50 Fun Facts About The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Which British spy novelist proposed the characters Napoleon Solo and April Dancer for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, joined the project after producer Norman Felton approached him. The series was at first meant to carry the novelist's name in its title.

David McCallum, who played Illya Kuryakin, spent twenty seasons as medical examiner Ducky Mallard on which crime drama?

NCIS kept the old role in mind: Ducky's dog was named Solo, after the partner of McCallum's 1960s spy. He stayed with the drama until his death in 2023.

Which British actor replaced Tom Cruise as Napoleon Solo in the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Henry Cavill stepped in after Cruise left for a Mission: Impossible sequel. That put an Englishman in the part of the American half of the spy duo.

Which secret organisation, bent on conquering the world, is the main enemy of the agents in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

THRUSH was never explained on screen. Producer Norman Felton always insisted the name was not an acronym and stood for nothing.

Illya Kuryakin, the partner of American agent Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E., comes from which country?

The Soviet Union and the United States sharing a spy team at the height of the Cold War was the show's boldest idea. Producer Sam Rolfe added Kuryakin to the format.

Robert Vaughn, TV's Napoleon Solo, played the hired gunman Lee in which Western remake of a Kurosawa film?

The Magnificent Seven came four years before U.N.C.L.E. made him a television star. When he died in 2016 he was the last surviving member of the seven.

Agents in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. reach their secret headquarters through a hidden passage in which kind of shop?

A tailor's called Del Floria's hid the usual way in. The agency's chief, Mr. Waverly, had a private secret entrance of his own.

Which pop duo, a real-life couple, made a joint guest appearance in a third-season episode of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Sonny and Cher played garment-district workers: she was a model and he was the cutter with a crush on her. The story hid a villains' code in a dress pattern.

Which British director took on the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E. after two decades of abandoned scripts?

Guy Ritchie signed on in 2013, twenty years after the film rights were first optioned. He went on rewriting scenes on the mornings they were shot.

In The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which two words do the first two letters of the spy agency's name stand for?

United Network was a legal fix. The studio's lawyers worried about using the initials of a real world body to sell a television show, so the writers found new words to fit.

Which network first broadcast The Man from U.N.C.L.E., rescuing its poor early ratings with a move to Monday nights?

NBC came close to cancelling the series in its first season, when it ran against The Red Skelton Show. The new time slot found it an audience.

Every episode title of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., starting with the pilot, ends with which word?

Affair is the agency's own term for one of its cases, as a first-season episode establishes. Each episode was also split into four acts with titles of their own.

Which English actor, a veteran of six Alfred Hitchcock films, played U.N.C.L.E. chief Alexander Waverly?

Leo G. Carroll had already played a spymaster for Hitchcock in North by Northwest. He was in his late seventies when the television series began.

Which hit ABC series of 1966 did The Man from U.N.C.L.E. try to copy by turning to slapstick and self-parody?

Batman was a camp sensation from its debut early that year. Chasing it cost U.N.C.L.E. dearly: the jokier third season brought a severe drop in the ratings.

Which actress, later the co-star of Hart to Hart, played April Dancer in the spin-off The Girl from U.N.C.L.E.?

Stefanie Powers led the spin-off for its single season of 29 episodes, partnered with a British agent played by Noel Harrison.

In 1966, at the height of the spy craze, The Man from U.N.C.L.E. won which award for Best TV Show?

Golden Globe voters gave the series their top television prize that year. Its Emmy nominations, including two for the actor behind Illya Kuryakin, never turned into wins.

Which composer, who later won an Oscar for The Omen, wrote the theme music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Jerry Goldsmith wrote the theme but only three episode scores. Later composers rearranged his tune season by season, making it jazzier and then more camp as the show changed.

Which James Bond film, featuring a gangster called Mr. Solo, led to a legal threat against the U.N.C.L.E. pilot?

Goldfinger was being filmed when the Bond producers claimed the name Solo as theirs. The settlement let the television hero keep his name but forced the show to change its title.

The pocket radios used in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. were disguised first as cigarette packs and finally as what?

Fountain pens were the last and best-remembered disguise, after cigarette packs and then cigarette cases. One of the original props ended up in the CIA's own museum.

Which actor, who played both Winklevoss twins in The Social Network, was Illya Kuryakin in the 2015 U.N.C.L.E. film?

Armie Hammer played Kuryakin as short-tempered and volatile, a sharp break from the cool, quiet enigma of the 1960s series.

Which Swedish actress played Gaby Teller, daughter of a nuclear scientist, in the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Alicia Vikander joined the cast in 2013. Emily Blunt had come close to taking the female lead under an earlier director, then left the project soon after he did.

Which British star of romantic comedies played spy chief Alexander Waverly in the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Hugh Grant's Waverly appears late in the story. In the final scene he hands the three heroes a new mission under the code name that gives the film its title.

Which actress, cast after Charlize Theron was considered, played Victoria Vinciguerra in the 2015 U.N.C.L.E. film?

Elizabeth Debicki's Victoria outlasts Alexander Vinciguerra in the story, slipping away with the real warhead while he carries a decoy.

Which star was in talks to play U.N.C.L.E. agent Napoleon Solo on film until a recurring back injury ruled him out?

George Clooney was attached from 2010 and left the following year. More than a dozen leading men were then considered before the part was finally cast.

In the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E., to which Italian city do the agents travel to find the Vinciguerras?

Rome is where two of the agents pose as an engaged couple to get close to the Vinciguerras, Nazi sympathisers who are building a private nuclear weapon.

In the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which keepsake of Illya Kuryakin's father is stolen by muggers?

