The Los Angeles Times reports this sad news:

He was not Joe Friday. But Pete Malloy of “Adam-12” fame stands up as one of the Los Angeles Police Department’s most beloved TV cops. The actor who played him, Martin Milner, died Sunday at 83.

More from the Times:

The red-haired, freckle-faced Milner had more than a dozen years of work in films and television behind him in 1960 when he began plying the highways and byways of America on “Route 66,” portraying Yale dropout Tod Stiles opposite George Maharis’ streetwise New Yorker Buz Murdock.

The hourlong dramatic series on CBS, in which the two young men became involved in the problems of the people they met as they crisscrossed the country and worked a variety of jobs, was shot on location.

“We didn’t pretend to be on 66 either,” Milner told the Chicago Tribune in 1992. “We always said where we were. If we were in Vermont or in Texas, the audience knew it.”

Weather dictated where they’d film the show.

“We’d start late in the summer in the north, say in Cleveland, or in New England,” recalled Milner. “Then we’d go south as the winter came, so we’d be warmer.”

The series was called “Route 66,” Milner said, because that highway had become symbolic of American wandering and of the “search for a new life.”

A director on the series once described Milner as having a “sunny personality,” as opposed to Maharis’ “glowering sex appeal.”

Sex appeal clearly gave the dark-haired Maharis the edge over Milner in terms of youthful fan appeal: On a good month, according to a 1963 TV Guide story, Maharis’ fan mail reached 5,000 letters, compared to Milner’s average of about 1,800.

Sterling Silliphant, the series’ co-creator who wrote the majority of the scripts, told the magazine that “the teenagers are crazy about [Maharis], but he bores their parents stiff. He’s too primitive. The adults like Marty because he’s a gentleman. They only tolerate George because Marty seems to like him.”

Milner, whose wife and children often traveled with him on location, reportedly had an evolving off-camera relationship with his Corvette sidekick.

“Maharis and I got along fine — until I found out he didn’t like me,” Milner told TV Guide after Maharis exited the series after a bout with infectious hepatitis and an ensuing battle with the show’s producers, whom he complained overworked him so much after he returned to the show that he had a relapse.

Glenn Corbett took over as Milner’s new traveling companion — as returning Vietnam War veteran Linc Case — in 1963 and remained with the show until it ended in 1964. …

He returned to series television in 1968 as Officer Pete Malloy in “Adam-12,” the Jack Webb-produced half-hour NBC police drama co-starring Kent McCord as Officer Jim Reed.

The series, which focused on the daily routine of two uniformed LAPD officers assigned to patrol-car duty, ran until 1975.

“People said, ‘It looks like you guys like each other.’ We got this repeatedly,” McCord told The Times Monday. “And we did. We never had to pretend.”

Milner and McCord were reunited in the police drama “Nashville Beat,” a TV movie that aired on cable’s TNN in 1989.

Although fans continued to recognize Milner long after “Route 66” and “Adam-12” ended, he downplayed his TV-star status.

“I was never a celebrity,” he told People magazine in 1995, “just a working actor.” …

He made his movie debut playing one of the sons in the comedy “Life with Father,” the 1947 movie starring William Powell and Irene Dunne.

Shortly after filming ended, Milner was stricken with polio from which he recovered within a year.

A graduate of North Hollywood High School, he took classes at San Fernando Valley State College and then spent a year at USC before dropping out to focus on his acting career.

“I was never a child star,” Milner told the Los Angeles Times in 1992. “I was just somebody who got two or three jobs before I was a young adult.”

That included a small role as a private in the 1949 war movie “Sands of Iwo Jima,” starring John Wayne.

It was while he was playing a part in the 1950 war film “Halls of Montezuma” that he met an actor who would play a major role in his career: Webb.

During filming, Milner won $150 from Webb in a gin rummy game. Webb didn’t pay up at the time. But a couple of months later, he phoned Milner and told him to pick up his check at NBC Radio, where Webb was doing his series “Dragnet.”

When Milner came for his check, Webb mentioned that he had a lot of parts on the show that Milner could play.

“So I went to work in the ‘Dragnet’ radio series,” Milner recalled in a 1973 TV Guide interview. “Because I couldn’t be seen, I played old guys and middle-aged guys. One whole summer I was even Jack’s police-partner in the series.”

Milner’s work on both the radio and TV versions of “Dragnet” continued after he was drafted into the Army in 1952 and stationed at Ft. Ord near Monterey, where he directed military training films and served as emcee for a Ft. Ord-based touring show.

“Whenever I could get a three-day pass and get home, even if [Webb] didn’t have a part for me, he would write one so I could make $75,” Milner said in the 1992 Times interview.

