Photoplay (Jan-Jun 1963)

told you everything about George that I can think of right now. Except — there really is so much to be said — things which would be difficult to put into words, no matter how eloquent one could be. He’s a rare man. And a most specially gifted one. I’m so very proud of him. The road upward wasn’t easy for him. You’ll never know.” I wanted, lastly, to talk to someone — an actor or a director — who had worked witli George fairly recently. I contacted a director. And I felt, after talking to him, that maybe I’d contacted the wrong man. “Maharis?” he’d said. “Maharis is arrogant. That’s all I’m going to tell you about Maharis!” But the following day — November 30, 1962 — I read the following article in the New York Post. And got the picture as to why the director was so sore: “George Maharis has been suffering from hepatitis since last May. Despite recurrent bouts with illness, he has continued to tape the show. ... But now the Flushingborn ex-Marine has pulled his super sportscar off the road and cancelled all appearances on the high-rated ‘Route 66’ ‘in the foreseeable future.’ “Asked if be had any doubts that Maharis was really sick, Sterling Silliphant, the creator of the show, said, ‘Of course I do. I think he’s impatient to get on with his own career. He has had no regard for his company, for his co-star Marty Milner and the fifty or sixty other people on the show.” But George had only shrugged earlier, when I’d talked to him about the director. “He called me arrogant? Sure he thinks I’m arrogant. Because I hated working with him and he knew it. He happens to be one of those TV directors — and there are a few — who don’t know what the hell they’re doing. They think the set is a doll house and we, the actors, are their dolls. They smile when they come on the set, like, ‘Look Ma, I’m directing.’ And then, one thing after the other, they begin to butcher the script, the actors’ emotions, everything. About these guys I tell my producers, ‘Look, I don’t want to he uncooperative and say I’m not going to do this week’s story. But you hired so-and-so as director? Well, just give me as little to do as possible.” “Sure I’m arrogant!” “So sure, I’m arrogant in this sense. But I’m an actor. Not a doll. I give my whole life to my career, my profession, and I don’t want some jerk to come along and ruin it all for me in a few days’ time. Oh, it’s a tough business, this TV. You don’t want to die out in it, and you can die easily if you don’t take care. People come. People go. A series goes off the air and you never hear of some of these people again. They’re like food to a gigantic monster and when the monster’s through with them he spits them out. All the thousands of pretty young things in Hollywood — they come in like food and they exit like vomit. I feel for them. . . . Believe me. 1 know that bit. “Arrogance? They talk about arrogance? Sure, I’ve been arrogant in my time. But honest, too. I worked in a camp once, for instance. In the Poconos. I didn't like any of the other guys there. Besides, they had money to go out nights and I didn’t. So I used to hang around with a horse on the farm next door. In my free time I’d just go over to that farm and I’d stand and I’d look at that horse. I’d look in his eyes and wonder if he knew I existed, what I was, how I felt. I’d look at his hooves and I’d wonder: ‘How are you so sure-footed?’ “Some of the guys, they thought I was arrogant by ignoring them and befriending a horse. But the fact was that I liked the horse more than I liked them. Arrogant, they say? I was in the Marines. There was a stupid top sergeant who used to give all the guys a hard time. So stupid it was pathetic. He had this coffee pot he used to worship. It was like his whole life revolved around that pot and when could he drink from it. He used to polish it up when he wasn't doing anything else — which was often. He used to sit there and gaze at it, like it was a beautiful woman. Well, one day I decided to give him and his coffee pot a little lesson. It was after a day on which he’d been particularly rough with everybody. So that afternoon I decided to play Robin Hood. I took my 45 pistol and put .22 shells in it, using an adapter. Then I put the coffee pot on a fence and fired a dozen holes into it. That poor stupid sergeant — he never knew who spoiled his stupid coffee pot. He didn’t know anyone in the company who had a .22 pistol! “Arrogant? Yes, I’m arrogant when it comes to putting up with a lot of people in this business I’m in. The phonies, I mean. They’ll tell you they’re going to put you in something and you’ll win an Academy Award. A lot of crap. People start by believing that kind of jazz and they lose track of their one true critic — themselves. For me, all this, what I’m experiencing now, what I’m going through now — this is only the beginning. If I listen to all the flattery. I’m liable to start believing it. And that’s dangerous. And if they threaten me —if they say I’ve got to do something or else — well, let them try. I don’t care. They can threaten me. They can take the Corvette. They can take all they want. Because I know where I’m going. And I don't need anything but my own two feet to get there. “Arrogant? You want to know something? The thing I’m really most arrogant about is death. I don’t think I’ll ever fear it. In fact, it’s going to be my own way when I go. And I’m only going when I’m ready to go. They can shoot at me. They can aim cars at me. I’ll know they’re coming. And unless I know it’s time for me — they can go to hell. 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