Happy birthday No. 98, the real man from U.N.C.L.E.

When somebody reaches their 98th birthday, there’s not much more than can be said. So happy birthday, Norman Felton, executive producer of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., born this day in 1913.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again. Felton was the real man from U.N.C.L.E. He initiated the project, he bluffed network executives with a series proposal done on the fly, he enlisted the talents of people such as Sam Rolfe and Ian Fleming.

In the seventh episode of the 1964-1968 series, The Guioco Piano Affair, Felton was one of four crew members (director Richard Donner, developer-producer Sam Rolfe and associate producer Joseph Calvelli were the others) to appear in the story. You can view the episode’s end titles by CLICKING HERE. Felton can be seen in the final shot of the credits, the chess player at the left of the screen.