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This week marked the 10th anniversary of the death of actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr., whose many credits included starring in The FBI, which ran from 1965 until 1974.
The show was an idealized version of the bureau. And for much of its run, the real-life FBI had a say in the series, including vetoing Bette Davis as a guest star. At Quinn Martin Productions (which made the series as part of a joint venture with Warner Bros.), no explanation was given. The answer was simply no.
The anniversary of Zimbalist’s passing also reminded me of something else about the QM show.
In The FBI, Zimbalist’s Lewis Erskine first checked to see if a suspect had an outstanding warrant, such as “unlawful flight.” If not, Erskine or his associates actually got a warrant before moving in. The FBI in the Zimbalist show followed rules, even if real life wasn’t so clean, including illegal wiretapping during the J. Edgar Hoover era. Hoover died on May 2, 1972, after The FBI’s seventh season completed production.
In the decades since the notion of law enforcement officers who follow their own rules took hold. Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry movies (released by Warner Bros.) from 1971 to 1988 did a lot of popularize this idea. But there have been other TV shows that grabbed onto the concept. Changing times and all that.
Below is a clip from a second-season episode, “The Executioners Part I.” Erskine and crew are conducting surveillance and spot a hit man played by Robert Duvall. Once Erskine knows there’s an outstanding warrant, the bureau’s agents move.
The model’s first cinema appearance took place during the filming of 1964’s Goldfinger.
James Bond (Sean Connery) was driving the soon-to-be-iconic Aston Martin DB5 while following Auric Goldfinger. Suddenly, a woman (Tania Mallet) driving the Mustang initially passes the DB5 on the roads of Switzerland. After Bond seems to have been targeted for a killing attempt, the British agent passes the Mustang.
Bond uses the DB5’s gadgets to pull a Ben-Hur maneuver to tear apart the Mustang and run it to the side of the road.
Things turn out to be more complicated and the Mallet character ends up as one of the movie’s sacrificial lambs. Regardless, in Goldfinger, the Mustang is almost as iconic as the DB5.
The Mustang would also be seen in 1965’s Thunderball, driven by SPECTRE killer Fiona Volpe (Luciana Paluzzi). In 1971, a muscle car version of the Mustang was seen in Diamonds Are Forever, with Sean Connery dodging law-enforcement cars in Las Vegas.
As the Mustang’s design evolved, it would also be featured prominently in 1968’s Bullitt, driven by Steve McQueen as the film’s title character. What’s more, the Mustang would be featured on American television shows such as The FBI (1965-74). In the first four seasons of that series, star Efrem Zimbalist Jr. drove Mustangs in the end titles.
Lynn Loring in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. episode “The Test Tube Killer Affair.”
Lynn Loring who went from being a child actress to an adult performer to a studio executive, died on Dec. 23 at 80, The Hollywood Reporter said.
Loring at the age of 7, “joined the new CBS soap opera Search for Tomorrow in September 1951 for the first of its 35 seasons,” according to THR.
By the mid-1960s, she appeared as the college-age daughter of Inspector Lewis Erkine (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) at the start of The FBI. Producer Quinn Martin decided to have the character written out of the show and the fate of Loring’s Barbara Erskine was never revealed. That’s how TV worked in those days.
Loring didn’t lack for work. During that same 1965-66 television season she appeared in a two-part story on Amos Burke, Secret Agent and The Wild Wild West.
Loring also was a guest star on Quinn Martin’s The Invaders, which starred her then-husband Roy Thinnes, and two episodes of The Man From U.N.C.L.E., including “The Test Tube Killer Affair” as a young woman who falls in love with a young Thrush killer.
Working behing the camera, she produced the film Mr. Mom, a comedy starring Michael Keaton. Loring worked as an executive for Aaron Spelling Productions and MGM-UA, according to THR.
Title card for Telly Savalas in an episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. that would be re-edited into the movie The Karate Killer for international audiences
In the 1960s, American television series would re-edit episodes (often with additional footage) into movies for international release.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. did eight such international movies. But other shows, such as The FBI and Mission: Impossible also followed this path.
Telly Savalas (1922-1994) appeared in two such productions, both filmed in early 1967. Savalas was an in-demand actor so it’s not that surprising.
With U.N.C.L.E., Savalas was in The Five Daughters Affair, which was turned into the international movie The Karate Killers. According to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Book by Jon Heitland, published in 1987, the TV and movie versions were filmed in February and March of 1967. The TV versions aired on NBC on March 31 and April 7, 1967.
With The FBI, the precise filming dates aren’t known. But the TV versions of the two-part The Executioners aired on ABC on March 12 and 19, 1967. The two-parter would be edited into the movie Cosa Nostra, an Arch Enemy of the FBI.
Savalas likely spent more time working on The Executioners/Cosa Nostra. He was one of the main guest stars as a mobster who wants to quit but his partner (played by an older Walter Pidgeon) doesn’t want to let him.
With The Five Daughters Affair/The Karate Killers, Savalas is part of a large cast but isn’t the main antagonist. The main villain is played by Herbert Lom. Also, Savalas isn’t the only future Bond film villain actor. The cast also includes Curt Jurgens.
