TV Guide 1/10/04

The man from N.C.I.S.

For years, David McCallum was haunted by Illya Kuryakin. Now everything is just "Ducky"

David McCallum was flying from Los Angeles to New York when a fan approached him. McCallum braced himself for the usual question: "Hey, aren't you Illya Kuryakin?"

Instead, the fan called him "Ducky" -- after Donald "Ducky" Mallard, the idiosyncratic medical examiner he plays on Navy NCIS.

"I couldn't believe it," says McCallum, a spry 70. "For (nearly) 40 years, people have called me Illya Kuryakin every day of my life. Now, suddenly, I'm Ducky."

In the mid-1960's, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. made TV stars of McCallum and Robert Vaughn, and landed them on many a teen-magazine cover.

Since then, McCallum has had a steady -- if less frenzied -- career. He was acting in an off-Broadway play, making $200 a week, when he got the call to join Navy NCIS. Says McCallum: "To do what I love at my age and to get such a response is amazing."