George Maharis Married

Was George Maharis gay? Was George Maharis married? Who was George Maharis wife? Questions of this calibre are popping up following the sad death of the beloved actor, George Maharis.

Maharis died Wednesday, May 24th 2023 at the age of 94. A friend of the late actor, Marc Bahan confirmed the news with a touching tribute.

The news took a while to go public but it’s now been revealed and triggered tons of queries about George Maharis’ life which we attempt to answer to the best of our abilities in this article.

George Maharis Biography

George Maharis was a gay American actor, singer and artist who was known for his stint on the tv show Route 66.

He was born on September 1st 1928 to a family of nine in Astoria in Queens. The son of Greek immigrants (their real Greek family name is Mahairas), Maharis had seven siblings! His father was a restaurateur.

He attended Flushing High School and served in the United States Marine Corps for 18 months.

After studying at the Actors Studio, Maharis began his career appearing in off-Broadway productions of Jean Genet’s Deathwatch and Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story.

He also appeared on Studio One, Kraft Television Theater, Goodyear Television Playhouse, Stirling Silliphant’s Naked City and Otto Preminger’s Exodus, and in the soap opera Search for Tomorrow as Bud Gardner, one of Joanne Gardner’s relatives who married Janet Bergman Collins.

George Maharis gained nationwide stardom after being cast as Buz Murdock in the TV series Route 66 in 1960 alongside his co-star Martin Milner.

Despite being only 32 at the time the series started, he credibly played a character that was only 23 years old. Maharis was so good on Route 66 that he received an Emmy nomination for his performance in 1962, although he would leave the show before completion of its third season, citing health reasons.

He battled Hepatitis and other conditions at the time and said he was leaving the show due to long hours and grueling conditions while shooting on location.

“I have to protect my future”, Maharis said in a 1963 interview. “If I keep going at the present pace, I’m a fool. Even if you have $4,000,000 in the bank, you can’t buy another liver.”

However, it later emerged that the real reason George Maharis left Route 66 was due to being gay.

His biographer, Karen Blocher said series producers Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard felt betrayed when they found out that George Maharis was a closeted gay man. Although at the time they publicly claimed they believe Maharis left to pursue movie opportunities.

Blocher disagreed, writing: “the producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis’s sexual orientation, and never trusted him again,” and she speculated “in a less homophobic era, they might have communicated better, and worked things out.”

After Maharis left Route 66, the show declined and got cancelled about a year later.

After leaving television behind, Maharis appeared in numerous movies including Quick, Before It Melts (1964), The Satan Bug and Sylvia (both 1965), A Covenant With Death and The Happening (both 1967), and The Desperados (1969).

He returned to television in 1970, starring as criminologist Jonathan Croft in The Most Deadly Game. The series lasted 12 episodes, ending in January 1971.

Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Maharis had featured roles in several television movies and also guest-starred on numerous television series, including Mission: Impossible, Fantasy Island, Kojak, McMillan & Wife, Barnaby Jones, Police Story, Switch, Cannon, Night Gallery, and The Bionic Woman, as well as Murder, She Wrote in 1990.

Other roles included appearing as Count Machelli, King Cromwell’s War Chancellor in The Sword and the Sorcerer (1982) and alongside Kenley Players in productions of Barefoot in the Park (1967) and How the Other Half Loves (1973).

Maharis transitioned to music and art after hanging up his acting career in the 90s. He performed in nightclubs and pursued a secondary career as an impressionist painter.

As a gay man who had to hide his sexuality, George Maharis never married, although he got into trouble with the law a few times. He was arrested twice for having sex with men in public restrooms.

Maharis and Perfecto Telles were arrested for having sex in a public bathroom

George Maharis died on May 24th 2023 at his home in Beverly Hills, California at the ripe old age of 94.

“George is well known for his stardom in Route 66, stage productions, singing, artist, and above all a great guy would do anything for anyone. My dear friend, you’ll be terribly missed,” close friend Marc Bahan wrote in a Facebook post.

May he rest in peace.

Was George Maharis gay? Who Was George Maharis Wife?

Yes, George Maharis was gay. Although as an actor in the 1960s and 1970s America, he had to stay closeted if he wanted to go about his life without too much trouble.

Who was George Maharis wife? As a gay man, it is unlikely George Maharis ever married or made any woman his wife.

Due to these closeted issues, George Maharis was forced to leave his most important role on Route 66, at least according to his biographer, Karen Blocher.

At the time he left the show, Maharis was battling health issues due to the hectic work schedule. He gave that reason for leaving although series producers Stirling Silliphant and Herbert B. Leonard disagreed, claiming that he wanted to break his contract in order to make movies. Leonard also reportedly was having a hard time keeping Maharis’ sexual escapades out of the press.

His biographer Karen Blocher was more blunt and said George Maharis had to leave due to being gay because the producers were having a hard time handling it.

She wrote: “The producers felt betrayed and duped when they learned of Maharis’s sexual orientation, and never trusted him again. Maharis, for his part, started to feel that he was carrying the show and was going unappreciated.

“So when he got sick, and came back, and started griping about the working conditions, the producers assumed it was all a ploy to either get more money or else get out of his contract and go make movies. In a less homophobic era, they might have communicated better, and worked things out instead of letting each other down.”

A dashing handsome man, George Maharis was gay and proud of it. “[He was] tall, dark and handsome, not to mention a charismatic rebel of 60s Hollywood,” as the blog Gay Culture Land put it.

He was also a trailblazer, so to speak, as he modeled fully nude for the July 1973 issue of Playgirl magazine, in the process becoming one of the first celebrities to do so.

Was actor George Maharis married? It’s unclear if Maharis ever married.

As noted in this article, George Maharis was very clearly gay and had presumably several relationships with other men throughout his life. He appears neverto have taken a wife.

George Maharis being gay appear to have led to his arrest at least twice that we know of, both times for having s*x with men in public restrooms.

In 1967, Maharis had been arrested by a vice squad officer for lewd conduct in the restroom of a Hollywood restaurant. The arresting officer even claimed that the ever flamboyant actor made a pass at him.

7 years later, on November 21, 1974, George Maharis would get into trouble for being gay once again.

According to press clippings at the time: “Famous Hollywood actor George Maharis was arrested November 21 and charged with committing a sex act with a hairdresser in the men’s room of a gas station in Los Angeles…

“He was booked on a sex perversion charge along with Perfecto Telles, 33, the hairdresser, and released on $500 bail, according to police.”.

George Maharis was vocal that these two incidents, along with a sensational tabloid story about his gay union, published after a lover of his died, damaged his career.

Reports say he claimed that the casting offices stopped calling after that.

Interestingly, the Emmy award-winning sitcom, Arrested Development, kind of spoofed Maharis’ issues. George Michael Bluth, the son of Michael Bluth in the sitcom, took on the name George Maharis in college after tired of his long name, often getting confused to be two people or mocked for being named after the singer-songwriter George Michael.

Ironically, George Michael chose the name “George Maharis” because he was tired of being teased for the singer-songwriter George Michael’s sexual scandals when in real life George Maharis had similar issues.