David McCallum, a well-known Scottish actor best remembered for his roles in “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” “The Great Escape,” and his 20-year stint as the eccentric pathologist Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard on “NCIS,” had a huge year in 1957.
The actor received six mentions in Variety that year, beginning with a review in the March 20 issue of the weekly that named him as a member of the cast of the British “crime meller” (also known as a crime melodrama), “The Secret Place.” The actor passed away on September 25 at the age of 90. McCallum thereafter became a regular contributor to our pages, aboard films, TV series, and legitimate stages in the United States and the United Kingdom. He was always working.
1957 was also the year McCallum married actor Jill Ireland in London, an event commemorated with a wedding announcement in the May 22, 1957, edition of weekly.
Five months later, McCallum got his first detailed mention in a review of British drama “Robbery Under Arms,” a Rank film production also starring Peter Finch, Ronald Lewis and Ireland. McCallum was one half of a pair of brothers who get swept into a life of crime, and he was singled out in our review. “Good opportunities are given to the brothers, Lewis and McCallum. The latter, in the more subtle part, enhances his rising reputation.”
Growing up in that era of Britain, it’s no surprise that McCallum was a Rank regular. But by the early 1960s, McCallum’s star climbed as he landed a supporting role in the 1963 Steve McQueen hit “The Great Escape.” (Scandal ensued, however, when Ireland and “Great Escape” co-star Charles Bronson began an affair on the set. Bronson and Ireland were married from 1968 until her death from breast cancer in 1990.)
After “The Great Escape,” McCallum moved to hip Hollywood and spent four seasons co-starring with Robert Vaughn in the spy comedy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” The NBC series was created by MGM Television and was motivated by the popularity of the James Bond movie series. The series won the Golden Globe Award in 1966 for Most Popular TV Show, and McCallum had back-to-back Emmy nods for it in 1965 and 1966.
MGM kept McCallum busy in features during his “Man From U.N.C.L.E” hiatus. In 1967 he starred in the globe-trotting movie comedy “Three Bites of the Apple” with Harvey Korman, Sylvia Koscina and Tammy Grimes. “Box office is the name of the game … so let yourself go with McCallum,” MGM exhorted in an ad in the Feb. 8, 1967, edition of weekly Variety for “Three Bites.”
Still, he never strayed too far from the boards. “Dave McCallum” landed prime page-one placement in the June 24, 1968, edition of Daily Variety when he was set to star in the Broadway adaptation of the hit London tuner “The Flip Side,” which opened Oct. 10 on the Main Stem and closed Oct. 12.
McCallum juggled all manner of film, TV and stage projects in the 1970s and ’80s. In the early 1970s he co-starred with Robert Wagner in the British drama series “Colditz” — a bit of foreshadowing of things to come decades later when Wagner joined the cast of “NCIS.”
And who says reboots and remakes are a recent phenomenon? Fifteen years after the original series ended, CBS reunited Vaughn and McCallum for a “The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.” TV movie that had its charms, according to our review from the April 7, 1983, edition of Daily Variety: “Robert Vaughn and David McCallum resume their spy-snooping as slickly as though they never left,” our critic wrote.
Any actor fortunate enough to have a long career will inevitably deal with some downturns. McCallum did a fair amount of low-profile indie and Euro-financed movies in the 1990s. After he landed the “NCIS” gig in 2003, he mostly stuck to moonlighting with voice work in animated series and video games. As “NCIS” hit the milestone of 200 episodes in 2012, Variety paid respect to the show. This was a remarkable accomplishment for a series and one that has grown even more uncommon in modern times.
We couldn’t have realized it at the time, but McCallum and “NCIS” would go on to produce more than 250 further episodes while he was a part of the series. The premiere date of “NCIS” is still uncertain as it enters Season 21, which was delayed by production due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. The show clearly won’t be the same without his authoritative and avuncular presence. As we wrote in our Sept. 22, 2003, review of the pilot for the series originally titled “Navy NCIS,” McCallum’s character was key to adding “scientific insight and personality quicks aplenty” to the ensembler.
Rest in peace, Ducky.