Vaughn recounts 'A Fortunate Life'

With all the screaming teenagers, motorcades and mountains of fan mail, not to mention a spin-off show, an array of product tie-ins and movies cobbled from re-edited episodes, his global renown as "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." (1964-68) had Robert Vaughn feeling a bit like one of The Beatles.

The same for his mop-topped British co-star, David McCallum.

"As a matter of fact, people called David the Fifth Beatle," recalls Vaughn, whose memoir, "A Fortunate Life," recently was released by Thomas Dunne Books. "It was all so unexpected, particularly for two serious actors in their 30s with theatrical backgrounds. So there was no question that the craze was astonishing, with girls jumping up and down yelling out your name and having to have an escort everywhere you went.

"We were receiving 70,000 fan letters a month at the height of the show's popularity."

Not even Sean Connery, the original James Bond, enjoyed the kind of baby boom following that Vaughn (as Napoleon Solo) and

McCallum (as teen heartthrob Illya Kuryakin) experienced.

"The Man From U.N.C.L.E." was buttressed by the presence of Alfred Hitchcock's favorite actor, Leo G. Carroll, as the chief of the spy agency United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. And devotees of the NBC show seemed not to notice the formulaic plots and sometimes cheesy sets the cast and crew navigated. What they did do was ensure the survival of a slow-starting series that might have been canceled if not for word-of-mouth support, exactly the way "Star Trek" was rescued after its first season.

"Networks would not give a new series time to find its audience in that way today," says Vaughn, 75, who spoke to The Post and Courier from his home in Connecticut. "You can be on the air and off the air in two to three viewings."

Other successful TV series, notably "I Spy" and "Mission Impossible," would cash in on the 007 tsunami of the '60s, but none could touch "U.N.C.L.E." for its impact. By November 1965, Vaughn knew he had a tiger by the tail. The series was a pop-culture sensation, rocketing to the top of the ratings. "Name" actors clamored to play guest-starring roles.

The fishbowl attention was "a terrible nuisance," he says. At one point, he had to erect an electric fence around his home to keep adoring groupies out. And he loved every minute.

Just as suddenly, following the '68 season, it was over. But Vaughn didn't miss the tumult.

"It wasn't a disappointment because there was a sense of being through with that and moving on. I was involved with so many other things at that time that I didn't think much about the end of the show. All shows come to an end, and this one had a remarkable four-year run, which was good enough to give us a new start in other parts of the business."

The next three decades kept Vaughn busy, alternating between "A" and "B" movies and series appearances. Currently, he stars as the avuncular head of a group of con men in the hit British TV series "Hustle." If anything, his workload is greater now than in the "U.N.C.L.E." days.

"I work five or six days a week, and the hours are quite a bit longer now. We're in London about three months of the year. But I'm having a lot of fun doing it."

With humor, good-natured dishing and a smooth writing style, "A Fortunate Life" recounts Vaughn's roles in such significant feature films as "The Magnificent Seven" (1960), "Bullitt" (1968) and "The Young Philadelphians" (1959), which earned him an Oscar nomination. If the book is about more than show business, and it is, acting is at the core.

Born in New York, Vaughn's mother, father and stepfather were all professional actors, mostly in regional theaters and radio dramas. Vaughn spent a happy childhood mainly with his maternal grandparents in Minneapolis, sometimes going on the road wherever his parents' jobs ushered them. Given his passionate interest at an early age, becoming an actor was a foregone conclusion.

"I first started thinking about it when I was 4 or 5, with my mother teaching me lines from 'Hamlet.' In my tiny 5-year-old mind, I knew from that point on I was going to be an actor."

By his late teens, Vaughn was in Hollywood, savoring the fruits of being young, handsome and single while scrambling for as many roles as he could get, whatever the medium. Over a 60-year career, he has played everything from a teenage caveman to three U.S. presidents, sustaining friendships with such colleagues as McCallum, Jack Nicholson, Warren Beatty, the late James Coburn, the late Steve McQueen and the late George Peppard.

By 1968, Vaughn had become one of the first celebrities to speak out against the war in Vietnam. His political activism developed in lockstep with his close friendship with Robert Kennedy. There was one moment when the California Democratic Party urged Vaughn to run for the office of governor — against Ronald Reagan. He declined.

"It was not a profession I was psychologically prepared to do," says Vaughn, married for 34 years and the father of two.

Instead, he devoted his off-camera time to scholarly pursuits. After earning a doctorate in communications from the University of Southern California, his dissertation on the Hollywood blacklist of the 1950s was published as a book, "Only Victims" (1972).

His new book concludes its narrative in 1981. Might Volume 2 be in the offing?

Vaughn chuckles. "That depends on how well Volume 1 goes. A friend and colleague called it a good read, and that's all you really want from one of these books."

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.