After his discharge, he appeared in movies such as “Francis in the Navy,” Webb’s “Pete Kelly’s Blues,” “Sweet Smell of Success” and “Marjorie Morning Star.” …

In addition to occasional stage work, he made TV guest appearances on shows such as “Fantasy Island,” “MacGyver” and “Murder, She Wrote” — as well as a stint playing a socialist bookshop owner on “Life Goes On” in 1992.

An avid fisherman, he co-hosted the popular weekend call-in radio talk show “Let’s Talk Hook-Up” from 1993 to 2004.

I almost met Milner and McCord. I’m sure you’re shocked — shocked! — to discover that I was an avid viewer of “Adam-12.” The NBC station in Madison had a telethon one year, and got a number of NBC stars, including Milner, McCord and Arte Johnson of “Laugh-In,” to appear. (I know, I know: “Verry interesting …”) My parents took us to meet them, but they were taking a shower, or so we were told. I did get their autographs.

Since I didn’t actually meet Milner, I have to read to conclude that Milner was one of those rare celebrities who actually led a worthwhile public life. He was married to his wife for 58 years. They had four children, transported, according to an early ’70s newspaper story, in an old Checker airport limousine.

I watched “Adam-12” in most of its original run, and then “Route 66” in reruns back when Nickelodeon’s Nick at Nite played old (as in black and white) reruns. The latter is one of the few TV series to feature (a new edition every year of) America’s sports car in the vastness of America, driven by two somewhat idealistic young men who get involved in and care about whatever and whoever they come across. In one sense it was like “Star Trek” (the first episode of which premiered 49 years ago yesterday) before “Star Trek” — two guys and a car and whoever they meet on the way to wherever they’re going.

“Adam-12” was Jack Webb’s second TV cop show, if you count the radio and two TV versions of “Dragnet” as one show. Unlike “Dragnet,” where Joe Friday and his partner (by the color version) were assigned all over the Los Angeles Police Department, Malloy and Reed had the day-to-day work of street cops in one LAPD precinct. Also unlike “Dragnet,” “Adam-12” featured the theme of mentor (Malloy, who in the pilot was about to quit after his previous partner was killed on duty) and student (Reed, fresh out of the LAPD academy), at least initially, similar to Webb’s later “Emergency!”

The pilot set up the rest of the series perfectly. After Reed arrests a “415 fight group, with chains and knives” and guns, somewhat recklessly and against Malloy’s orders, Malloy’s lieutenant and former field training officer asks for Malloy’s assessment of his one-night partner. Malloy says that Reed is too enthusiastic and doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. The lieutenant recalls one of his rookies who did the same things, some guy named Malloy. Malloy tells Reed he can’t in good conscience unleash Reed on the fair citizens of L.A., and so the series begins.

How well did Milner do his job? Westside Today has an answer:

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck paid tribute to the late actor Martin Milner today for inspiring thousands of men and women to become LAPD officers through his portrayal of a beat cop on TV’s hit show “Adam-12.” …

“Adam 12 and Martin Milner embodied the spirit of the LAPD to millions of viewers,” Beck said in a statement released by the LAPD’s Media Relations department. “His depiction of a professional and tough yet compassionate cop led to thousands of men and women applying to become LAPD officers, including me. Godspeed Martin, you will live forever in our hearts.”

At least two of Webb’s shows, “Adam-12” and “Emergency!”, inspired young viewers to become police officers and firefighters. Aaron Spelling had many more viewers of his shows, but it’s unlikely anyone watching, say, “Charlie’s Angels” was inspired to become an eye-candy private detective, or successfully became one.

Webb’s two series were followed by the more realistic portrayals of L.A. cops written by L.A. officer Joseph Wambaugh. At the time there were stories that real police officers felt they couldn’t compare to Webb’s idealized cops. (Even though in one episode Malloy was suspended for beating a suspect.) One wonders if today’s police officers would prefer Webb’s portrayals to the portrayals of such series as “The Shield” and “Southland,” not to mention what TV news presents each night.

As for Milner’s costar …

“I had a long, long friendship with Marty and we remained friends up till the end,” McCord said, according to the AP. “He was one of the really, true great people of our industry with a long, distinguished career. … Wonderful films, wonderful television shows, pioneering shows like ‘Route 66′. He was one of the great guys. I was lucky to have him in my life.”

Michael F. Blake, a child — well, teen — actor on “Adam-12”:

When I got an autograph photo of him, it was a holy grail for me. Malloy was my hero, the man I looked up to. I wanted to be him, driving the black & white unit, enforcing the law. Because of the show, and Marty’s performance, I wanted to be a LAPD officer and was inching in that direction until asthma put an end to that idea.