not been given my release. So there was a definite gamble signing me. But I knew in my heart 'Adam' had run its course and they took it for granted I was right.
"I had hopes in the back of my mind for a year off to get a respite from the rigors of series TV. But I couldn't resist the chance to be in an Allen show. Besides, I tried a weekend off, and I got restless."
Marty has been one of the more fortunate actors in Hollywood in that he had nearly always been regularly employed.
"That's because I have always been able to play my age," he said. "At 12 I was in 'Life With Father.' I was a man in my 20s for '66' and a man in my 30s for 'Adam.' Now I'm 44 and that's what I'm playing in 'Robinson.' It's dangerous trying to be something you're not before the camera. It won't let you lie about your age."
Milner's big year, for both personal and career reasons, was 1957, when he married actress-singer Judy Jones and landed key roles in two major films, "Sweet Smell of Success" and "Marjorie Morningstar." He has made many more before and since, but one of the most important was "Halls of Montezuma," for that is where he met Jack Webb, who has been one of his closest friends for 25 years.
He was, in fact, Webb's partner in the original "Dragnet" on radio, "but I was only 18 at the time, so he hired Ben Alexander for TV." Marty tells an amusing story about their meeting.
"I was just a kid of 17 and my father was worried about my going on location in a big movie. He gave me some stern advice: 'Don't fool around with girls, don't drink, and don't gamble,' he lectured. So I met a marvelous girl I fooled around with. I drank a little, and I got in pretty deep playing gin rummy with Webb and when the picture ended he owed me $200.
When I told my father about it, he said, 'You'll never get the money.' But a week later he called me and said, 'I've got something for you. Come down and get it.' He wrote me out a check for $200 and said, 'I'm about to do a 'Dragnet;' come and do it with me. And that's how I got my first job with Webb." It was an association that was to lead eventually to "Adam-12."
"I don't know what my story proves except, 'Don't listen to your father,'" he laughed. "And I'd hate to advocate that, since I have four children (two boys, two girls) between the ages of 16 and 11." The children are Amy, 17; Molly, 15; Stewart, 14, and Andrew, 12.
Marty admits he is a bit of a chauvinist. "I think women should spend more time in the kitchen," he propounded. "But I also believe in equal pay for equal jobs, equal opportunity and equal lending rights."
He knows he's classed as a conservative, too, "but I'm not as conservative as Jack Webb. Jack makes Attilla the Hun look like a liberal," Marty observed. "Yet he was a pioneer in hiring black before it was being done. You can't pigeonhole people."
Marty has had a weight problem for some time. "Yes, I'm pretty chubby," he said. "But I've brought it down since 'Adam.' I'm down to about 190."
To keep more active off the screen, Milner five years ago bought a 24-acre ranch near Fallbrook, Calif., "where we grow nothing but avocados," he said. "1974 was a fantastic year, I sold more than 100,000 pounds. But because of cold weather, our output fell off some this year. "I spend all the time I can there. My wife and I have been rebuilding and redecorating the old farmhouse. You can usually find me working the soil, trimming the trees, or building something while I'm there.
"After I bought the place I constructed an entire room and bathroom by myself, and that includes the plumbing and electricity. When you work your knuckles to the bone putting in the pipes for a sink, then turn on the faucet and the water comes out without dripping at the joints--well, there's real satisfaction there. There are other things in life besides making-believe in front of a camera."
That has been Marty's philosophy all his life, despite the fact that he has been closely allied with show biz almost from birth. His father was a film distributor; his mother a dancer on the Paramount Theater circuit. His folks decided early he would be an actor, moving from Detroit to Seattle and then to Hollywood to get him near the action.
After graduating from North Hollywood High School, he entered the University of Southern California to study theater arts, then left to concentrate on his career. He played the second eldest son in "Life with Father," snagged a few more minor roles, and then was inducted into the Army, where he directed a series of training films and was master of ceremonies for a touring unit, getting a leave of absence long enough to play in "The Long Gray Line" with Tyrone Power.
Today he is making more money than he ever did before in his life. He has a good salary and a piece of the show, "but not a very big piece. Irwin Allen doesn't give away much."
He has been criticized for being such a stern disciplinarian to his children on the series, "but that's the way it was in the early 1800s," he pointed out. "Parents were gruff and forbidding."
"It was the intellectually honest thing to do, but maybe not dramatically, since people didn't like it. I tried to change it a little bit, to soften up the character subliminally--but not too much. You have to be honest."
If you have to sum up Marty's creed in a sentence, those five words will do it."