Ian Fleming and Norman Felton were friends. 'U.N.C.L.E.' was basically a tongue-in-cheek 'Bond.' It wasn't quite as serious and dramatic as 'Bond,' nor did we have the budget for that.
— Robert Vaughn
I enjoy working on stage. Having relationships with the audiences and question and answer sessions afterwards. I enjoy that.
'Hustle' is wonderfully enjoyable because all my life, I've made an effort to be with people who can make me laugh. That original cast - Marc Warren, Jaime Murray, Robert Glenister and Adrian Lester - are all funny. So I know every day I'll have a few good laughs.
I've made somewhere around 150 pictures, and a lot of them are B-pictures, I can tell you that. I'd say there's about one hundred of them I don't remember.
My goal was always to get better roles, and in my case, performing on stage really led to great opportunities. My breakthrough came when I did Calder Willingham's 'End as a Man' on stage and was spotted by Max Arnow, who'd been the casting chief for Columbia.
In our fervor to halt the potential spread of totalitarianism, what incredible precedent are we setting in Vietnam? By marching our legions through the countryside of foreign continents, burning homes, laying waste to the land, and indiscriminately killing friend and foe alike?
I have always been adventurous and rather daring.
By virtue of believing in a Supreme Being one embraces certain mysteries.
I suppose you could sum up the religious aspects of my boyhood by saying it was a time of life when I was taught the difference between right and wrong as it specifically applied to Catholicism.
Man has always needed to believe in some form of a continuity of achievement.
My belief in God is responsible for what I am... How can I refuse to talk about something which is so much a prt of my life both as a man and as a actor?
The one they always forget is Brad Dexter.
Finally, when the money was high enough, the script suddenly revealed itself as being very clear to me.
I've been obsessed with clothes since I was a little boy.
About 15 years later, I was given all 113 episodes on tape.
All I did was basically play myself in the role of Napoleon Solo.
I read Superman comics when I was a kid.
My wife and I have always been Anglophiles. We always felt we were born in another life in England. I was in the Elizabethan era, and she was from the Norman conquest.
If I could earn the living that I earn in motion pictures and television in the theater, I'd be doing theater. But you can't. Nor come even close to it.
We shoot 'Hustle' for 12 to 16 weeks, so that's how long I'm here each year. I've always loved London. I lived here for three years back in the Seventies, when I did a TV series, 'The Protectors,' for Lew Grade.
I was inspired by Cary Grant. I wanted to do the kind of work he did and to work in light-hearted roles, in comedies.
With a modest amount of looks and talent, and more than a modicum of serendipity, I've managed to stretch my 15 minutes of fame into 50 years of good fortune.
Acting has always been very boring to me. Anyone not in television to become a millionaire is a simpleton.
The marvelous thing is that for thousands of years people have continued questioning and searching and ultimately concluding that reasons for certain occurrences are not given to man to know.
For example, I tend to personally reward myself for specific acts of exceptional discipline.
You see, some non-Catholic friends of mine have questioned the depth of my faith because of the fact that I have a good education.
Why do people embrace God? In my opinion, belief in God and an afterlife is a necessary extension of man's need to feel that this life does not end with what we call death.
I was studying American politicians who were searching - allegedly - for American communists because it would put them on the front pages of the papers in their home towns.
I'm still very close friends with his first wife, Neile, who is now remarried.
So for Bullitt, I just put my black hat back on.
Of course, neither David or myself ever saw a penny from them; it was the early days of merchandising.
I had never thought of my career as going in the direction that it did, as far as fan response was concerned.
While at college, I did my first lead on a network TV show, Medic.
I did my Doctorate on the House Un-American Activities Committee's effect on the American theater.
I was actually a single man until I was 41. Rather late. Irish marry late.
After 'UNCLE,' I never accepted the first offer: if I wanted more money, I asked for it. A better dressing room? Four first-class tickets instead of two? I'd ask for them, and I'd often get them.
James Dean and Dennis Hopper were members of the health club I went to.
I was a complete wreck as a child, emotionally unstable, excessively prideful.
I sincerely believe I could have wounded up in a lot of trouble if I had not been taught as a boy to fear Hell, and to believe that certain wicked acts could lead me to damnation.
The world's philosophers and theologians searched for answers to the same mysteries.
My childhood beliefs became so much a part of me that even today I find myself automatically living by a personal standard of conduct which can only be explained as resulting from my religious training.
In the beginning, fear was the dominant motivating force.
I come from a long line of staunch Irish Catholics.
My opposition to the Vietnam War. I was the first Hollywood actor to speak out against it.
I went to college with James Coburn and Steve McQueen was a very good friend.
When you're a guest star on TV shows - particularly in the 1960s - you're always the villain.
Compared to today's salaries, our cut was minuscule but it was very good for the time.
Audience response to The Man From U.N.C.L.E. back in the '60s - well, I was frankly surprised by the show's success and the attendant publicity for David and myself.
I travelled to California when I was 18 and went to Los Angeles State College.
