1969-1975
January 1969
Gold Key publishes 22nd and last issue of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
comic book (dated April 1969).
Wednesday, Feb. 5, 1969
David McCallum appears on television for the first time since
U.N.C.L.E. ended, starring in the Hallmark Hall of Fame drama,
“Teacher, Teacher.” George Grizzard and Ossie Davis co-star.
McCallum receives an Emmy nomination for his performance as
the tutor of a mentally retarded boy.
Tuesday, July 8, 1969
“From Nashville With Music,” starring Leo G. Carroll in his only post-U.N.C.L.E. movie role, opens. Carroll and Marilyn Maxwell play a couple on vacation in Tennessee who encounter a number of country music stars, including Merle Haggard, Marty Robbins, Buck Owens, Charley Pride and Tammy Wynette.
July – September 1969
Las Vegas hotelier and corporate raider Kirk Kerkorian buys up MGM stock until he controls the company.
Tuesday, Sept. 2, 1969
Canceled after just three seasons, the last episode of Star Trek airs on NBC. The series goes into syndicated reruns two weeks later, ultimately achieving mythic pop-culture status.
Sunday, Sept. 21, 1969
Arena-ITC co-production Strange Report premieres in Britain on ITV. Anthony Quayle stars as London-based criminologist Adam Strange, with Kaz Garas as his assistant Hamlyn Gynt and Anneke Wills as Strange’s neighbor Evelyn McLean. Series was also expected to debut in the U.S. in September 1969 on NBC but the network did not schedule it.
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 1969
Kirk Kerkorian installs notorious former CBS president Jim “The Smiling Cobra” Aubrey as president of MGM.
Friday, Nov. 21, 1969
David McCallum appears in another Hallmark Hall of Fame production, “The File on Devlin,” which surprisingly for Hallmark is a spy story about the disappearance of a Nobel Prize-winning author who’s also a British agent. Dame Judith Anderson, Elizabeth Ashley, Laurence Naismith, Donald Moffat, Helmut Dantine and Alan Caillou co-star.
Sundays, Jan. 4, Jan. 11, Jan. 18, 1970
Noel Harrison guest stars in “The Falcon,” the only three-part story to appear on Mission: Impossible.
Monday, Feb. 2, 1970
Stefanie Powers guest stars in the “Fortune City” episode of It Takes a Thief. Mission: Impossible and It Takes a Thief are now the only spy shows still on the air.
Thursday, April 2, 1970
Leo G. Carroll makes his only post-U.N.C.L.E. TV acting appearance in the “Little Dog, Gone” episode of Ironside.
Friday, April 3, 1970
“The Man From O.R.G.Y.,” low-budget feature starring Robert Walker, Slappy White and Steve Rossi, opens. Based on racy paperbacks by Ted Mark, this would-be spy spoof actually pits O.R.G.Y. agent Walker against the Mafia as he tracks down three girls he can identify by tattoos on their derrieres.
May 1970
In 18 days of public auctions, Kerkorian and Aubrey sell off the treasure trove of props, vehicles and wardrobe from 45 years of MGM movie and television productions. U.N.C.L.E. fans manage to acquire many props from the show.
June 1970
Robert Vaughn receives his Ph.D. in communications-drama from the University of Southern California.
Wednesday, July 1, 1970
“The Boatniks,” Disney comedy starring Robert Morse and Phil Silvers, opens. Stefanie Powers, the second April Dancer, and Norman Fell, the first Mark Slate, are also in the cast.
July 1970
U.N.C.L.E. fans David McDaniel (also the author of six U.N.C.L.E. novels published by Ace Books), Bob Short (later an Oscar-winning special effects artist) and Bill Mills (child actor and later stuntman and radio producer) launch the New U.N.C.L.E. Inner Circle fan club, inspired by their acquisition of major U.N.C.L.E. props at the MGM auction.
November 1970
U.N.C.L.E. fan Craig Henderson publishes the first issue of File Forty, the first U.N.C.L.E. fanzine (leading inevitably to this Web site).
Tuesday, Nov. 24, 1970
“Hauser’s Memory,” NBC World Premiere movie, airs at 9 p.m. David McCallum stars in this science-fiction tale with spy trappings as a scientist who agrees to inject a dying colleague’s brain fluid into his own head to preserve the other man’s missile-defense secrets for the CIA. Such tampering with nature leads to customary “unforeseen” results as dead man’s memories plunge McCallum into a double life involving the comely, Nazi-sympathizer widow. Filmed in Europe, with Susan Strasberg, Lilli Palmer, Leslie Nielsen and Robert Webber co-starring.
Friday, Jan. 8, 1971
Strange Report, mystery series co-produced by Arena and ITC, finally premieres on NBC almost two years after production ended, making the existing 16 episodes all that are available to air. Anthony Quayle stars as British criminologist Adam Strange.
February 1971
Ace Books publishes The Finger in the Sky Affair, the 23rd and last U.N.C.L.E. novel. David McDaniel’s The Final Affair, written especially to end the series, goes unpublished.
