Scots NCIS actor David McCallum goes to great lengths to understand how bodies are dissected

McCallum, who starred in the Great Escape and is now in hit TV series NCIS is obsessive about researching his roles.

04:30, 19 JUL 2018

Actor David McCallum is obsessive about researching his roles, so chopping up bodies held no fears.

The 84-year-old plays Donald “Ducky” Mallard, the official medical examiner in hit US series NCIS. But it’s his unusual hobby regarding dead bodies that might surprise fans of the man who recently celebrates 55 years since he appeared as Ashley-Pitt “Dispersal” in classic war movie The Great Escape.

Glasgow-born McCallum said: “It’s an interest I developed in order to bring authenticity to Ducky’s character on screen. “I’m obsessive about that kind of thing. I like to get it right, so I know a great deal, shall we say, about carrying out an autopsy".

McCallum later starred as Russian spy Illya Kuryakin in the TV series Man From U.N.C.L.E. The spoof secret agent show ran from 1964 to 1968, lasting 105 episodes and had eight spin-off movies.

At the height of his fame, the actor, whose parents were musicians, even came to enjoy a unlikely career as a pop star – picking up more fan mail than Elvis at Capitol Records from fans who were in awe of the Man From U.N.C.L.E heart-throb with the blond Beatles-style moptop, in sharp relief to his co-star Robert Vaughn’s clean cut conservative image.

“I did four or five albums for Capitol in Los Angeles,” David said. “It was entirely money making on behalf of the studio. Man From U.N.C.L.E was a hit. I was popular so they said, ‘You have to sing on an album because it will sell lots of records and we’ll make money’. “I said, ‘I don’t really sing’. I was a musician.”

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