A watch is the keepsake Kuryakin lets the muggers take rather than break his cover. His partner later finds it on a guard and returns it.

In the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E., what was Napoleon Solo before the CIA recruited him in place of prison?

An art thief of rare skill, the film's Solo stayed in Europe after serving in the Second World War. When he was finally caught he faced a fifteen-year sentence.

In the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Gaby Teller turns out to be an undercover officer of which service?

MI6 had planted her all along. Waverly reveals it late in the story, when he steps in to help the two agents raid the villains' island fortress.

Which composer wrote the score of flutes and harpsichord for the 2015 film The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Daniel Pemberton's music drew some of the film's warmest notices. One Los Angeles Times critic felt he understood the idea of the movie better than its director did.

Barbara Feldon played an U.N.C.L.E. translator eager for field work months before starring in which sitcom?

Get Smart cast her as Agent 99 from 1965. The eager translator finally got her field work, this time played for laughs.

Which Hollywood legend made a cameo in a two-part Man from U.N.C.L.E. story alongside Telly Savalas and Terry-Thomas?

Joan Crawford's cameo came in a two-part story late in the third season. Outside America it was stitched together and sold to cinemas as The Karate Killers.

Which actress, David McCallum's first wife, guest-starred in five episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Jill Ireland returned as the same character in two first-season episodes. The marriage ended in 1967, and she later made a long run of films with her second husband, Charles Bronson.

Which future star of The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China guest-starred as a boy on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.?

Kurt Russell was 13 and already a working child actor when he shared scenes with Napoleon Solo in a first-season adventure.

Which Hollywood studio made The Man from U.N.C.L.E., filming most episodes on its back lot in Culver City?

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer reused its lot so thoroughly that one dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees stood in for virtually every continent on Earth.

David McCallum recorded the 1960s instrumental The Edge, later sampled on a hit by which rapper and producer?

Dr. Dre built the intro and riff of The Next Episode on it. McCallum, who had studied the oboe, made four instrumental albums for Capitol during his years of U.N.C.L.E. fame.

David McCallum played the prisoner Ashley-Pitt in which war film, released a year before The Man from U.N.C.L.E. began?

The Great Escape came just before the Glasgow-born actor joined U.N.C.L.E., where a part planned as minor turned him into a co-star.

Robert Vaughn, TV's Napoleon Solo, earned which qualification from the University of Southern California in 1970?

A doctorate in communications followed a thesis on the Hollywood blacklist, which he published two years later as the book Only Victims.

Which British actor played Sir John Raleigh, the new head of U.N.C.L.E., in the 1983 reunion TV movie?

Patrick Macnee played a new chief because the original Mr. Waverly actor had died in 1972. The late actor's photograph was displayed prominently in the new chief's scenes as a tribute.

Which James Bond actor made a cameo as J.B., driving an Aston Martin, in the 1983 Man from U.N.C.L.E. reunion movie?

George Lazenby's cameo made 1983 a year of three Bonds on screen, alongside Roger Moore in Octopussy and Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again.

The first season of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. differed from the three that followed in which way?

It was black-and-white for that year only. Even the pilot, which had been shot in colour, was converted before it aired, and colour arrived with the second season.

In The Man from U.N.C.L.E., the agency's secret headquarters, where Solo and Kuryakin are based, is in which city?

New York hides the base behind a row of ordinary brownstones. The series even staged a shootout with enemy agents in a crowded Manhattan theatre.

Under which title was the pilot of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. expanded with extra scenes and released to cinemas?

To Trap a Spy added new scenes with Luciana Paluzzi and gave the villains a different name, WASP. It opened in Hong Kong two months after the series began.

The U.N.C.L.E. Special, a pistol that converts into a carbine, was built for most of the series on which handgun?

Walther P38 pistols replaced a small Mauser that kept jamming. The carbine looked so real that authorities visited the set to check the studio was not making machine guns.

Which former Miss America first played April Dancer, in the Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode that tested the spin-off idea?

Mary Ann Mobley, Miss America 1959, played the trainee agent in a 1966 backdoor pilot. The part was recast when the spin-off became a series of its own.

Sam Rolfe, who developed The Man from U.N.C.L.E., had earlier co-created which Western about the mercenary Paladin?

Have Gun – Will Travel ran on CBS from 1957 to 1963. Rolfe then designed U.N.C.L.E.'s worldwide organisation, only to leave the series at the end of its first season.

Norman Felton, executive producer of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., also made which medical drama with Richard Chamberlain?

Dr. Kildare was the London-born producer's other 1960s hit. He also slipped into U.N.C.L.E. himself once, as a chess player in a party scene.

In the tie-in novels, the arch-enemy of U.N.C.L.E. was founded by a surviving henchman of which fictional villain?

Professor Moriarty's lieutenant Colonel Moran set it up after the fall at Reichenbach, in novelist David McDaniel's telling. The television show never adopted the idea.

When The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was cancelled midway through its fourth season, which comedy show took over its slot?

Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In even borrowed Mr. Waverly for its first episode, where he pulls out his communicator at a party to report that he has found the enemy's headquarters.

In the 1983 reunion TV movie, which civilian career has Illya Kuryakin taken up since quitting U.N.C.L.E.?

Fashion designer is how the reunion finds him, fifteen years after he resigned in anger over a mission that went wrong. His old partner has gone into selling computers.

The original concept for The Man from U.N.C.L.E. made its hero Napoleon Solo a native of which country?

Canada was dropped before the cameras rolled. On screen Solo is consistently American, with one grandfather an admiral and the other an ambassador.