2023’s spy entertainment ‘In Memoriam’

As 2023 draws to a close, here’s a look at those who contributed to spy entertainment (or at least spy-related). These are not listed in any particular order. It’s also not a complete list.

David McCallum (1933-2023): Played Illya Kuryakin in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. The Kuryakin character originally was envisioned as a sidekick to Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo. By the end of the first season, Illya was a full-fledged partner for Solo. For some U.N.C.L.E. fans, especially young women, Illya’s popularity rivaled Solo’s.

Robert Janes (1940-2023): Television writer who penned many episodes for the later seasons of Hawaii Five-O.

Stephen Kandel (1927-2023): Wrote episodes of Star Trek (those that featured Harry Mudd), Hawaii Five-O, Mannix, Mission: Impossible, The Wild Wild West and many other American television shows.

John Romita Sr. (1930-2023): The second artist to draw Spider-Man who helped make the web-slinger even more popular.

Chaim Topol (1935-2023): Actor best known for Fiddler on the Roof, who played an ally of Bond in For Your Eyes Only (1981).

Tina Turner (1939-2023): Veteran singer who performed the title song for 1995’s Goldeneye.

Jim Brown (1936-2023): Pro football player who switched to acting, including an episode of I Spy and the movie Ice Station Zebra.

Ray Austin (1932-2023): Stunt performer and television director whose credits included The Avengers, The New Avengers and The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Paul Playdon (1943-2023): One-time child actor who became a writer for television shows such as Mission: Impossible.

Sharon Farrell (1940-2023): Actress whose credits included The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild Wild West.

Edward Hume (1936-2023): Television writer who scripted the pilots for Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco, and Barnaby Jones.

Gayle Hunnicut (1943-2013): Actress who was considered to play Solitaire in Live And Let Die who played the female lead in the 1983 TV movie The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Robert Butler (1927-2013): Television director who helmed the pilots for Remington Steele (starring Pierce Brosnan), Batman, Hogan’s Heroes and Hill Street Blues. Butler was also credited as co-creator of Remington Steele. He also directed episodes of Mission: Impossible, I Spy, and Blue Light (a World War II spy show starring Robert Goulet)

Robert Butler, veteran TV director, dies

Robert Butler during an interview for the Archive of American Television

Robert Butler, a long-time television director who directed the pilots for a number of series, has died at 95, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Butler helmed the first Star Trek pilot, The Cage, with Jeffrey Hunter as Capt. Pike. He also directed the pilots for Hogan’s Heroes, the Adam West Batman series, Hill Street Blues, and Remington Steele with Pierce Brosnan (a show he co-created with Michael Gleason).

His credits also included four episodes of I Spy, one episode of Mission: Impossible (The Mind of Stefan Miklos), and episodes of Columbo.

Regarding Star Trek, Butler said in an interview for the Archive of American Television: “I read the script and I was doubtful. A little disdain is great. To fall blindly in love with material is not as great as having a holdout corner of disdain. Objectivity is the result.”

On the Batman pilot: “It was totally, totally crazy material,” Butler said in the same Archive of American Television interview. “I remember the crew didn’t get it.”

On Remington Steele: “I adored the idea, in a man’s world, of a woman who was superior to most men inventing a non-existent man behind whom she hid….Michael Gleason and I concocted the idea where as she is inventing Steele and is concocting this guy…wham, in he walks.” Gleason wrote the pilot script while both Gleason and Butler were credited as co-creators.

Butler’s IMDB ENTRY lists 99 directing credits from 1959 to 2009 across many genres.

Surviving stars of the 1960s spy craze

Barbara Bain in Mission: Impossible

With the passing of David McCallum, the blog decided to look at the surviving stars of the 1960s spy craze.

In no particular order:

Barbara Bain (b. 1931): Bain played Cinammon Carter, the original woman operative of the Impossible Missions Force on Mission: Impossible.

Bain won three Emmys for the role, twice beating out Diana Rigg of The Avengers. She departed the series after three seasons when her then-husband, Martin Landau, was forced off the show. Bain’s exit was a major blow to the series. She reprised the role in a 1997 episode of Diagnosis: Murder.

Peter Lupus (b. 1932): Lupus played Willy Armitage, another original M:I cast member. Willy was a bodybuilder of some renown, whose strength was useful (such as carry nuclear warheads in the pilot). He also helped IMF electronics whiz Barney Collier (Greg Morris) a lot. At one point, the producers wanted to phase Willy out. But Lupus and his character were so popular, that didn’t happen.

