In a press release distributed by the community, son Peter McCallum praised his father’s kindness and devotion to household, and his love of science and tradition. “One way or the other, even at 90, Daddy by no means grew outdated,” he stated.
Mr. McCallum was a stalwart on “NCIS,” among the many longest-running sequence on U.S. tv. He joined the crime sequence when it launched in 2003, enjoying Donald “Ducky” Mallard, the Naval Legal Investigative Service’s chief medical expert, and remained a well-recognized face on-screen by means of to its twentieth season this yr.
In an oral historical past of “NCIS” printed the day of Mr. McCallum’s loss of life, insiders spoke to the Hollywood Reporter of his significance to the massively well-liked present. Co-creator Donald P. Bellisario threatened to refuse to make it if Mr. McCallum wasn’t solid, based on director James Whitmore Jr.
“He was that critical about it,” Whitmore recalled. “The studio went with it, and naturally, David McCallum is gold.” At 90, Mr. McCallum had scaled again his work with the present and was able to retire, govt producer Charles Floyd Johnson instructed the publication.
In a joint assertion distributed by CBS, “NCIS” govt producers Steven D. Binder and David North described Mr. McCallum as “a scholar and a gentleman, all the time gracious, a consummate skilled, and by no means one to move up a joke.”
Earlier than “NCIS,” he was finest often known as Russian undercover agent Illya Kuryakin in “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.,” a task that made him a Sixties heartthrob.
Partnered with Robert Vaughn’s Napoleon Solo, Kuryakin undertook varied missions in worldwide espionage in opposition to an evil group that wished to beat the world. The present aired from 1964 to 1968, transitioning from black-and-white to paint, and helped gas a craze for spies and their exploits.
Mr. McCallum was acknowledged with two Emmy nominations for this half, and a 3rd for the TV film “Trainer, Trainer” in 1969.
He was born in Scotland in 1933 and, after college, was conscripted into the British navy, the place he served about two years, spending a few of that point in Africa. He initially attended the Royal Academy of Music in London, specializing within the oboe, earlier than switching to performing and finding out on the Royal Academy of Dramatic Artwork, transferring to the USA in his late 20s.
He amassed dozens of movie, tv and theater credit over an extended profession, together with in “The Nice Escape,” “Sapphire and Metal,” and even a voice performing position within the kids’s animated franchise “Ben 10.”
He launched 4 Sixties albums of largely instrumental jazz pop, together with unique compositions and covers. One observe, “The Edge,” was famously sampled by Dr. Dre in 1999 for the track “The Subsequent Episode,” that includes Snoop Dogg.
McCallum additionally printed against the law novel, “As soon as a Crooked Man,” in 2016.
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