Wesley Britton's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-man-from-u-n-c-l-e"

On Sept. 22, 1964, a phenomenon premiered, although few knew it at the time. It would take nearly a year before The Man From U.N.C.L.E., or MFU as fans know it, would dominate so much of mid-‘60s popular culture. Emulating the success of the James Bond films, MFU was the fountainhead from which so much TV Spy-Fi sprouted, as in shows like The Wild Wild West and British imports like The revamped Avengers and The Prisoner. For most episodes, the evil THRUSH (the Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity, if you accept the tie-in novels as canon) trotted out one mad scientist after another in their quest to rule the world with futuristic technology. They tried everything from weather-controlling machines to mind-altering drugs to Harlen Ellison’s sexy killer Robots to defeat the stalwart agents of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

Did you know MFU paved the way for Star Trek? For example, it was on a first year episode of MFU, “The Project Strigas Affair,” where William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy first shared the TV screen together. Trek is credited with introducing hand-held communicators decades before cell-phones; in fact, two years before Trek, U.N.C.L.E. agents carried around cigarette-pack sized communicators before the show introduced the iconic pen communicator into which they whispered “Open Channel D” to talk to headquarters or each other.

It’s often been stated the two most popular figures in ‘60s television were Illya Kuryakin and Mr. Spock. Both characters were cool, aloof aliens in a strange world, traits which appealed to adolescents feeling a similar sense of disenfranchisement from an adult world known as “the Establishment.” Kuryakin and Spock appealed to a growing trend championing non-conformity and an interest in fictional figures different from previous media heroes and role models. The freshness of this trend can be demonstrated by the fact both characters were nearly killed off by the networks as executives feared they would be too unusual to be accepted on American television.

As it turned out, with one eye on Kuryakin and one on the Monkees, Star Trek introduced its own Russian long-hair in its second season, the young Ensign Chekov (Walter Koenig) precisely to appeal to the audience created by U.N.C.L.E.

Star Trek is known for featuring an intelligent African-American woman, Nichelle Nichols, a casting choice reflecting the then new and rare opportunities given to African-Americans like Greg Morris (Mission: Impossible) and Bill Cosby (I Spy (. Unlike the pervasive Westerns, in which the roles of women and minorities were frozen in 19th century values, SF and secret agent shows fostered new and futuristic qualities for new kinds of heroes and heroines. Female leads like April Dancer—The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.--Agent 99, and Emma Peel in the 1960s joined in the physical action, outthought their partners, and didn't totally rely on serving as temptresses. (Girl from U.N.C.L.E., despite many glaring weaknesses, was in fact the first hour-long TV action-adventure to feature a female lead produced in the U.S.) Spy shows like Mission: Impossible and U.N.C.L.E. deserve equal credit, alongside Star Trek, for these accomplishments.

In addition, Star Trek has often been described as an optimistic window into the future. Likewise, MFU creators Norman Felton and Sam Rolfe were political liberals believing in the importance of concepts such as the United Nations. Clearly, U.N.C.L.E. was a kind of optimistic spy show, with people of different nations uniting against common foes, very much like a terrestrial United Federation of Planets.

For the record, there was no shortage of espionage in Star Trek. Certainly, there was much more of it in the later Next Gen and DS9, but remember Captain Kirk in his Romulan ears? Or Gary Seven? Or all the times Kirk and company took on false identities to infiltrate alien governments? Likewise, remember all the covert operations alien cultures used to try and defeat Star Fleet. (The Memory Alpha website has a long article on espionage in Star Trek.)

As a fan of MFU from the first year on, I was far from alone having a youth filled with the 23 Ace paperback novels, MFU games, guns, bubblegum cards, you name it. So, for me and legions of fellow Baby Boomers, MFU is a major slice of our nostalgic look back to the ‘60s.

Over the years, I’ve contributed more than my fair share of remembrances for those good old days. If you too were a part of the “Spy-Fi” generation, here are some items for your listening and reading pleasure:

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of MFU’s debut, in 2014 I had the opportunity to interview cinematographer Fred Koenekamp who had so much to do with the look of the series. For online radio’s “Dave White Presents,” Fred not only talked MFU, but shared much of movie history stretching back to his father’s pioneering work in the silent era all the way through Fred’s work on Patton.
http://tinyurl.com/nm8dpb4

Now, should you stop by—
http://www.spywise.net/spiesOnTV.html

and click on the “Spies on Television and Radio” button, you’ll find a bounty of MFU items.

