David McCallum, Star Of The Man From UNCLE, Has Died At 90
David McCallum, the man who brought the sexy to NBC's swinging 1960s superspy series "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." and enjoyed an unexpected career resurgence via CBS' long-running procedural "NCIS," has, as reported by The Hollywood Reporter, passed away of natural causes at the age of 90.
Although his character Illya Kuryakin was a Russian agent in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E.," the Scottish McCallum imbued the show with a British Mod-era cool that mashed up Sean Connery's finely tailored James Bond with the youthful insouciance of The Beatles. This wasn't by design. "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." was conceived as a vehicle for Robert Vaughn, but it's impossible to imagine the show gaining global traction with his cucumber-cool (occasionally frigid) American agent Napoleon Solo. To be sure, Vaughn had "it." He got the best character arc in John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven," and died a hero's death. But Vaughn wasn't Connery. You didn't sense anyone really wanted to go to bed with him.
But McCallum? Blond, chiseled, and imperturbable, he was sex on the proverbial stick. He wasn't Connery either, but he wasn't trying to be. The costumer who first slipped the man into a turtleneck must've lost consciousness (and, upon coming to, asked for the biggest below-the-line raise in industry history at the time). The man also had "it."
The problem for McCallum was how to follow up a character as staggeringly suave as Kuryakin?
A career that was just Ducky
The son of two orchestral violinists, McCallum was immersed in culture from the jump. He played the oboe but evinced an interest in acting fairly early on. His big-screen breakthrough, like Vaughn, came in a Sturges film. McCallum was the POW who devised a way to dispose of the dirt from the tunneling effort in "The Great Escape." A year later, he was Kuryakin. What came next?
McCallum stuck to television and played another would-be World War II escapee in the early-'70s BBC series "Colditz." He worked steadily (and starred in Jim Wynorski's super-sleazy 1990 horror flick "The Haunting of Morella"), but became something of a journeyman until he hit, er, paydirt as medical examiner Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard on "NCIS" in 2003. The CBS ratings powerhouse was his homecourt until the end, and fans of the series are always quick to single him out as a favorite. He was on the show for all 20 seasons, and his presence will be missed on the show. "He was a scholar and a gentleman, always gracious, a consummate professional, and never one to pass up a joke. From day one, it was an honor to work with him, and he never let us down. He was, quite simply, a legend. He was also family and will be deeply missed," said NCIS executive producers Steven D. Binder and David North in a statement.
But it's his intoxicatingly fashionable Illya Kuryakin that will echo throughout the ages. For four seasons of television, McCallum was a lethal, turtlenecked dreamboat. Survivors also include grandchildren Julia, Luca, Iain, Stella, Gavin, George, Alessandro and Whit.