In both cases, the productions had larger casts because the producers knew they’d have a larger revenue pool. The TV networks involved only showed the television versions once (in return for a piece of the movie action).
The FBI ran on U.S. television for nine full seasons (1965-74). Yet it’s not a show that’s well remembered by the general public compared with other long-running series of the era.
In recent years, an episode of The FBI was featured prominently in Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 movie Once Upon a Time in Hollywood where Leonardo DiCaprio’s Rick Dalton is substituted for guest star Burt Reynolds.
The FBI Dossier, by Bill Sullivan with Ed Robertson, published earlier this year, looks to rectify the lack of attention for the series. The book was seven years in the making and a number of its interview subjects passed away during its preparation. Among them: actor William Reynolds, a series co-star for six seasons and who appeared in all nine seasons.
The book is almost 900 pages. The first section concerns the show’s backstory, including how FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover sought producer Quinn Martin to make the show. The series became a co-production between QM Productions and Warner Bros. For Quinn Martin, who made such shows as The Fugitive, The Invaders, Barnaby Jones, Cannon, and The Streets of San Francisco, it would be his longest-running series.
“Bill and I first worked together on The Case of the Alliterative Attorney, a behind the scenes look at the making of the original Perry Mason TV series and the two-hour made-for-TV movies that Raymond Burr made for NBC from 1985 through his death in 1993,” Robertson said in an email. “That collaboration went very well, and the book was released in December 2015. About a year later, Bill approached me about doing a similar book on The FBI. I said yes and we went from there.”
Star Efrem Zimbalist Jr., who played Inspector Lewis Erskine, had died in 2014. The authors utilize previous interviews Zimbalist had given. The authors also had access to various documents, including memos by the production staff.
In terms of interviews, “We were fortunate to connect with as many as we did, and even more fortunate that a good number of them had memories to share about Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., Quinn Martin, or the show itself,” Robertson said.
“Some of the QM personnel quoted in the book, such as Arthur Fellows and Christian Nyby II, I had interviewed back in the early 1990s, when I worked on my book about The Fugitive. Efrem, I had interviewed once formally in early 2011, plus I had spoken to him briefly informally a few times over the phone,” he added.
“Bill Reynolds was a little hard to track down at first, but once we connected, he shared a lot of great stories about his years on the series, plus he sheds light on what happened heading into the ninth season, why replacing him with Shelly Novack upset the balance of the series, and how that, coupled with the fallout from the Watergate scandal in the summer of 1973, factored in to the demise of the show.”
The second half of the book provides a detailed look at all 241 episodes. Information includes real-life FBI cases that inspired series installments. Some of those cases went back to the 1930s and ’40s.
Disclosure: I am quoted in the book via material I wrote for my website, The FBI Episode Guide. I only learned of the book this week.
Cartoonist Doug Wildey created all the cast members of Jonny Quest, except Bandit the dog.
The recent passing of writer Edward Hume spurred a discussion on social media about how American television series sometimes avoided either “created by” or “adapted by” credits. What follows are some examples.
Maverick (1957-62): The Western show was created by Roy Huggins (1914-2002). Bret Maverick (James Garner) and his brother Bart (Jack Kelly) were gamblers in the 19th century who thought first before acting. Warner Bros., with Jack L. Warner still in charge, didn’t want to give “created by” credits. Huggins eventually was credited in a 1994 theatrical movie that said the film was based on a TV series created by Roy Huggins.
77 Sunset Strip (1958-64): In real life, Roy Huggins created the series but was never credited. It was made at Warner Bros., where Jack L. Warner resisted giving out creator credits. An expanded version of the pilot was edited into a movie shown in the Caribbean. On this basis, Warner justified denying Huggins the creator credit. Soon after, Huggins had enough and left Warners.
The Adventures of Jonny Quest (1964-65): The prime-time cartoon was an early spy craze entry. Jonny was like any other boy, except his father (Dr. Benton Quest) was America’s leading scientist and his tutor/bodyguard (Roger T. “Race” Bannon) had a license to kill. Almost all of the series was created by cartoonist Doug Wildey (1922-94). The one exception was Bandit, an obvious cartoon dog interacting with realistically drawn people. During the series, Wildey was sometimes credited as “supervising art director,” other times with “based on an idea created by Doug Wildey.”
I Spy (1965-68): The pilot for the show was written by Morton Fine and David Friedkin, who also were the show’s producers. But they never got a “created by” credit. It wasn’t until a 1994 TV movie, I Spy Returns, that Fine and Friedkin got a “based on characters created by” credit. It was a little late. Both men were dead by that time.
Cannon, The Streets of San Francisco, and Barnaby Jones: Edward Hume scripted the pilots for all three 1970s Quinn Martin series. He received a “developed for television” credit for all three. Cannon, the adventures of a heavy detective (William Conrad), apparently was an original work. Yet, for the pilot, Hume got a “teleplay by” credit rather than “written by.” The Streets of San Francisco was based on a novel. Barnaby Jones was another original work. The pilot cited Hume with the script and Quinn Martin lieutenant Adrian Samish with the plot. But only Hume was credited for the series.
