One Adam 12 & Dirty Harry

It would be very difficult to imagine a more striking contrast in images of American law enforcement than Officer Malloy of “One Adam 12” and Clint Eastwood’s character of Dirty Harry Callahan.  Officer Malloy was LAPD’s version of Dudley Do Right.  Dirty Harry, on the other hand – well, consider the original ad for the first Dirty Harry film featured the line “Two stone cold killers. Harry’s the one with the Badge.”  

I recently learned that Martin Milner, officer Malloy’s real life alter ego, started acting when he was in the army at Fort Ord, California and he achieved considerable success in Route 66, The Swiss Family Robinson and a number of other films until finding his role in the Jack Web production.  Ironically enough, while he was still stationed at Fort Ord, Martin Milner got to be friends with a very tall, athletic guy named Clint Eastwood; who he encouraged to pursue an acting career and the rest is history.  No word whether Milner and Eastwood ever shared a squad car.