Without question, the most significant offering is a free book, The Final Affair by David McDaniel, the full text of what would have been the 24th tie-in paperback novel had Ace ever published it. (McDaniel was the gent who coined the “Technological Hierarchy” name for the previously unspecified THRUSH acronym.) The entire book is free for the taking, downloadable as a PDF for you!

Other items include:

* “Robert Vaughn, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. is Alive and Kicking.” An interview with Napoleon Solo himself!

* “A Man from U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and The Wild Wild West – Meet Mark Ellis” in which Mark gives you the inside story into the “Birds of Prey Affair” comic-book

*”How The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Returned – As a Comic Book.” Paul Howley’s story of the TE (That’s Entertainment) MFU comics series.

* “Behind the Toys from U.N.C.L.E. – The Inside story of a Collector’s Guide.” Paul Howley’s insider’s view into a long overdue catalogue of MFU merchandise.

There’s also a link to “The U.N.C.L.E. Movie that Never Was” posted at the Fans From U.N.C.L.E.org website. It’s my interview with Danny Beiderman and Robert Short about their aborted film project sanctioned by Sam Rolfe, co-creator of the series.
http://manfromuncle.org/spywise.htm
THE U.N.C.L.E. MOVIE THAT NEVER WAS

So, as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryaking used to say—“Open Channel D”—and check out some memories of the real MFU, the one that mattered.

If you watched much TV in the 1960s, you undoubtedly watched The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. If you were a female viewer of the show, perhaps you too were enamored with teenage heartthrob David McCallum’s portrayal of Russian agent, Illya Kuryakin, noted for popularizing black turtlenecks and being the “blond Beatle.”

But you don’t have to be a Baby Boomer to be a fan of NCIS, the popular CBS drama airing Tuesday nights since Sept. 23, 2003. For 14 seasons now, David McCallum has played Donald "Ducky" Mallard, the team’s chief medical officer spending most of his time with the bodies of murder victims, his character full of esoteric trivia.

In between these two successful shows, did you know McCallum had a short try as a leading man in one of many TV versions of The Invisible Man that ran on NBC from Sept. 8, 1975--Jan. 19, 1976?

The story went like this:

In May 1975, NBC aired a 90-minute movie written by Robert Bochco starring David McCallum as scientist Daniel Westin. Researching molecular reduction and transformation in laser experiments for a West Coast think tank called the Klae Corporation, Westin discovered the secret of invisibility. After using himself as a guinea pig, Westin learned visibility could occur at any time without advance warning. Westin was idealistic and naïve, becoming horrified when his discovery was financed and controlled by the military. Destroying his lab, Westin went underground but ultimately agreed to work as a secret agent with his wife, Dr. Kate Westin (Melinda Fee) in exchange for the Klae Corporations agreement to help him find a cure for his condition. Walter Carlson (Jackie Cooper(, the head of the sinister Klae Corp., provided Westin with gloves and a special mask of his old face so both viewers and cast members could see Westin when not on duty.

The film was a ratings success, so that fall 12 episodes followed. At first, according to McCallum, the idea of the character was total fantasy, a fusion of Superman, Mission: Impossible, and Claude Rains (the first movie invisible man). Later, he said he'd signed on to do The Fugitive and ended up doing "Topper." From the beginning, producers Bochco, Harve Bennett, Leslie Stephens, and Robert O’Neill admitted they were imitating The Six Million Dollar Man. As a result, more effort went into the gimmicks than the characters or stories. To make the series lighter than the film, Jackie Cooper was replaced by father-figure Craig Stevens, the former Peter Gunn. He gave the Klae Corporation a more benevolent flair than in Botchco’s concept.

According to Fee, the series centered on the relationship of Daniel and Kate, and that Kate Westin came along about the same time as women’s liberation. Fee’s most difficult job was playing to an invisible husband, which at that time wasn't as easy as it would become with improved special effects in subsequent decades. Shooting a simple scene in which a hypodermic needle was passed from hand to hand could take half a day to film. It was difficult for an unseen agent to express emotion. To let viewers know where he was, The Invisible Man bumped into pots and furniture so often, he seemed the clumsiest man on earth.

