At the ripe old age of 40, Martin Milner looks forward to the day when his highly successful TV series Adam-12 screeches to a halt and stops cruising its Los Angeles police beat. The sandy-red-haired, freckle-faced nice guy, who co-stars as the experienced, veteran "Officer Pete Malloy" with the younger Kent McCord in their high-rated series, says, "When Adam is over with, I will probably retire. I've been acting for 26 years, and I enjoy it, but I have no desire for another series. I've been fairly careful with my money and I have other interests. I am involved in land development projects in Fallbrook, where I live."
That's Fallbrook, California, 130 miles southeast of Los Angeles, and the Milner's live on a 24-acre avocado farm there. There's Judy, who was television actress-and-singer Judy Jones before she became Mrs. Martin Milner back in 1957, and then there are the four Milner kids, Amy, 14; Molly, 12; Stuart, 11, and Andrew, nine. Also very much in the family are three cats, three dogs, and two horses.
Marty and his wife collect antique furniture and call an authentic New England reproduction, complete with high beam ceilings, pegged floors, and fieldstone fireplaces, their permanent home. The Milners maintain no place in Hollywood, and Marty prefers to commute. On the three days a week the show tapes, he resides in his dressing room at Universal Studios. The rest of the week he is free to devote to his family and lucrative business interests around Fallbrook.
Even when Marty was starring in the popular Route 66 TV series, the Milners did their very best to simulate a normal family life. The star feels that one reason he can handle the police car so well in Adam 12 is the amount of driving he did to transport his growing family around the country when he and George Maharis had to go on location with Route 66. In those days he and Judy would rent a house in whatever part of the country the show was filming, and for a month or six weeks the Milners made Louisiana or Kentucky or some New England area their residence. When the children were old enough to go to school, they would enroll in a local school for the month or so the family was around.
Marty wasn't thrown by all the moving around in those days because his own family moved to Seattle from Detroit, his birthplace, and then on to Hollywood. Marty got his first taste of theater in Seattle when he was all of ten or so, and by the time he had graduated from North Hollywood High he had decided to become an actor. He was already studying with an acting coach and signed with an agent to represent him when he went to the University of Southern California for a year. He left school for his first important screen role in 1947, when he was cast as the second oldest son in Life With Father, starring Irene Dunne and William Powell.
A bout with polio right after that film threatened to end his burgeoning career. There were many moments of despair, but after a year in bed, Marty made a full recovery and now those desperate days are far back in memory. He happily pursued his career, and when it came time to assign the right performer to Adam-12, Marty was "it." His producer remembers that "As soon as Milner's name came up, everybody said that's the guy. Along with his experience and maturity, there's this wholesome and still youthful quality about him."
When Marty heard that his old Route 66 sidekick George Maharis was making films in Spain, he recalled with good-natured cool that he and George "had almost nothing in common, but actually got along pretty well. His basic devotion was to his career. I had other drives and interests...I think George has done all right. He hasn't become another Paul Newman--but, then, neither have !"