David McCallum, who became one of TV’s biggest stars of the 1960s playing Russian spy Illya Kuryakin in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and then won over a new generation of fans on the popular NCIS series decades later, has died aged 90, NCIS said on Monday.
“We are deeply saddened by the passing of David McCallum and privileged that CBS was his home for so many years. David was a gifted actor and author, and beloved by many around the world,” NCIS wrote on social media.
Variety reported that he died of natural causes.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Las Vegas News Bureau / Handout
The Scottish-born son of two musicians had an acting career spanning seven decades that dated back to his student days in the 1950s at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where one of his classmates was future star Joan Collins.
He launched his career with supporting parts in a number of British films, including A Night to Remember in 1958, where he played Harold Bride, radio operator on the doomed Titanic.
He gained the attention of US audiences with his small, but pivotal role as one of the prisoners of war plotting a mass breakout from a German prison camp in the 1963 World War II classic The Great Escape.
The film featured a star-studded international cast including Steve McQueen, Richard Attenborough and James Garner. During filming, McCallum introduced his wife, Jill Ireland, to costar Charles Bronson, whom she married after leaving McCallum.
McCallum also guest-starred in a number of US television shows including The Outer Limits and the legal drama Perry Mason, where he did a comic turn as a hapless, unlucky-in-love Frenchman.
In 1964, he appeared in the pilot of a spy series starring American actor Robert Vaughn as The Man from U.N.C.L.E. McCallum’s part, in which he spoke only a few lines, was to prove his launchpad to international fame.
The show was designed as a showcase for Vaughn as the dashing Napoleon Solo, battling nefarious agents from THRUSH. McCallum played fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent Illya Kuryakin. Sporting a blond Beatles haircut, and cloaked in mystery and sex appeal, he quickly became a hit with fans and was elevated to costar, alongside Vaughn.
The role earned McCallum two Emmy nominations and the status of a pop culture idol. MGM, which produced the show, said he attracted more fan mail than any other star in the studio’s celebrated history, although McCallum later said that “Vaughn got as much as I did.”
McCallum reunited with Vaughn in a 1983 TV movie, Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E., and a 1986 episode of The A-Team titled “The Say U.N.C.L.E. Affair.”
Vaughn died in 2016.
In subsequent years, McCallum remained busy, especially on TV, starring in the British series Colditz from 1972 to 1974 and Sapphire & Steel from 1979 to 1982. He also appeared as a guest on a number of popular US TV shows, including Hart to Hart, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, Law and Order and Sex and the City.
A new brush with fame awaited when McCallum took on the role of medical examiner Donald “Ducky” Mallard on the CBS military detective show NCIS. It was one of US TV’s most popular programs during a run exceeding 19 years.
However, even with his success on NCIS, in which he appeared into his 80s, McCallum never quite escaped the aura of the character that made him famous.
The lead investigator in NCIS, played by Mark Harmon, is asked in one episode what McCallum’s character looked like as a younger man.
“Illya Kuryakin,” he replied.
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