RIP David McCallum
David McCallum was one of my favorite actors when I was young. I only saw him in two things, but I loved him in both. I’m not sure I could explain why, either. I found his blond looks exotic and attractive, but that alone wouldn’t have been enough. He was an understated actor, but I was very drawn to him.
The first role was in the TV show “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”:
I had forgotten that Leo G. Carroll – aka “Cosmo Topper” – was in that show.
I was hardly alone in my adolescent crush on McCallum:
The Man from U.N.C.L.E., intended as a vehicle for Robert Vaughn, made McCallum into a sex symbol, his Beatle-style blond haircut providing a trendy contrast to Vaughn’s clean-cut appearance. McCallum’s role as the mysterious Russian agent Illya Kuryakin was originally conceived as a peripheral one. McCallum, however, took the opportunity to construct a complex character whose appeal rested largely in what was shadowy and enigmatic about him. Kuryakin’s popularity with the audience as well as Vaughn and McCallum’s on-screen chemistry were quickly recognized by the producers, and McCallum was elevated to co-star status.
Although the show aired at the height of the Cold War, McCallum’s Russian alter ego became a pop culture phenomenon. The actor was inundated with fan letters, and a Beatles-like frenzy followed him everywhere he went.
The second of McCallum’s early roles that I well remember was the character Ashley-Pitt in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Great Escape (1963). I saw the film in a movie theater when it first came out. I was a youngish teenager and was expecting an adventure story with a happy ending. I got something quite different and far more moving and tragic, as well as humorous at many points. Lots of male pulchritude, too.
For this post I was looking for a particular clip of McCallum – anyone who knows the movie probably recalls the scene I mean, which takes place at a train station after the escape. I couldn’t find it, so the following one will have to do. It’s brief. His role wasn’t a huge one, but he made a deep impression on me nevertheless:
Apparently, McCallum was a nice guy and a family man:
His son Peter made a statement on behalf of his family, saying, “He was the kindest, coolest, most patient and loving father. He always put family before self. …
“He was a true renaissance man — he was fascinated by science and culture and would turn those passions into knowledge. For example, he was capable of conducting a symphony orchestra and (if needed) could actually perform an autopsy, based on his decades-long studies for his role on NCIS.
“After returning from the hospital to their apartment, I asked my mother if she was OK before she went to sleep. Her answer was simply, “Yes. But I do wish we had had a chance to grow old together.” She is 79, and dad just turned 90. The honesty in that emotion shows how vibrant their beautiful relationship and daily lives were, and that somehow, even at 90, Daddy never grew old.”
He lived to be 90; not a bad run. He kept on acting, explaining that he was doing what he loved and what he was born to do. What a blessing.
His most recent screen credit was this year. It’s quite something to arrive at age 90 with enough wits and enough vigor to be on a set year round.
Married 56 years if I read correctly. Above all his screen credits, that stands out. May light perpetual shine on him.
Who can forget Ilya Kuryakin? I was pleased to discover McCallum had a great late life run as Ducky on NCIS.
Then there was his indelible performance as the Evolving Man on “The Sixth Finger” episode of “The Outer Limits.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sixth_Finger
“The Great Escape” was a favorite of a whole generation. It was on TV a lot when i was growing up.
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Vaughn and McCallum were a good duo. One reason why the movie remake failed was that the two actors they cast (Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer) were too much alike. Neither had very much individuality.
I recall the scene. Ashley-Pitt sees that the gestapo agent recognizes Big X and grapples with him, ultimately killing him, so that Big X can escape. The Great Escape was on TCM yesterday. I think it was scheduled, as opposed to being a tribute to McCallum.
Looked him the other day. Married twice. First wife was Jill Ireland, who was in that first episode. As noted above, he was with his 2nd wife for 56 years. H3 was, essentially, musical royalty, with his father playing first violin in the London Philharmonic, and his mother playing cello. He played oboe, and was following in their footsteps – then took a sharp turn into acting.
He was easily the most beloved character on NCIS, where, as with Man From UNCLE, he turned a minor role into being a costar.