Despite the talent involved, including a theme by legendary composer Henry Mancini, producer O’Neill admitted, "The Invisible Man was really a one-joke show. The minute you’ve taken the wrapping off his head, you've seen the joke.” Other jokes included McCallum going undercover for a cleaning woman, and one effort had him Held in a hick town by a corrupt sheriff for bogus traffic violations. The nadir of the series was one episode titled “Pin Money” featuring bank robbers with Frankenstein monster masks. The writer, James Parriott, admitted he was asked to write the script in the mold of the Six Million Dollar Man.

In this climate, commentators were reduced to speculating about the sexual possibilities for the couple. As the invisible man had to be naked to be unseen, he was often shivering and complained about freezing in public. One odd controversy arose when representatives from America's Bible-Belt in the mid-West complained that the show was obscene because it featured a naked, if unseen, man on TV.

For most observers, the format simply didn’t jell and Harv Bennett noted networks were still uneasy about British leads on American television. Some felt McCallum was better suited to a supporting “color” character like Illya Kuryakin rather than a straight lead. More importantly, few shows could compete in the Tuesday night time-slot against MTM’s double-shot of Rhoda and Phyllis. Whatever the case, the show enjoyed great popularity in Europe, especially England, where the ratings soared after the cancellation. NBC thought enough of the concept to revamp it with an American lead, which became the equally short-lived Gemini Man.

As a quick coda, McCallum also played a supporting character in the late, lamented 1995 VR.5, playing Dr. Joseph Bloom, a neurobiolotist pioneer. In 2006, McCallum lent his voice to the gadget-laden robot car, C.A.R.T.E.R., for the Disney Channel’s cartoon, The Replacements.

In a Sept. 2006 interview, “TV's Original Invisible Man Takes On Heroes' Newcomer,”
McCallum compared his role with that of the invisible character in Heroes.
http://www.tvguide.com/news/tvs-origi...


Wes Britton’s review of McCallum’s 2016 novel, Once a Crooked man, is posted at:
goo.gl/M9HZBt

After my Monday post on David McCallum’s The Invisible Man, I revisited my discussion of the show in my 2003 Spy Television and found some points I didn’t include earlier. So here’s a bit more on the show:


According to Melinda Fee, who played Kate Weston, "The pilot was geared more to the lurking Feds scrambling to steal the formula of invisibility. It had the proverbial car chase, ending in a huge crash-and-burn sequence. The series centered on the relationship of Daniel and Kate."
Newcomer Fee was excited by her role, later claiming Kate Westin came along about the same time as women’s liberation. “She represented what women were striving for, separate professions, equality, recognition of intelligence and education.” But most U.N.C.L.E. fans, seeing a new vehicle for McCallum at last, found the attempt a missed opportunity. From the beginning, producers Bochco, Harve Bennett, Leslie Stephens, and Robert O’Neill admitted they were imitating The Six Million Dollar Man. As a result, more effort went into the gimmicks than the characters or stories. Fee’s most difficult job was playing to an invisible husband, which at that time wasn't as easy as it would become with improved special effects in subsequent decades. Shooting a simple scene in which a hypodermic needle was passed from hand to hand could take half a day to film. It was difficult for an unseen agent to express emotion. To let viewers know where he was, The Invisible Man bumped into pots and furniture so often, he seemed the clumsiest man on earth.
Ironically, like U.N.C.L.E. before it, the show quickly fell into comedy, only in a considerably shorter time. According to Robert O’Neill, "The Invisible Man was really a one-joke show. The minute you've taken the wrapping off his head, you've seen the joke.” Creator Harve Bennett had a different take. "By today's standards it was very crude, but in 1975 it allowed us tremendous opportunities. It was a very noble experiment, and I'm very proud of the series."
Some of the less satisfactory outings included McCallum going undercover for a cleaning woman, and one effort had him Held in a hick town by a corrupt sheriff for bogus traffic violations. The nadir of the series was one episode titled “Pin Money” featuring bank robbers with Frankenstein monster masks. The writer, James Parriott, admitted he was asked to write the script in the mold of the Six Million Dollar Man.
In this climate, commentators were reduced to speculating about the sexual possibilities for the couple. As the invisible man had to be naked to be unseen, he was often shivering and complained about freezing in public. Twenty-five years later, one fan recalled an episode in which Weston rode on a bicycle through a town, no doubt a most uncomfortable experience. One odd controversy arose when representatives from America's Bible-Belt in the mid-West complained that the show was obscene because it featured a naked, if unseen, man on TV. Writers tried to build sympathy for the characters by having Fee forced to seduce enemies as her husband looked on.
For most observers, the format simply didn’t jell and some attempted to rest the blame on McCallum. Harv Bennett noted networks were still uneasy about British leads on American television, and some felt McCallum was better suited to a supporting “color” character like Illya Kuryakin rather than a straight lead. Most believed the Tuesday night time-slot was McCallum’s No. 1 adversary, as MTM’s double-shot of Rhoda and Phyllis were ratings champions. Whatever the case, the show enjoyed great popularity in Europe, especially England, where the ratings soared after the cancellation.

