Fifty years on, how the man from uncle is topping the TV ratings all over again
DECADES ago, David McCallum went for a stroll in New York’s Central Park, the Scots actor thinking he would pass unnoticed in the Big Apple’s green heart. But a shout of ‘Illya Kuryakin! The Man from Uncle!’ soon rang out and it took two mounted policemen to rescue McCallum from the scrum of fans which rapidly descended.
These days McCallum is still in New York and if he stepped from the limo whisking him through Manhattan, he’d again require an NYPD escape route, even at the age of 81.
For he has pulled off a remarkable double, starring in the world’s most popular TV show not once, but twice. While he long ago handed in his United Network Command for Law and Enforcement badge, he now stars in NCIS.
The series is based on US Navy criminal investigators and, with audiences of 60 million, it is officially the most popular television show in the world.
The star of epics such as The Great Escape has enjoyed a career on stage and in films and television spanning an incredible 68 years.
‘How has it lasted? I don’t know. I take each day as it comes and try to avoid stress.’
As Kuryakin, the Russian spy teamed with Robert Vaughn’s US agent Napoleon Solo, he received more fan mail than any other actor in the history of MGM studios.
Dubbed the blond Beatle, he attracted a level of adulation only dreamed of by Superman actor Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer, the stars of director Guy Ritchie’s forthcoming blockbuster movie version of the touchstone Cold War espionage adventure.
‘It did tend to rob one of privacy,’ adds the actor.
‘ To be in the most popular show in the world not once but twice in a lifetime is very satisfying. I am, however, unlikely to get carried away. I am Scottish through and through.hE Even at t my age, I can remember being pushed in my pram around the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow.’
It may surprise fans of the original UNCLE – there is still a fan club out there – and those devoted to NCIS that their favourite star is a Glaswegian. ‘I grew up in Kersland Street and spent my childhood in Clouston Street,’ reveals the actor in an accent which has, for a moment, relinquished its midAtlantic tone in favour of its roots.
Determined to keep those roots alive, McCallum has invested his NCIS character, medical examiner Top TV: As Ducky, left, in NCIS, which has an audience of 60m Dr Donald ‘Ducky’ Mallard, with the attributes which have kept his own feet firmly on the ground for seven decades.
‘I introduced a lot of Scottishness into Ducky,’ he adds. ‘ He comes from Edinburgh, graduated from that city’s medical school, and his mobile ringtone is Scotland the Brave. I cling to my roots, you see.
‘I still have cousins in Scotland and my sister-in-law is there, but at my age, going on 82, there are, sadly, not many of us left. My trips home are not as frequent as they used to be.’
BORN in 1933, McCallum was the son of cellist Dorothy Dorman and violinist David Sr – who would work with a young musician called Jimmy Page in recording sessions. He suggested Page try playing guitar with a violin bow – it became a centrepiece of Page’s Led Zeppelin shows.
When his father was appointed leader of the Philharmonic Orchestra, the family moved to London.
‘It was a big move. My dad was from Kilsyth and my mother was born in Bridge of Allan,’ recalls McCallum. But he did not tarry in London. The outbreak of WWII led to thousands of children being evacuated from the city.
He was sent back to Scotland to live with his aunt and uncle on Loch Lomond-side.
‘They lived in Rose Cottage at Gartocharn. We enjoyed happy, carefree days. We must have dammed every stream on Sheriffmuir.’
The father- of-four and grandfather- of- eight adds: ‘ My Uncle John, an architect in Glasgow, became a surrogate father and looking back he was one of the most impressive influences on my life. There are things about him and Scotland that never left me, no matter how far I have travelled. I remain resolutely Scottish.’
As a child, McCallum displayed musical talent and looked set to follow his parents’ profession – but at the age of eight he first heard the sound that defined the course of his life.
‘Applause!’ says the star. ‘I played The Little Prince in Shakespeare’s King John and got a standing ovation. I thought, “This is very good – and it doesn’t involve homework”. To this day, I feel exactly the same. That feeling has never left me.’
By his teens, he was involved in amateur drama and doing ‘ boy’ voices for BBC radio. National Service in the Army was followed by a place at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
He took the first steps to international stardom in the 1950s with small roles in British films. His performances and cool, blond good looks caught the eye of US moguls and he made his Hollywood debut in 1962, opposite Montgomery Clift in John Huston’s classic, Freud: The Secret Passion. A year later, he joined a galaxy of international stars in The Great Escape. He went on to star as Judas Iscariot to Max Von Sydow’s Christ in The Greatest Story Ever Told.
By now, he had carved a solid star career in big films – but he was about to be offered a small screen role which would send his star into the stratosphere.
IN the 1960s, with the Cold War at its height, US television chiefs came up with the idea of a spy series based on two agents working for an organisation known as UNCLE – the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.
Studio bosses cast Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo and he was seen as the star. But it would be Vaughn’s enigmatic, fair-haired partner who would steal the show and help make UNCLE the most popular television series in the world, a success maintained for four years which was translated into a series of big-screen adventures.
‘In the end, Robert and I were not the least concerned about who did what. It was all about us getting good ratings and keeping the show on television,’ says McCallum.
He adds: ‘I don’t think any of us expected the show to become such a phenomenon.
‘The fan mail was colossal and, of course, the first casualty was our privacy. One day, I went for a walk on my own in Central Park. Someone recognised me and before long it took two mounted NYPD officers to get me out of there. On another occasion, I was supposed to be at Macy’s store in the city and when I wasn’t allowed to appear, a large group of young women caused damage worth $25,000. It was just a crazy, amazing time.’
But the actor is not one for dwelling in the past, an attitude which has sustained his career on stage, films and in ‘high end’ US television such as NCIS, which he has starred in for more than a decade.
‘We are closing in on our 300th show. It’s great television and gratifyingly successful, playing to audiences in more than 100 countries.’
But even half-a-century on from UNCLE, his most famous role is still hard to escape. In a recent episode of NCIS, two characters are debating what ‘Ducky’ Mallard might have looked like when he was a young man. ‘Illya Kuryakin!’ quips one of them.
‘It is hard to get away from – but it is 50 years ago and I like to live in the present and I will continue to do so long as, touch wood, my health holds out,’ says the actor.
The star also has doubts as to whether there is an audience for Ritchie’s new film, which stars Cavill as Solo and Hammer as Kuryakin.
‘I’m surprised it has been revisited. To be honest, I am not certain there is universal interest in Uncle. After all, most people under a certain age have never heard of it.
‘I will, however, be fascinated to see what they what they do with it... but this time from a safe distance.’