Jill Ireland was subsequently married to Charles Bronson – who was also in The Great Escape (and appears in the clip).
Bruce, I might mention that during “The Great Escape” his fellow actor, Charles Bronson, “took” Jill away from him. Bronson and Ireland were married for many years until she died of cancer
I first saw him in a film in 1962 when he was in the Peter Ustinov directed and acted film “Billy Budd”.
The Great Escape was thrilling for boys my age, It was a “Boy’s Life” type of movie, The POW camp was more like a boy’s summer camp filled with mischievous happy-go-lucky lads, and bumbling Nazis as bumbling counselors. It featured the four coolest male actors of the era; maybe, I daresay, of all time. Namely: Steve McQueen (still the coolest ever IMO); James Coburn; Charles Bronson; and James Garner. Wow! McQueen, Coburn, and Bronson were also in the Magnificent 7 together, and they were very cool in that movies as well. They struck young lads like me (I was 13 when it came out) as real manly men, the sort of men every red-blooded American boy should want to emulate, want to become. Brave, funny, irreverent, honest, decent, roguish, competent, loyal — you all know what I mean. Each one a real mensch. The best role models a 13-year-old boy could have.
P.S. McCallum was pretty cool too.
“The Great Escape” was a favorite of a whole generation. It was on TV a lot when i was growing up.
Abraxas:
According to my Irish friends, “The Great Escape” is a traditional family movie on Christmas Day in the UK and Ireland. Not the only one, of course, but up there.
This surprised me. TGE is a great movie, but it does not leap to my mind as a likely Christmas tradition.
McCallum introduced his wife, Jill Ireland, to Bronson during the filming. I don’t know whether the following story is apocryphal or not, but here it is:
I remember seeng The Great Escape with my father and uncle when it came out. They got a big kick out of the scene where the prisoners made booze and got really drunk. It was a case of art imitating life.
After the Lodz Ghetto was liquidated, they were shipped to a labor camp, Konig Wusterhausen, outside Berlin. One day the SS marched in and told prisoners that the Allies had bombed a freight train and one of the box cars had all the ingredients for making vodka. They were rounded up to bring back the stuff and make the alcohol which they proceeded to do with the results you can imagine. Unlike the movie, no one escaped.
My wife had a thing for McCallum then, too. Oddly enough, I had a major crush on the star of a different spy show. Mrs Peel.
BTW, Leo G Carroll, IIRC, acted in more Hitchcock movies than anyone else, unless you count Hitchcock himself.
RIP to another, the great no. 5, Brooks Robinson, 86
There was an episode of NCIS where someone wondered what Ducky looked like when he was young and Gibbs responded, “He looked like Ilya Kuryakin.”
I loved that line.
I almost got shot, because of David McCallum. One night, during a drug enforcement training session at the local technical college, the instructors from the Wisconsin Department of Justice asked us say who we were, and which police department or Sheriff’s Office we were with.
I told them I was with U.N.C.L.E., and reported to Director Kuryakin. The lead instructor looked at me, and told me that if I said one word into my pen, he would shoot me where I sat.
I was rather amused to discover that Donald Pleasance, who played the chief forger in “The Great Escape” had actually been RAF aircrew in WWII, and after his aircraft was shot down over Germany, he did rack up some time as a prisoner of war. There was a certain cadre of actors who had served in the military … later played a part in a movie that they had done in earnest during the war. Anthony Quayle was another – he was an SOE operative in occupied Yugoslavia. It must have been a rather schizophrenic experience, acting in “The Guns of Navarone” a few years later.
The Password is Courage is a film that predates TGE and which TGE closely resembles. It starred Dirk Bogarde, another of those actors who had served, reaching the rank of major and being awarded seven medals
On a related note, a bunch of the actors in “Hogan’s Heroes” were Jewish Holocaust survivors or refugees. Robert Clary (Louis) survived a camp but lost most of his 13 siblings. John Banner (Schultz) emigrated before the war but lost family members. The actor who played General Burkhalter lost his parents. Werner Klemperer was the son of conductor Otto Klemperer who had emigrated in the 30s to Los Angeles.