Early film roles for the Glasgow-born actor included well-known British fare like the thriller Hell Drivers and Titanic drama A Night to Remember in the 1950s, while TV hired him for two roles in The Outer Limits<\/a>, the hugely influential US sci-fi anthology series, in the \u201960s.<\/p>\n \u201cI was in Los Angeles \u2013 I hadn\u2019t been there for very long \u2013 and because I was completely unknown there, I was looking for work. Joe Stefano, who wrote Psycho the Hitchcock movie, he created the [majority of season one\u2019s] Outer Limits scripts. It was shot on location at MGM but the studio work was all done in a very tiny little studio right off Sunset Boulevard, where we did all the interiors.\u201d<\/p>\n In the 1964 episode The Forms of Things Unknown, McCallum played Hobart, an inventor who toys with time (\u201cIt was an interesting idea\u201d), but the year before that, in The Sixth Finger, he was Gwyllm, a miner who becomes a guinea pig in an experiment to speed up human evolution. It was a part that required increasing amounts of make-up. \u201cI would get there around four in the morning and Fred Phillips the make-up man and I would work until 8 o\u2019clock putting on all that prosthetic. I could work until I had to take it off because it was too heavy.<\/p>\n \u201cWe worked with another man who was instrumental in making the prosthetics for military personnel who, in various overseas wars, had lost limbs.\u201d<\/p>\n As the script was running short, McCallum made a suggestion in a scene where the enhanced Gwyllm is flipping through books and then proceeds to play complex Bach pieces. \u201cI remember the line was \u2018Playing the piano is a simple matter of mathematics and manual dexterity\u2019!\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, McCallum might have pursued a career in music. \u201cMy father and mother were both musicians. I became an oboe player and my father offered to send me to Paris, to the Conservatoire, and study the oboe. By that time I was hooked on the stage and said, \u2018No, I\u2019m going to go on the boards.\u2019 And I did.\u201d<\/p>\n He has returned to science-fiction quite a bit over the years, fronting the US series The Invisible Man, co-starring in ITV\u2019s Sapphire and Steel<\/a> (more of which later) and appearing in episodes of Babylon 5 and SeaQuest. So does he like it as a genre? \u201cI\u2019m more of a practical man,\u201d McCallum replies. \u201cI was very happy to get to work and get paid for it, pay school fees and insurance, you know. This is the life of an actor, particularly in the early years before you get a little better known: your main concern is to make enough money to keep the family running.<\/p>\n \u201cFortunately I married a young lady who was more talented than I was [his second wife,\u00a0model and actor turned interior designer Katherine Carpenter] and so we shared the burden together and we\u2019ve had a very successful relationship. In fact, we\u2019ve been married for 55 years.\u201d<\/p> But back to 1963, a year that ended up being a busy one for McCallum, with the release of the classic war film The Great Escape<\/a>, in which he played \u201cdispersal\u201d expert Eric Ashley-Pitt. Does he have any outstanding memories? \u201cYes, the Odeon Leicester Square\u2026 the front rows of the upper circle all reserved for cast and crew. We sat there, that enormous red curtain parted, with Elmer Bernstein\u2019s music playing\u2026 it\u2019s a moment I can remember as if it was ten minutes ago. I mean, imagine you\u2019re in a film like that and you\u2019re seeing it, and everybody else is seeing it, for the first time. It was quite amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n McCallum couldn\u2019t quite escape PoW camps \u2013 he went back inside for the BBC series Colditz<\/a>, which began 50 years ago. \u201cAgain it was a wonderful thing to play the part and he was a very interesting guy, the man that I played [RAF officer Simon Carter, based on real Colditz inmate Flight Lieutenant Dominic Bruce]. Pat Reid wrote the book on which the series was based \u2013 it was all very gung-ho and hail-fellow-well-met\u2026<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a new book that\u2019s come out [The Prisoners of the Castle]. It\u2019s a detailed study of Colditz and tells you all the terrible things that were going on between the individuals who were actually incarcerated and everything that the Germans and the war effort were doing at that time. It was an eye-opener to read that.<\/p>\n \u201cBut back then, when I went to visit Colditz, it was in East Germany, so that was quite interesting and dramatic.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking of the Cold War, McCallum was already a huge star in the \u201970s, thanks to the spy series The Man from UNCLE<\/a> (1964\u20138), playing Illya Kuryakin, a Russian agent to Robert Vaughn\u2019s American Napoleon Solo. So what quantities of fan mail are we talking? \u201cOh, huge sacks of it. Obviously we couldn\u2019t possibly deal with it ourselves, there was a whole department back then.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was before social media and silicon chips, so it was practical matter of opening envelopes\u2026 the studio took care of it but I believe they got more fan mail than most.