For those of us whose lives have extended into eighth decades and beyond, hardly a day goes by void of news of the passing of someone we remember with fondness and admiration.

Recently, perhaps obscured by the death of more prominent celebrities including Tina Turner and Jim Brown, I noted with misty-eyed wistfulness the passing of actor George Maharis, whom those in my age cohort will recall as the ruggedly handsome co-star of the early 1960s weekly TV drama “Route 66.”

Most of us will have scant memory of his career arc when he left the cast after three years, ostensibly due to illness, or to seek other opportunities, it was also said. I was among those who had wondered but didn’t search it out until the news of his death landed suddenly on May 24.

“Route 66” was a weekly hourlong drama series shot affectingly in black and white that outlined the adventures of Buz Murdock (Maharis’s character) and his friend Tod Stiles, played by Martin Milner, as they cruised the country in a convertible Corvette, their only possession of value left to Todd by his deceased father. They worked odd jobs wherever they wandered and became intimately involved in the lives of those they briefly met in different places each episode.

Maharis bore an uncanny resemblance to the Beat writer Jack Kerouac, whose groundbreaking novel “On the Road” chronicled his real-life adventures with his friend, the fictional Dean Moriarty modeled on the later Merry Prankster bus driver Neal Cassady, which was published a few years before the show aired and was without doubt its unacknowledged inspiration.

“Route 66” producer Herbert Leonard coyly denied this even while saying he read and loved the book before conceiving the series.

Kerouac was embittered by this denial and his close friend, the poet Allen Ginsburg, confirmed that he had angled for a movie deal based on the book involving the “two guys driving around in a car” scenario of the television show.

Of course, the show cleaned up the beat narrative for primetime America of the early ’60s. Instead of hitting the highways in a clunker 1947 Hudson they were side-by-side in a tony sports car. Hey, Chevrolet was a sponsor. But the TV story line kept them poor — other than the car — and turned them into forces of good, dropping into people’s troubled lives and finding ways to leave them better off than they were before the guys randomly drove into town.

Nelson Riddle’s memorable jazz-influenced theme music, unusual for TV’s golden age, also nodded to the counterculture of Kerouac and the Beats.

It was different from every other show on television. Each venue was scouted and the teleplay scripted to fit the landscape and the culture, not the other way around. Many were small towns and rural settings, but not all. And few were actually along Route 66. One wonders, did viewers consult maps, or care?

Buz and Todd were looking for adventure, meaning, and themselves. Plots dealt directly with issues including drug addiction, domestic violence, mental illness, poverty and religion much more forthrightly than other shows of that era. Ethel Waters won the first Emmy Award by an African American woman for her turn in one episode.

The “Birdcage on my Foot” episode, one of Maharis’ favorites, was shot in Boston with scenes in the Public Garden and Back Bay and the iconic Corvette cruising on Storrow Drive while Buz and Todd joked about the scullers on the Charles.

Search it online. I predict you won’t be disappointed. It features a performance, graphic for that era, by an incredibly young Robert Duvall as man with a heroin addiction Buz helps him kick. Other notables, most not yet famous, who had episodes built around their commanding performances included Robert Redford, William Shatner, Lee Marvin, Ed Asner, Cloris Leachman, Alan Alda, Joan Crawford, Rod Steiger and many others.

Buz and Todd were outcasts, skirting the fringes of American life and eschewing dominant cultural aspirations for material comfort and occupational success. Sometimes they were stand-ins for despised minorities. In one episode they were almost lynched in an isolated southern town, marched to the tree by torch-carrying thugs before someone stood up for them against the mob.

It ran opposite “The Flintstones.” Tough competition, I note with rolling eyeballs and a sigh.

So why did George Maharis leave the successful show? It turns out that the hunky actor Leonard hired to play an outcast searcher with hard fists, a soft heart and countless amorous flirtations with female characters across America was gay — not the sort of man Leonard felt America was ready for in this role.

They put out the word that he left the show due to illness, even though he showed up soon enough in movies here and there. But the depth of sensitivity and range he was able to bring to Buz every week across the country was not required in his future characters.

The political right today bloviates about so-called “cancel culture,” by which they say reactionary voices and personalities are sidelined. When a versatile and charismatic actor like Maharis was screened out, that was simply the norm, done invisibly in plain sight.

So here’s to a fine actor and a memorable show long ago about how we’re all here to do what we can to help each through whatever this is we’re passing through, week by week, moment by moment.

Jonathan Klate lives in Amherst.

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