Quote; "Robert Vaughn passed away on Friday at the age of 83 following a brief battle with acute leukemia.
The
beloved American actor, whose career stretched across six decades, was
best known for his role as Napoleon Solo on the classic NBC series The
Man From U.N.C.L.E., which ran for over 100 episodes from 1964 to 1968.
Over the course of his lifetime, Vaughn appeared on over 200 different television programs.
Vaughn
was also a regular on the big screen, starting off his career with an
unaccredited role in The Ten Commandments before going on to land
sup[porting roles in films such as The Magnificent Seven and The Young Philadelphians, for which he received an Academy Award nomination back in 1960 for Best Supporting Actor.
In
recent years he had found success across the pond, starring in the
long-running British soap opera Coronation Street as well as all eight
seasons of the television drama Hustle."..........
"For his
work on The Young Philadelphians Vaughn was nominated for both the
Golden Globe and Academy Award in the category of Best Supporting Actor.
Vaughn
then followed that up with the biggest film role of his career,
starring alongside Hollywood legends including Steve McQueen, Yul
Brynner and Eli Wallach in the classic western The Magnificent Seven.
Once again Vaughn received a Golden Globe nomination, this time for Most Promising Newcomer.
He
was only five years into his career by this point but already Vaughn
had appeared on over 40 episodes of television playing different
characters, and his frequent work on TV would continue throughout the
1960s."
For an actor, Vaughn gave a terrible performance. He was tense and rigid. His lips were set as tight as his fisted grip on the podium. In his outrage and indignation he overran words, phrases, whole sentences like a boy delivering an oral report to the sixth grade. But he was not acting. The students, who had been expecting a sardonic, composed, and eminently hollow spy, responded with a standing ovation.
Vaughn has been giving these long, impassioned denunciations of the Vietnam war for a year. He operates on his own, relying only on his friend John Hackett, a free-lance writer who ghostwrites some of the speeches. His U.N.C.L.E. schedule permits him just one or two speeches a month; Vaughn selects forums--mostly universities and political clubs--which provide the maximum publicity. When President Johnson met Vaughn at a party recently, his only comment was, "Hello, Mr. Vaughn. You're the speech-maker, is that right?"
His motive, like his private manner, is straightforward. Vaughn indulges a long standing, intellectual concern for current affairs. "It's a matter of social consciousness," he says. "After a year's worth of research on Vietnam, I decided that there was no justification for our involvement there. I had gathered all his knowledge. I had to make use of it. And I was energized by the insanity of this policy of madness, by this Administration's distortion of history."
In a nation smothered by the blue-silver smog of television Vaughn is a celebrity. No Progressive Labor spokesman could be more appealing to construction workers, taxi cab drivers and unemployed factory hands than the glamorous man from U.N.C.L.E. William Fulbright can't compete with him for the attention of middle class clerks and housewives. He is very much aware of the possibilities created by his star status, and he has chosen to utilize them for the benefit of the anti-war cause. "Everyone doesn't have the podium I have to speak from," he says. "My audiences may come out of sheer curiosity, but they are courteous and they stay to listen.".............
..."A proud graduate of Evelyn Wood's speed-reading institute, Vaughn is quick to tell you that he receives and reads "54 magazines--from the Peking Review to the National Review." He has researched all of the State Department's papers on Vietnam and reads the Congressional Record daily. He corresponds with Senators McGovern, Church, Morris, Gruening, Kennedy, Hatfield, Clark, and Hartke. And he is writing a Ph.D. thesis on "McCarthyism in the American Theatre" for the Department of Communications at the University of Southern California. When he finishes, he will teach a one-night-a-week seminar in International Relations.
"I don't have many actor friends," says Vaughn. "I find others more stimulating intellectually. Actors are too involved with self, less involved with the outer, real world." An exception is Steve Allen whom Vaughn respectfully describes as a consummate intellectual. "He has a library of books and clipped periodicals which covers from floor to ceiling the walls of his study."
This determined, well-documented intellectualism relaxes when Vaughn discusses Vietnam. Of those politicians who support the war he says, "I have made an evaluation of their psyches and makeup, and I fear that I come up with nothing but negative responses." Slowly, the stiff, contrived prose becomes washed with delightful vehemence. "I think that people who don't object to the war are either ignorant or indifferent. Let's face it, the guys on my side are good guys, just good guys," says the good guy from U.N.C.L.E. "The other guys are not good guys. That's all there is to it." Go to: http://www.thecrimson.com/article/1967/5/17/robert-vaughn-pwhen-the-master-of/
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