\u201d<\/p>\n And presumably, he was recognised everywhere after that? \u201cYes, oh yes, I totally lost my privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n Illya and Napoleon were very different characters who blended incredibly well. Was that the case off-screen with Vaughn? \u201cWe worked together and we went to our separate lives and that was it. I think I went out to dinner once with Robert. He invited me because he was a health food nut and used to go to a very early health food restaurant and I was dreadfully sick the next day. I thought, \u2018Health food is not for me, I\u2019m going to eat my bacon and eggs.\u2019 I\u2019m in my 90th<\/sup> year so whatever I\u2019ve been eating seems to have worked!\u201d<\/p>\n Another great TV pairing was with Joanna Lumley in the supernatural series\u00a0Sapphire and Steel<\/a>, which ran from 1979 to 1982. Was that an enjoyable experience?<\/p>\n \u201cEnormously, because I got to meet Jo and Jo\u2019s now a good friend. But what is very interesting in that relationship \u2013 six degrees of separation and all that \u2013 is that Joanna has a son and Katherine and I have a son, Peter, among other children\u2026 But there is a set of twins on this Earth, two ladies, and James in London, Joanna\u2019s son, was dating one of the twins and Peter here in New York was dating the other one. Now if that\u2019s not a coincidence! So I think Sapphire and Steel had a life of its own and that\u2019s one of the little comments that was coming down from an ESP place!\u201d<\/p>\n Sapphire and Steel is a chilling series that many enjoyed without fully understanding it. <\/span>Was that the same for McCallum? \u201cIt was in the beginning but then I talked to Peter [Hammond] who was writing it and Shaun [O\u2019Riordan] who directed it and I said, \u2018My mother\u2019s cleaning lady, Mrs Puttock, used to say she loved watching <\/span>Sapphire and Steel but she didn\u2019t understand a word of it. And I said the scripts from now on have to be made Puttock-proof.\u00a0<\/span>It\u2019s terribly important that she understands it.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cIn the family vernacular whenever I get a script that\u2019s confusing, I say [to the writer], \u2018You\u2019ve got to make this Puttock-proof.\u2019 And then of course I have to explain about my mother\u2019s cleaning lady!\u201d<\/p>\n But perhaps McCallum\u2019s most successful series is the one he\u2019s been in for 20 years: NCIS. \u201cI have two shows left on this contract. I\u2019ll be going out [to shoot it in California], health permitting, if and when they need me. I have a feeling it\u2019s going to be the last two shows of the season. Usually they like to have everybody in those.\u201d<\/p>\n And yet McCallum has mixed emotions about the work\u2026 \u201cTravelling is not quite as easy but more importantly than that, when I get there I know very few people because the show of NCIS that I did with Mark Harmon [Leroy Jethro Gibbs] and Cote de Pablo [Ziva David] and a whole bunch of them, they\u2019ve all moved on to other things. So when I go there it\u2019s like being in a different show [laughs<\/em>] and it doesn\u2019t quite make sense any more.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I have a wonderful relationship with my assistant Jimmy Palmer. Brian Dietzen [who plays Jimmy] is a wonderful actor. He\u2019s just been a rock, a tremendous guy to work with.\u201d<\/p>\n So is retirement not a word in his vocabulary? \u201cWell Katherine retired many years ago but she\u2019s still working. We both\u2026 retirement is a work in progress, shall we say!\u201d<\/p>\n The Outer Limits: The Complete Original Series Blu-ray Box Set will be released on 12th December and is available to pre-order now<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n All 34 episode of Sapphire and Steel are available to stream on BritBox<\/a> \u2013 you can sign up for a 7-day free trial here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n By Mark Braxton Published: Tuesday, 29 November 2022 at 12:00 am It\u2019s not every day that Radio Times gets to talk to someone with a 70-year screen career. And he\u2019s about to discuss some very famous TV and film titles indeed\u2026 \u201cI have so many memories, so many people and places,\u201d David McCallum tells RT […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":26230,"template":"","categories":[1,5],"acf":[],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel.png",977,698,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel-300x214.png",300,214,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel-768x549.png",768,549,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel.png",800,572,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel.png",977,698,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2022\/11\/david-mccallum-looks-back-on-the-outer-limits-the-man-from-uncle-and-sapphire-and-steel.png",977,698,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Mark Braxton Published: Tuesday, 29 November 2022 at 12:00 am It\u2019s not every day that Radio Times gets to talk to someone with a 70-year screen career. And he\u2019s about to discuss some very famous TV and film titles indeed\u2026 \u201cI have so many memories, so many people and places,\u201d David McCallum tells RT…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/26229"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/radiotimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2022\/11\/Screenshot-2022-11-11-at-15.24.25-3f68ca8.png?quality=90&crop=72px%2C0px%2C1860px%2C1239px&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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