The FBI (1965-74): Quinn Martin’s longest-running show was a joint venture with Warner Bros. There was no creator credit. I suspect that Charles Larson, producer for the first four seasons, created the show based on the fourth episode, “Slow March Up a Steep Hill.” It has the feel of a pilot, with exposition dialogue. Larson’s credit for that episode was “written and produced by.”
Nancy Kovack in “The King of Diamonds Affair” episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Nancy Kovack, 88, was interviewed by the SpyHards podcast about her involvement with the spy craze.
Kovack appeared on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (two episodes playing different characters), The Silencers, The FBI (one episode with Louis Jourdan as the leader of a spy ring), The Double Life of Henry Phfye (a spy comedy starring Red Buttons), Batman (one of the Joker’s henchpeople on the first episode with the villain), and Hawaii Five-O (as a woman scientist trying to find the source of a plague).
The former actress said she liked Dean Martin on The Silencers but didn’t realize there were more installments. Kovack says she thinks Martin was a better singer than his fellow Rat Packer Frank Sinatra.
Over the past week, some of the actresses of the 1960s spy craze celebrated notable birthdays.
Barbara Feldon (b. 1933): She is best known for co-starring in Get Smart (1965-70). Agent 99 was, well, smarter than CONTROL’s Maxwell Smart (Don Adams). But she loved the guy and eventually, 99 and Max got married. Feldon has had a long career.
The TV season before Get Smart, Feldon was a guest star on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in The Never-Never Affair. Feldon played an U.N.C.L.E. employee who yearned for adventure. The episode, written by Dean Hargrove, was one of the best episodes of the 1964-68 series.
Nancy Kovack (b. 1935): The actress appeared on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (two episodes, different characters), The Silencers, Batman, Get Smart, The Secret Life of Henry Phyffe (a situation comedy with Red Buttons who looks identically alike to a recently deceased spy), Hawaii Five-O, and The FBI (including one episode where her character was part of a spy ring).
Leslie Parrish (b. 1935): She played the doomed girlfriend in The Manchurian Candidate (1962) as well as characters in The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wild Wild West.series, including the first Dr. Loveless story.
United Artists re-released Goldfinger in the summer of 1972 as part of a triple feature a few months before it was shown on ABC.
Adapted and updated from a 2012 post.
With all the 007 anniversaries this year, one isn’t getting much attention: the 50th anniversary of the first U.S. television showing of a James Bond film when Goldfinger was shown on The ABC Sunday Night Movie.
ABC, which had obtained the TV rights for 007 films, decided to kick off the 1972-73 season with Goldfinger, the third movie in the series made by Eon Productions.
ABC had promoted Goldfinger throughout the summer and especially during its broadcasts of the Summer Olympics in Munich, where 007 promos seemed to air every two hours, prior to the tragic kidnapping and murders of Israeli athletes.
United Artists, moving to squeeze out money from one last theatrical run, had a triple feature of Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger during the summer of 1972.
Finally, on the night of Sept. 17, 1972 (right after the eighth-season opener of The FBI), Goldfinger was broadcast to millions of homes in the U.S. Bond fans who’d seen the film in theaters were caught by surprise immediately. The classic 007 gunbarrel logo had been edited out by the network (though John Barry’s gunbarrel music arrangement remained). It would be the first in a series of changes and cuts ABC would make in the Bond movies.
The ABC broadcast of Goldfinger started at 9 p.m. New York time and ran (including commercials) until 11:15 p.m. In future showings, ABC would take out the pre-credits sequence altogether and start with the main titles so the TV broadcast would run no longer than two hours.
Still, it was a new era. ABC was the U.S. television home for Bond into the early 1990s. ABC even had a last hurrah in 2002, when the network showed the first nine 007 films in the Eon series on consecutive Saturday nights. Today, with DVDs, streaming video, video on demand, etc., none of this sounds special. But, 50 years ago, it was a big deal when agent 007 was available for the first time in living rooms.
Robert Vaughn and Leo G. Carroll in a moment from The Thrush Roulette Affair, written by Arthur Weingarten
Arthur Weingarten, a writer or producer on various U.S. television series in the 1960s into the 1990s, has died at 86.
His death was noted on the In Memoriam page of the Writers Guild of America West website.
Weingarten wrote for both The Man and The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, The Green Hornet, Honey West and The Name of the Game.
He also worked on different Quinn Martin shows, including Dan August (writer), The FBI (executive story consultant in the final season) and The Manhunter (producer).
On The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., Weingarten penned The Carpathian Caper Affair. That episode was typical of the show’s campy style. Carpathian Caper included a giant toaster death trap.
Yet, on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Weingarten wrote The Thrush Roulette Affair which was in line with the darker tone of that series’ final season. The episode included a brainwashed Illya Kuryakin (David McCallum) trying to kill fellow agent Napoleon Solo (Robert Vaughn).
The producer of Man’s final season was Anthony Spinner. He’d hire Weingarten to work on QM’s Dan August and The FBI.
The Spy Command 