"David was a gifted actor and author, and beloved by many around the world. He led an incredible life, and his legacy will forever live on through his family and the countless hours on film and television that will never go away," said a statement from CBS, announcing the actor's passing on Monday, September 25. He died of natural causes, surrounded by family, at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
David McCallum had been doing well appearing in such films A Night to Remember, The Great Escape, and The Greatest Story Ever Told (in which he played the role of the apostle Judas). But it was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that made the blond actor with the Beatlesque haircut a household name in the mid-'60s.
The show, which debuted in 1964, starred Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo, an agent in a secretive, high-tech squad of crime fighters whose initials stood for United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. Despite the Cold War, the agency had an international staff, with McCallum as Illya Kuryakin, Solo's Russian sidekick. The role was relatively small at first, McCallum recalled, adding in a 1998 interview that "I'd never heard of the word ‘sidekick' before." The show drew mixed reviews but eventually caught on, particularly with teenage girls attracted by McCallum's good looks and enigmatic, intellectual character. By 1965, Illya was a full partner to Vaughn's character and both stars were mobbed during personal appearances. The series lasted until 1968. Vaughn and McCallum reunited in 1983 for a nostalgic TV movie, The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E., in which the agents were lured out of retirement to save the world once more.
McCallum returned to television in 2003 in another series with an agency known by its initials – CBS' NCIS. He played Dr. Donald "Ducky" Mallard, a bookish pathologist for the Naval Criminal Investigation Service, an agency handling crimes involving the Navy or the Marines. Mark Harmon played the NCIS boss. McCallum said he thought Ducky, who sported glasses and a bow tie and had an eye for pretty women, "looked a little silly, but it was great fun to do." He took the role seriously, too, spending time in the Los Angeles coroner's office to gain insight into how autopsies are conducted.
McCallum's work with U.N.C.L.E. brought him two Emmy nominations, and he got a third as an educator struggling with alcoholism in a 1969 Hallmark Hall of Fame drama called Teacher, Teacher.