Barbara Feldon (b. 1933): Feldon was agent 99 of CONTROL in Get Smart. She was already popular via commercials when she got the part. Feldon’s popularity expanded with Get Smart. Feldon even recorded a song simply titled “99.”

Bill Cosby (b. 1937): Cosby has been both famous and infamous (the latter for allegations of sexual assault). But in the mid-1960s, I Spy, which starred Robert Culp and Cosby, was a major show — both for entertainment and for racial integration. Culp and Cosby were equals on the show.

Linda Thorson (b. 1947): The actress played Tara King, John Steed’s final partner in the original version of The Avengers.

George Lazenby (b. 1939): Lazenby’s one turn as James Bond closed out the 1960s with On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969. The male model won the role over a lot of competition. But he didn’t stick around for a second turn as 007. Lazenby, however, did an homage to the role in the 1983 TV movie The Return of the Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Joanna Lumley (b. 1946): She squeezes in as one of the “angels of death” in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. In the 1970s, she’d be another one of John Steed’s partners in The New Avengers.

Stefanie Powers (b. 1942): Star of The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. Her character name, April Dancer, was courtesy of Ian Fleming, part of his handwritten notes to producer Norman Felton in October 1962. The name was used after NBC insisted on an U.N.C.L.E. spinoff.

Robert Wagner (b. 1930): Star of It Takes a Thief where a master thief works for U.S. intelligence.

Michael Caine (b. 1933): Star of three film adaptations of Len Deighton spy novels. Bond producer Harry Saltzman also produced these films. Some Bond crew members also worked on them.

Jim Brown, football star and actor, dies

Ice Station Zebra poster

Jim Brown, one of the greatest players in the National Football League who went on to a long acting career, has died at 87, according to various obituaries including one published by CNN.

Brown retired from the NFL as a running back for the Cleveland Browns at the age of 30. At the time of his retirement, he had the most rushing yards in league history. When Brown played, the NFL had seasons of 12 or 14 games each year. The league now plays 17 games a year.

Brown moved to acting, quickly appearing in The Dirty Dozen.

The former running back had some appearances in spy-fi.

Brown was in an episode of I Spy titled Cops and Robbers during that show’s second season. Brown had a prominent role in the 1968 movie Ice Station Zebra, based on a novel by Alistair MacLean. The cast also included Rock Hudson, Ernest Borgnine, and Patrick McGoohan.

Jim Brown also was a civil rights activist.

Here is a tribute posted on social media by the Cleveland Browns team.

Jim Brown Forever 🧡🤎♾️

Legend. Leader. Activist. Visionary.

It’s impossible to describe the profound love and gratitude we feel for having the opportunity to be a small piece of Jim’s incredible life and legacy. We mourn his passing, but celebrate the indelible light he… pic.twitter.com/F2rrTUnsc1

— Cleveland Browns (@Browns) May 19, 2023

55th anniversary of the end of U.N.C.L.E. (and ’60s spymania)

The symbolism of a 1965 TV Guide ad for The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came true little more than two years later. (Picture from the For Your Eyes Only Web site)

Originally published Dec. 28, 2012. 

Jan. 15 marks the 55th anniversary of the end of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. It was also a sign that 1960s spymania was drawing to a close.

Ratings for U.N.C.L.E. faltered badly in the fall of 1967, where it aired on Monday nights. It was up against Gunsmoke on CBS — a show that itself had been canceled briefly during the spring of ’67 but got a reprieve thanks to CBS chief William Paley. Instead of oblivion, Gunsmoke was moved from Saturday to Monday.

Earlier, Norman Felton, U.N.C.L.E.’s executive producer, decided some retooling was in order for the show’s fourth season. He brought in Anthony Spinner, who often wrote for Quinn Martin-produced shows, as producer.

Spinner had also written a first-season U.N.C.L.E. episode and summoned a couple of first-season writers, Jack Turley and Robert E. Thompson, to do some scripts. Spinner also had been associate producer on the first season of QM’s The Invader series. He hired Sutton Roley, who had worked as a director on The Invaders, as an U.N.C.L.E. director

Also in the fold was Dean Hargrove, who supplied two first-season scripts but had his biggest impact in the second season, when U.N.C.L.E. had its best ratings. Hargrove was off doing other things during the third season, although he did one of the best scripts for The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. during 1966-67.