Wednesday, Feb. 3, 1971
Arena Productions series The Psychiatrist, starring Roy Thinnes and Luther Adler, premieres on NBC. Only six episodes air as part of the network’s experimental Four in One series that also includes McCloud, Rod Serling’s Night Gallery and San Francisco International Airport. The Psychiatrist and Strange Report are the only series produced under Arena’s exclusive deal with NBC.
Friday, April 2, 1971
Television’s first era of pop-culture phenomena ends when ABC airs the last episode of Dark Shadows, less than four years after the show soared to extraordinary popularity.
Thursday, May 13, 1971
NBC programming vice president Mort Werner sends Norman Felton a memo suggesting an U.N.C.L.E. World Premiere Movie.
Monday, May 17, 1971
Felton agrees a “Return of U.N.C.L.E.” TV-movie is a good idea and suggests Norman Hudis write it.
March 1972
Only Victims, book version of Robert Vaughn’s doctoral dissertation about blacklisting in the American entertainment industry, is published by G.P. Putnam’s Sons.
Monday, March 6, 1972
ABC airs two-hour pilot-movie “The Delphi Bureau,” written and produced by Sam Rolfe. Relatively unknown stage actor Laurence Luckinbill plays Glenn Garth Gregory, researcher for the mysterious U.S. government office in the title. Celeste Holm portrays the Delphi Bureau’s only known contact, Washington society hostess Sybil Van Loween. Joanna Pettet plays a character named April. Bob Crane, Dean Jagger, Bradford Dillman and David Sheiner also appear.
Week of Monday, Sept. 11, 1972
The Protectors, 30-minute series starring Robert Vaughn, Nyree Dawn Porter and Tony Anholt as members of an elite European detective firm, premieres in syndication. Produced in England and distributed by ITC for prime-time access slots.
Wednesday, Sept. 13, 1972
Search, international adventure series about agents of private security agency Probe (title of the pilot film), premieres on NBC at 10 p.m. Hugh O’Brian, Tony Franciosa and Doug McClure are the rotating stars — they never appear together in the same episode — as Probe’s top agents, who carry futuristic, miniature audio-visual and telemetry transmitters on and even in their bodies. Tony Spinner, producer of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.’s fourth season, becomes producer of this series in mid-season after serving as executive story consultant. Stefanie Powers appears in second episode, Mary Ann Mobley in third.
Saturday, Sept. 16, 1972
Seventh season premiere of Mission: Impossible airs at 10 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 17, 1972
“Goldfinger” is the first Bond film on television, airing on The ABC Sunday Night Movie.
Thursday, Sept. 21, 1972
The Men, umbrella title for three rotating series, premieres on ABC at 9 p.m. Two of the alternating shows feature international intrigue, but first to debut is Jigsaw, a thoroughly standard and mundane cop show.
Thursday, Sept. 28, 1972
Assignment: Vienna, MGM-TV series that’s the second rotating segment of The Men, premieres on ABC at 9 p.m. Robert Conrad stars as Jake Webster, reluctant American agent operating in Austria. Charles Cioffi plays Webster’s contact, Major Barney Caldwell. Filmed on location in Vienna. George M. Lehr, associate producer of U.N.C.L.E., is also associate producer of this series.
Thursday, Oct. 5, 1972
The Delphi Bureau, third segment of The Men, premieres on ABC at 9 p.m. Sam Rolfe is creator and executive producer of this series, starring Laurence Luckinbill as Glenn Garth Gregory, a man with a photographic memory who may be the only employee of the Delphi Bureau, a mysterious research office reporting directly to the White House. Anne Jeffreys, Leo G. Carroll’s co-star in Topper, plays Gregory’s society-matron contact Sybil Van Loween. Only eight episodes are produced and aired.
Monday, Oct. 16, 1972
Leo G. Carroll dies at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital after a long illness. His reported age was 80 although some sources have him older.
Monday, March 19, 1973
NBC airs unsold pilot “Topper Returns,” with Stefanie Powers as Marion Kerby, high-spirited spirit played by Anne Jeffreys in original Topper series starring Leo G. Carroll. John Fink plays husband George and Roddy McDowall stars as Cosmo Topper, Jr.
Saturday, Sept. 8, 1973
At long last, the 1960s spy craze really dies as the final repeat episode of Mission: Impossible, the last surviving series from the spy-craze years, airs on CBS.
Saturday, Oct. 20, 1973
David McCallum plays a Russian spy in the premiere of The Six Million Dollar Man, “Wine, Women and War.”
Saturday, June 29, 1974
Perennial bachelor Robert Vaughn marries actress Linda Staab, four years after they met when working together in a Chicago production of “The Tender Trap.”
Wednesday, May 7, 1975
ABC’s Wednesday Movie of the Week airs 90-minute “Matt Helm” pilot written by Sam Rolfe, starring Tony Franciosa as Helm. Irving Allen, producer of the Matt Helm pictures starring Dean Martin, is executive producer but studio and network decide to turn Helm into a private eye for television. Rolfe makes no contribution to short-lived series that airs Sept. 20, 1975 through Jan. 3, 1976.
Monday, Sept. 8, 1975
Premiere of The Invisible Man starring David McCallum, who finds himself back on NBC Monday nights from 8 to 9 — but not for long. NBC quickly cancels the series, airing only 11 episodes.
