David McCallum is convinced that the less you know about him the better
by Edwin Miller
“The only things I had to begin with in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were the
name Illya and a Russian accent,” says David McCallum, costar of the NBC-TV
Robert Vaughn spy series. “I created the rest of the characterization
myself. No one knows anything much about him, actually. You don't know where
he lives, what he eats, whom he knows or where he comes from. He's an exotic,
romantic character. He's strange – that's the secret of the romantic element,
I think; the more you know about someone, the less excitement you feel in relation
to the person. It's like meeting a girl. You take her out to dinner, and the
more you know her, the less excitement there is, physically. Eventually, it's
all dissipated unless some underlying real feeling is there. There's something
very romantic about a spy nobody knows anything about.
“U.N.C.L.E. is a lot of fun to do. Since they can't find anyone who looks
like me – all the stunt men they turn up look like Edward G. Robinson
– I've been doing my own stunts on the show. I like doing my own, but
if I break a leg, then it would be a bit foolish.” As Illya, David is
menaced by annihilation in all sorts of curious ways – entrapment by a
loony scientist, attacked by dogs conditioned to kill by remote control, pursuit
by a villainous organization of females.
“My wife, Jill Ireland, also is an actress, and she's played my girl friend
on U.N.C.L.E. a couple of times. We met in a movie we did together in England,
before we came to the United States. I originally came to Hollywood more than
three years ago to play Judas in The Greatest Story Ever Told. After doing that
for nine months on location in the desert, I sat and worried for almost a year.
Nobody seemed to know I was here, and I almost panicked before finding work
in TV shows like Outer Limits and Profiles in Courage.
“The idea of an actor waiting around for a part that particularly suits
him doesn't make much sense for me. I find an actor has to do as much as he
can and expose himself as much as possible so that he's in the right place at
the right time; he gets himself known that way. I'm a character actor. I'm not
interested in having my personality obtrude on the role I'm playing. It's the
creation of the role that I'm interested in. The parts I want are the ones you
have to go after yourself, or have a good agent help you get. In Freud I played
the fellow who slashed the dummy with a knife; in Billy Budd, I was the one
who said, 'No, you can't hang this man, it's inhuman!'
“I was the soldier who invented the pants to hide the sand while digging
the tunnel in The Great Escape, and in my next, M-G-M's Around the World Under
the Sea with Lloyd Bridges and Shirley Eaton, I'm an electronics engineer who
goes to the bottom of the sea. Most of the things I've done professionally have
been things that I have had fun doing. It would be rather miserable otherwise.
“My mother's family were all musicians, my father was concertmaster for
several orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic.
Then he began free-lancing around, doing recording sessions. I played the oboe
when I was small and my father wanted me to stay in music, but I gave that up
to be a complete ham by going on the boards. I was property master at an opera
festival, then went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and spent some time
in the army. When I got out, I worked in TV, stage, and films.
“I'm just like my father, very restless. I can't sit still. I like to
keep my hands busy. I was a child who fiddled about with clocks, and I entered
the world of the theater working with my hands. After the war when there were
quite a few actors about, it was difficult getting into stock companies so I
concentrated on the technical end of things. Now I read about myself as an overnight
personality, whatever that might mean; it's taken me fifteen years of nights
to make the grade. We've made twenty-nine U.N.C.L.E. shows here at M-G-M—TV
so far, and I've succeeded in making an impact through the show, which is very
gratifying. I've been getting all sorts of registered parcels at the post office
from fans. Most of them are returned unopened, but when you do open them, you
find they contain Girl Scout cookies wrapped in tissue paper, things like that.
I haven't the heart to send them back.
“U.N.C.L.E. began as a merchandising concept, I think, a device to incorporate
something that would be both popular and merchandisable – theme song records,
spy kits – but it's disillusioning for the public to be made aware of
the basic reasons for the show's existence. Better to face it as a romantic
affair.”
[“The Man from U.N.C.L.E.” starts its second season Sept. 17, will
be seen Fridays, 10-11 P.M. eastern time.]
Seventeen magazine, September 1965, pgs. 116-117.