Thanks for your comments about Starring George Maharis. I really have to get to work on replacing that preview with the entire story, but for now I have a few additional comments to add to your observations.
Technically, Marty was not filming all over the country while George was in the hospital. George was admitted to St. John's hospital in Santa Monica just after filming There I Am, There I Always Am on Catalina Island. The four episodes that were filmed during George's month-long stay were all shot within a few miles of Santa Monica: Between Hello And Goodbye, A Feat Of Strength, Hell Is Empty, All The Devils Are Here and From An Enchantress Fleeing. The other thing to note that is subtle, but important, is that George was admitted on April 1st and filming of the next episode did not begin until the 6th. There were five full days of down time while Marty was in the area and you can probably imagine that the first few days after admittance to a hospital with a serious illness should be a cause for great concern among friends. To be fair though, Marty's son, Stuart, was just one month old at this time and I suspect that his primary concern was to spend as much time as possible at home with the family before hitting the road again. I don't have any confirmation of this suspicion of mine, but I believe that the birth of his son was the primary reason Marty was not featured in There I Am, There I Always Am.
Regarding the billing issue: As you know, Route 66 was originally envisioned as a half-hour series with George, despite his appearances on Naked City a relative unknown on television, as the star. It ended up as an hour-long series starring Milner, who had 13 years of film and television credits. Further, George's contract which was signed in November 1959 does explicitly state that Milner will be given top-billing. My theory is that from the time Bert Leonard and Stirling Silliphant conceived the idea of Route 66 with George as its star until production actually got under way they started thinking in terms of more appeal to the networks hence the addition of someone with more credits. The fact that George didn't know of Milner at the time is not surprising. Marty did work regularly in films with the likes of John Wayne and Henry Fonda, but with only a few exceptions he always played bit parts and was not known to many outside the industry. There is no question that Route 66 was originally conceived as a starring vehicle for George, but the expanding vision of Leonard and Silliphant changed that. I can understand George's disappointment. For what it's worth, he agrees with my theory.
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