Hargrove, however, quickly learned the Spinner-produced U.N.C.L.E. was different. In a 2007 interview on the U.N.C.L.E. DVD set, Hargrove said Spinner was of “the Quinn Martin school of melodrama.”

Spinner wanted a more serious take on the show compared with the previous season, which included a dancing ape. Hargrove, adept at weaving (relatively subtle) humor into his stories, chafed under Spinner. The producer instructed his writers that U.N.C.L.E. should be closer to James Bond than Get Smart.

The more serious take also extended to the show’s music, as documented in liner notes by journalist Jon Burlingame for U.N.C.L.E. soundtracks released between 2004 and 2007 and the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY U.N.C.L.E. TIMELINE.

Matt Dillon (James Arness), right, and sidekick Festus (Ken Curtis) got new life at U.N.C.L.E.’s expense.

Gerald Fried, the show’s most frequent composer, had a score rejected. Also jettisoned was a new Fried arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s theme music. A more serious-sounding version was arranged by Robert Armbruster, the music director of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Most of the fourth season’s scores would be composed by Richard Shores. Fried did one fourth-season score, which sounded similar to the more serious style of Shores.

Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, however, weren’t a match for a resurgent Matt Dillon on CBS. NBC canceled U.N.C.L.E. A final two-part story, The Seven Wonders of the World Affair, aired Jan. 8 and 15, 1968.

U.N.C.L.E. wouldn’t be the only spy casualty.

NBC canceled I Spy, with its last new episode appearing April 15, 1968. Within 18 months of U.N.C.L.E.’s demise, The Wild Wild West was canceled by CBS (its final new episode aired aired April 4, 1969 although CBS did show fourth-season reruns in the summer of 1970). The last episode of The Avengers was produced, appearing in the U.S. on April 21, 1969.

NBC also canceled Get Smart after the 1968-69 season but CBS picked up the spy comedy for 1969-70. Mission: Impossible managed to stay on CBS until 1973 but shifted away from spy storylines its last two seasons as the IMF opposed “the Syndicate.” (i.e. organized crime or the Mafia)

Nor were spy movies exempt. Dean Martin’s last Matt Helm movie, The Wrecking Crew, debuted in U.S. theaters in late 1968. Despite a promise in the end titles that Helm would be back in The Ravagers, the film series was done.

Even the James Bond series, the engine of the ’60s spy craze, was having a crisis in early 1968. Star Sean Connery was gone and producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman pondered their next move. James Bond would return but things weren’t quite the same.

A few thoughts about the 1960 spy craze

The 1960s was the era of the spy craze. But some folks will argue that point with you.

Some James Bond fans will say everything other than Bond are only “knockoffs.”

Meanwhile, some fans of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (on social media) argue that was actually “the U.N.C.L.E. Craze” with Get Smart, I Spy, and The Wild Wild West following.

A few facts:

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. originally was pitched as “James Bond for television.”

Television producer Norman Felton and Ian Fleming co-created the character Napoleon Solo on October 29-31,1962 during their meetings in New York City.

The Wild Wild West was pitched as “spies and cowboys.”

Get Smart originated as a mix of Bond and Inspector Clouseau.

The success of Bond created a market for an “anti-Bond.” John Le Carre (real name David Cornwell) benefited. Still, Le Carre and his prominent fans said Bond wasn’t up to Le Carre’s standards.

Danger Man (Secret Agent in the U.S.) and The Avengers came out before 1962’s Dr. No. Yet both British TV shows were influenced by the Bond films.

The 1960s spy craze was a high point for the genre. But, even to this day, there’s a lot of grumbling going on.

Evolution of spy entertainment 1960s-present

Sean Connery in an insert shot during the pre-titles sequence of Thunderball (1965)

In the newest episode of James Bond & Friends, Dr. Lisa Funnell raises the question whether spy entertainment has evolved beyond James Bond.

You could make the argument that things have regressed since the 1960s spy craze.

In 1965 alone, you could go to a movie theater and see the likes of Thunderball (the fourth James Bond movie and definitely on the escapist end of the spectrum) as well as The Ipcress Files (produced by Harry Saltzman with Bond film crew members along for the ride) and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold (based on a John le Carre novel).