I was so struck today to learn about the death of Robert Vaughn at the age of 83. How to best remember him here? I thought I’d repost an interview I conducted with Vaughn back in March 2002 which is still at my spywise.net website. In fact, should you visit

http://www.spywise.net/robertVaughn.html

you’ll see photos of me with Vaughan at the Montgomery Fairgrounds Antique Show in Gaithersburg, Maryland. My purpose was to ask Vaughn about his lesser known spy TV series like The Protectors and The A-Team, along with his thoughts on the longevity of U.N.C.L.E. as research for my first non-fiction book, Spy Television (Praeger Pub, 2003.

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On February 9th, 2002, I gave myself a mission and gratefully accepted it. My mission: to attend the Montgomery Fairgrounds Antique Show in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and interview my childhood hero--actor Robert Vaughn, AKA Napoleon Solo, the "Man From U.N.C.L.E."

I've had harder missions. Arriving at the autograph tables early in the morning, I saw him--Robert Vaughn, the walking definition of secret agent elegance and style. He was sitting between two lovely actresses also their to be seen and greet fans. On Vaughn's right sat Karen Black, star of countless films and TV shows of the 1970s and beyond. On his right sat Linda Harrison, best known for her role as Nova, Charlton heston's love interest in the first two Planet of the Apes epics. Despite their distracting charms, it was Vaughn I had come to see, and he quickly agreed to speak with me over the noon hour.
For several hours before our conversation, my wife Betty and I shopped in the four rooms of collectibles, looking carefully for U.N.C.L.E. memorabilia for Napoleon, er, Robert to sign. Amidst all the carefully organized boxes and displays of Baby Boom nostalgia, I found it--the ideal souvenir for the occasion. One dealer sold me a vintage 1966 "16" magazine featuring a spread called "The Life of Robert Vaughn in 50 Photos." What could be more perfect--the life of the star of U.N.C.L.E., THE A-TEAM, and countless films and TV appearances signed by the man himself?

I should have known better. When I returned to the autograph table for our talk, my wife showed Vaughn the magazine. His excitement was obvious as he looked over the pictures. With tones revealing his own nostalgia for times past he said, "I've never seen this before. I was so much taller then. There's my high school sweetheart." Of course, my good-hearted spouse had to say it--"Why don't you give it to him?" "I was thinking about that . . ." muses I, aloud. But before my thought had jelled, the magazine disappeared from view faster than any spy's conjuring trick. Turning to me, Vaughn said, "So what is it you'd like to ask me?" Clearly, I'd paid my price of admission.

Of course, I'd thought out just what I wanted to ask as I was researching information for my book, SPY TELEVISION, then a book in search of a publisher. Being a lifelong U.N.C.L.E. fan, I knew Vaughn's ex-partner, David McCallum, had become so tired of questions about his role as Illya Kuryakin in the show, that he refused to answer any more questions about the old days. While Vaughn has always been more talkative about his years in the forefront of American popular culture, I suspected few questions I could ask hadn't been asked and answered many times before. So I started by inquiring into why Vaughn left the states after his most successful series had been cancelled in 1968, a subject of much conjecture by fans on ongoing and very lively online list serves devoted to what was once the most influential series on television. Many aficionados had speculated Vaughn's choice to leave America was based on the political problems of the era, notably the assassination of Vaughn's personal friend, Robert F. Kennedy. Was this so?

It was. Vaughn said firmly, "I was working in Czechoslovakia when the Russians invaded in August of 1968, and that, combined with the Vietnam War, and the election of Richard Nixon, I decided I'd spend some time outside of the United States. For the next four years, almost five years, I was based in London and did television series for three years, various films in England and on the continent and in Italy." At that time, it was widely reported Vaughn planned to leave acting to enter politics. Was this true? "Well, I actually hadn't talked about it but the fan magazines had talked about it. I never had any personal interest myself. I was basically opposing the war which was not a political issue to me. It was a international, humanity issue."

