Robert Vaughn - Career

Career

Vaughn made his television debut on the November 21, 1955 "Black Friday" episode of the American TV series Medic, the first of more than two hundred episodic roles by mid-2000. He appeared with Virginia Christine in the episode "The Twisted Road", the story of a troubled brother-sister relationship which results in the murder of a young woman, of the western syndicated series, Frontier Doctor, starring Rex Allen in the title role.

His first film appearance was as an uncredited extra in The Ten Commandments (1956), playing a golden calf idolater and also visible in a scene in a chariot behind that of Yul Brynner. Vaughn's first credited movie role came the following year in the Western Hell's Crossroads (1957), in which he played the real-life Bob Ford, the killer of outlaw Jesse James. After being seen by Burt Lancaster in Calder Willingham's play End as a Man, Vaughn was signed to a contract with Lancaster's film company and was to have played the Steve Dallas role in Sweet Smell of Success but was drafted into the Army before he could begin the film.

Vaughn's first notable appearance was in The Young Philadelphians (1959) for which he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Next he appeared as gunman Lee in The Magnificent Seven (1960), a role he essentially reprised 20 years later in Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), both films being adaptations of filmmaker Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese samurai epic, Seven Samurai. Vaughn played a different role, Judge Oren Travis, on the 1998-2000 syndicated TV series The Magnificent Seven. Vaughn is the only surviving member of the title cast of the original 1960 film (although Eli Wallach, who portrayed the villain Calvera, Rosenda Monteros, who played Petra, and Rico Alaniz, who played Sotero, are still living).

In the 1963-1964 season, Vaughn appeared in The Lieutenant as Captain Raymond Rambridge alongside Gary Lockwood, the Marine second lieutenant at Camp Pendleton. His dissatisfaction with the somewhat diminished aspect of the character led him to request an expanded role. During the conference, his name came up in a telephone call and he ended up being offered a series of his own - as Napoleon Solo, title character in a series originally to be called Solo, but which became The Man from U.N.C.L.E. after the pilot was reshot with Leo G. Carroll in the role of Solo's boss. This was the part that would make Vaughn a household name even behind the Iron Curtain. Earlier, Vaughn had guest starred on Lockwood's ABC series Follow the Sun. Also in 1963 he appeared in an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show as Jim Darling, a successful businessman and an old flame of Laura Petrie in "It's A Shame She Married Me".

From 1964 to 1968, Vaughn played Solo with Scottish co-star David McCallum playing his fellow agent Illya Kuryakin. This production spawned a spin-off show, large amounts of merchandising, overseas theatrical movies of re-edited episodes, and a sequel The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E. - The Fifteen-Year-Later Affair. In the year the series ended, Vaughn landed a large role playing Chalmers, an ambitious California politician in the film Bullitt starring Steve McQueen; he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role.

Vaughn continued to act, in television and in mostly B movies. He starred in two seasons of the British detective series The Protectors in the early 1970s. Vaughn won an Emmy for his portrayal of Frank Flaherty in "Washington: Behind Closed Doors" (ABC, 1977) and during the 80's starred with friend George Peppard in the final season of The A-Team. According to Dirk Benedict, Vaughn was actually added to the cast of that show because of his friendship with Peppard. It was hoped Vaughn would help ease tensions between Mr. T and Peppard.

In 2004, after a string of guest roles on series such as Law & Order, in which he had a recurring role during season eight, Vaughn experienced a resurgence. He began co-starring in the British series Hustle, made for BBC One, which was also broadcast in the United States on the cable network AMC. In the series, Vaughn plays elder-statesman con artist Albert Stroller, a father figure to a group of younger grifters. In September 2006, he guest-starred in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

Since the mid-1990s, Vaughn has been a spokesman in a set of generic advertisements for various personal injury law firms around the U.S.A. and Canada, such as that of Mark E. Salomone and the Eichholz Law Firm. The television commercial features Vaughn urging injured complainants to "tell the insurance companies you mean business."

Vaughn also appeared as himself narrating and being a character in a radio play broadcast by BBC Radio 4 in 2007 about making the film The Bridge at Remagen in Prague, Czechoslovakia, during the Russian invasion of 1968.

Frequent references are made to his playing Napoleon Solo and the character's great spying abilities.

In November 2011, it was announced that Vaughn would appear for three weeks in the British soap opera Coronation Street. His cameo as Milton in the long-running program lasted for three weeks, from January to February 2012.