That’s a lot of variety for a single year.

On British and American television, you could see series either affected by Bond (The Avengers and Danger Man) or started because of the spy craze (The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Get Smart, I Spy and Mission: Impossible).

Today? Well, Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman series was influenced by early Bond movies as well as U.N.C.L.E. and The Avengers.

Le Carre novels continue to be adapted but they often appear on TV mini-series.

The 1960s was the decade of the spy craze. The 1970s was a barren time for spy TV. It has waxed and waned since then.

Jack Turley, veteran TV writer, dies

A group of “test tube” killers in a fourth-season Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode written by Jack Turley

Jack Turley, an American TV writer who was active for three decades, died last month at the age of 93, according to the Writers Guild website.

Turley wrote in various genres including westerns, crime dramas, and soap operas. He found work in spy television shows of the 1960s, including The Man From U.N.C.L.E., I Spy, and Blue Light, the latter a short-lived World War II spy drama starring Robert Goulet.

Turley wrote three U.N.C.L.E. episodes. One of his best-remembered stories was The Test Tube Killer Affair in the show’s fourth season.

The villainous organization Thrush has raised young killers from childhood. One of them, Greg Martin (Christopher Jones) is the prize pupil of the bunch. As a demonstration project, Martin is on a mission to blow up a dam in Greece and destroy a nearby village.

Turley also was often employed by QM Productions. Among the series he wrote for were The Fugitive, 12 O’Clock High, The FBI, and Dan August.

The writer’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists 54 credits.

Cicely Tyson and the spy craze

Cicely Tyson and Ivan Dixon in So Long Patrick Henry, the first episode of I Spy broadcast by NBC in 1965.

Cicely Tyson has died after a long and distinguished career in acting. Her passing on Jan. 28, at the age of 96, prompted many tributes.

“In a remarkable career of seven decades, Ms. Tyson broke ground for serious Black actors by refusing to take parts that demeaned Black people,” according to an obituary in The New York Times. “She urged Black colleagues to do the same, and often went without work.”

Tyson made her presence known during television shows created during the 1960s spy craze.

She played a supporting role in So Long Patrick Henry, the first episode of I Spy that was broadcast on Sept. 15, 1965. Tyson portrayed an African princess who was engaged to Elroy Browne, a U.S. athlete who had defected to China during the 1964 Olympics in Japan.

The episode was not the show’s pilot. But it was one of four first-season episodes written by star Robert Culp. NBC moved the episode up to be the premiere for the series.

Tyson returned in a second-season episode of I Spy, Trial by Treehouse, that aired during the show’s second season.

The actress also was a guest star in a 1970 episode of Mission: Impossible, Death Squad. The IMF’s Barney Collier (Greg Morris) is vacationing in a Latin American country and falls in love with Tyson’s character, artist Alma Ross.

The brother of a police official obsesses over Alma. The police official runs a death squad and Barney soon is targeted to be its next victim.

What follows is a sampling of the many tributes to Tyson.

https://twitter.com/levarburton/status/1354961834361507845

What a beautiful life @IAmCicelyTyson. 96 years of pure light and love. Thank you for a lifetime of sharing your wisdom, and talent with the world. You lived a legendary life filled with elegance, and grace. Your legacy will live on forever. I will miss you my dear friend. pic.twitter.com/p66M6GNCvl

— Billy Dee Williams (@realbdw) January 29, 2021

The nature of fandom

Daniel Craig as James Bond

The past few weeks have been rough for James Bond fans. They’ve witnessed the passing of key actors such as Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg and Michael Lonsdale.

All three had long careers that extended beyond James Bond films. But some Bond fans say something to the effect that they represent OUR Pussy Galore, OUR Tracy, OUR Drax.

However, fans of The Avengers TV series might counter something like, yes but that’s OUR Cathy Gale or OUR Emma Peel.

This extends beyond Bond fandom.

I’ve seen some fans of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. say having an American and a Russian as partners was BIG AND BOLD.

Meanwhile, fans of the original I Spy television series counter that having a White and a Black man as equal partners was a lot more controversial in the U.S. in the 1960s.

Undoubtedly, there are many other examples. Many fans, though, don’t want to examine all that. They are concerned with their fandom. No more, no less.

No criticism is intended in any of this. It’s the way of the world. It’s also the nature of fandom.