During this self-imposed exile, Vaughn starred as Harry Rule in a little-known series called THE PROTECTORS, a 30 minute show later syndicated in the U.S. From 1972 to 1973. As Vaughn had said he didn't want to do any further television series
after U.N.C.L.E., I asked how this came about. He told me Sir Lew Grade, who ran all the commercial programming in England at that time, called his agent in England and asked if Vaughn would be interested in doing a spy show there. "I said I wasn't very interested," he told me, "and then they said, `Well it's only a half-hour show, you'd only be here one year,' and they offered a pretty good deal. I didn't realize that in England, it took them five to six to seven days to shoot a half-hour show whereas in America it would take only three days. I wound up doing a second season, so I was there almost three years. " THE PROTECTORS wasn't a show the actor was especially proud of. "I wasn't too happy with the quality of the stories, but I had a wonderful time. I lived in London. Every weekend we spent in some place in England, Ireland, or Scotland. We did a lot of filming, actually, on the continent in Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark, and just about every country available in Europe. "

After his return to the states, Vaugn's acting career continued in earnest, with both starring roles and guest appearances in films such as THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, SUPERMAN IV, KUNG FU: THE LEGEND CONTINUES, COLUMBO, LAW AND ORDER, and one episode of DIAGNOSIS: MURDER which featured three other TV spies from the '60s, Patrick Macnee, Barbara Bain, and Robert Culp. But one starring role didn't make it. "I did a quick series that didn't last very long called EMERALD POINT." Starring Dennis Weaver, the series "was done by the same people who did DYNASTY and DALLAS and it was kind of supposedly a show with that kind of orientation that took place in the Navy. It only lasted half a season. "

In 1985, Vaughn starred as General hunt Stockwell, a role designed to boost the ratings of the once popular A-TEAM, a show now a staple on the "TVLand" channel. It's a series best remembered for the presence of Mr. T and his catch-phrase, "I pity the fool." But after dropping ratings, Vaughn said he was asked to come in at the request of an old friend. "The guy that produced the A-TEAM, his name is John Ashly, he's since died, he was an actor. We were both young actors in our twenties when we came to Hollywood . . . He remembered me from our early days." (John Ashley was married to
Deborah Walley for a time with whom he appeared in the Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello beach party movies.) The show lasted only one more season, but during that year, one memorable episode teamed Vaughn with his old pal, David McCallum. In that adventure, "The Say U.N.C.L.E. Affair" (first broadcast on Oct. 31, 1986),
McCalum played an old partner of General Stockwell who'd become a traitor and an agent for the Red Chinese. What was it like, I wondered, for the two friends to reunite? "We had a lot of fun. We keep in touch. David lives in new York City, I live in Connecticut about an hour north of New York City so we're in touch from time to time on the phone and personally. "

We chatted about the ongoing interest in what might seem to non-fans as a show long ago relegated to TV history--of course, I mean The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Despite its few appearances on the small screen since its first run from 1964 to 1968, five internet groups are devoted to the series, a detailed "web ring" of U.N.C.L.E. sites grow seemingly each month, and an ongoing series of CDs albums of original soundtracks continue to sell well. After 9/11, much discussion revolved around the fact that the war on terror would likely require just such an international organization as U.N.C.L.E. (The United Network Command for Law and Enforcement). What, I asked Vaughn, is the reason The MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. is still interesting to baby boomers now in their fifties? "I think it relates definitely to the ongoing success of the James Bond pictures," Vaughn replied. "Obviously, they're still making them and still making a lot of money. It is generally that genre that U.N.C.L.E. was supposed to emulate, which was an international roguish kind of spy who operates around the world with a lot of attractive women, and I guess that's why it's still going on. Cause there were a lot of attractive women in the '60s that are still on film. They may date but not the film." Knowing Vaughn had contributed to a dissertation by Cynthia Walker on U.N.C.L.E. at Rutgers university, I asked Vaughn his thoughts on the meaning of such scholarly interest in his show. "I don't know what it all meant, philosophically or intellectually. I know it was good fun for us to do and good fun for people to see. I guess I'll wait for Cyntheia Walker's report to find out the deeper meaning of the whole thing."

Currently, Vaughn is working on his autobiography which will be completed "when the autobiographer, meaning me, puts his butt in a chair long enough to wrap it up."


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Looking back, I am so glad to have had this hour with an actor who had meant so much to me during my teenage years. Hope these memories will mean something to you as well.