Robert Vaughn, 74, best known for the 1960s TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., spoke with Sanjiv Bhattacharya of The [London] Observer. In the brief interview, transcribed as a series of one-liners, Vaughn comes up with several highly quotable statements.
A couple of samples:
"Cary Grant was able to have a child after doing LSD. So I guess it's good for some people."
"An autobiography is a history of your life. A memoir is how you remember it. I'm attempting a memoir. It'll be published in spring 2008. It's about the time up to when I got married – I was a bachelor till I was 41. I'm trying to make it more than just 'then I left London and I fucked Jane Brown…' – you know the sort of thing. A lot of my memories are 'and then I fucked' memories."
Vaughn's film work is mostly — and in all likelihood justly — forgotten (I mean, The Lucifer Complex, Superman III, Skeleton Coast), but he did appear in a half-a-handful of important films.
He mentions The Magnificent Seven (1960), John Sturges' Western remake of Akira Kurosawa's Shichinin no samurai / Seven Samurai (1954), and Peter Yates' cop thriller Bullitt (1968). There were also Blake Edwards' Hollywood satire S.O.B. (1981), in which Vaughn plays a cross-dressing studio head, and Vincent Sherman's 1959 melodrama The Young Philadelphians, for which Vaughn was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar.
By the way, he also happens to be the only surviving Magnificent. (The other six were Yul Brynner, Horst Buchholz, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Brad Dexter, and Charles Bronson.)
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