From The Man from UNCLE Book: The Behind the Scenes Story of a Television Classic, pg. 114:
One member of the cast, Leo G. Carroll, actually requested more time in front of the camera. Carroll went to Rolfe and asked for more action scenes, as his grandchildren were wondering why he sat behind a desk all the time. So a script was changed to allow him to administer a karate chop. Because of his age, several takes were necessary, but when he did get it right the entire crew erupted in spontaneous applause.
The author didn’t bother to record which episode it was that featured Waverly’s karate chop, but I’m guessing it was this little spot from towards the end of The Deadly Decoy Affair.
The curious parallel evolution of The Man from UNCLE and The Avengers
I’m starting to need a proper tag for "things I read or watched because of UNCLE" -- case in point, this post involves two different examples of the genre. One is C.W. Walker's book Investigating The Man from UNCLE, which I'm still reading now. Though it inevitably covers a lot of the same territory as John Heitland's book on UNCLE's history (and, admittedly, in somewhat less casually accessible fashion), it also adds a real wealth of new background detail and insight to the subject. I'm sure I'll get around to writing up a proper review once I'm done -- but for now, here's a few specific details that caught my eye.
One of the more curious items of trivia from Heitland's notes was the information that, early in development, there was at one point to be a supporting character variously named "Mary Smith" or "Doris Franklyn": an out-of-work actress who would assist Napoleon during his adventures. Walker, happily, provides rather more detail about what her role was to be -- making it clear that she was actually supposed to function as Napoleon’s partner in Norman Felton’s early drafts.
Even at this early stage, Solo would be a loner in name only. Described as Solo's "confidant," Mary Smith is a talented, if struggling, actress who also happens to be multilingual and something of a chameleon. She is ready to hop a plane to anywhere in the world to assume any number of identities as needed, though these masquerades "will always be in the realm of believably." The synopsis indicates that Mary Smith may experience some conflict between advancing her career and assisting Solo, but inevitably she will join him because there is a "bond" between them.
What stands out about this concept -- a professional male spy paired with a skilled female amateur -- is that Felton seems to have unwittingly hit upon the formula behind another 60's spy show, which was already airing on British TV: The Avengers (not to be confused with Marvel's Avengers, with which it shares nothing but the name, and the paradoxical lack of interest in revenge as a motivator behind most of its adventures). For those unfamiliar, The Avengers followed the adventures of a professional spy by the name of John Steed, and his various non-professional partners -- the most significant of whom were women. Exactly what agency Steed works for is never specified, nor (as far as I can uncover) why he relies so much on regular amateur helpers, most of whom have no connection to his current case, but it draws on so many of the same tropes as UNCLE that there's plenty of basis for comparison between the two.
The other reason I checked out The Avengers, however, was based on the reputation of Steed's partner from the second and third seasons -- Cathy Gale, a mature, well-spoken, quick-witted, judo-flipping heroine -- a character arguably years ahead of her time. I could go on at length about how great Cathy is, but it's really not that relevant here -- what you really need to know is that the show is even better remembered for her successor, Emma Peel, who joined the show just as it secured a US broadcasting deal and a corresponding jump in budget. Like Cathy, Emma was a talented, well-educated amateur, and as capable as Steed in hand-to-hand combat. Though both she and Cathy clearly had much more successful day-jobs and probably much more expensive educations than Doris Franklyn, the parallels are hard to miss.
Was this early UNCLE concept, then, directly inspired by The Avengers? The tale of UNCLE's genesis does start with a visit by Norman Felton to the UK in the early 60's, where a woman from the BBC gave him the idea of writing something about a different kind of hero. The Avengers isn't a BBC series, so he's unlikely to have heard much about it in the office, but it might have been showing on TV while he was there, depending on the time of year. It's conceivable that Felton might have caught an episode or two of the first or second season while in the UK -- but both Walker and Heitland's accounts agree that it didn't even occur to Felton to write something about spies until much later. Walker talks at length about the connections between UNCLE and the existing Bond franchise, between the UNCLE fanbase and the later one for Star Trek, but The Avengers isn't mentioned anywhere. I suppose it's possible that some semi-conscious memory of an episode or two of some spy show he saw in the UK might have been in Felton's mind as he dreamed up his new show, but it would be a big stretch even to suggest it. As best we can guess in retrospect, the similarities seem to be little more than coincidence.
But the story only gets stranger when Sam Rolfe comes aboard -- because Rolfe, according to Walker, had his own proto-UNCLE concept kicking around at the time Felton contacted him for help in developing the series. Called The Dragons and St. George, Rolfe got as far as writing a pilot script that was never produced. The titular St. George was actually to be an agent who worked for the United Nations "above and beyond the law, unofficially aiding law enforcement agencies with difficult or unusual cases." Moreover, St. George was assisted by two amateur companions:
The first is rich, handsome, blond Lance Mordred, an ex-racing car driver who suffered a devastating accident and whose face is now swathed in gauze. Lance's damaged body parts have been replaced with those of volunteer donors, and with each donation, Lance has also acquired the skills or special talent attached to the donated part. The second is Lance's wife, Laura, "a cool, classic beauty," an ex-actress who can take on various roles, chameleon-like. "Whatever the mind can conceive, she can create".
Putting aside the Frankenstein-inspired side-kick, there's plenty of what would become UNCLE in this concept -- but even more of The Avengers. An agent working for an international agency, assisted by two talented amateurs? Once again, we’re right back with John Steed. If Rolfe had ever seen or even heard of The Avengers himself though, the knowledge seems to have been lost to history. Again, the similarities seem most likely to be little more than bizarre coincidence.
But the story goes on:
Considering the similarity between Felton's Doris Franklyn and The Dragons and St. George's Laura Modred, it seems odd that Rolfe would purposely leave out Doris. Nevertheless, he did, adding that it would appear "cheapskate" if so large and powerful an organization as UNCLE should be forced to use an unemployed actress instead of a special agent to do the job.
And there, in a nutshell, Rolfe outlines exactly why the idea of a part-time actress being called in to assist Napoleon on his missions confused me so much when I first encountered it in Heitland's account -- and, moreover, why I struggled so much to get into The Avengers: If Napoleon and Steed work for such important agencies, why in god's name are they reduced to recruiting unpaid help to do their jobs?
Are their assistants supposed to be so swept up in the excitement that they don't care? Rolfe's polymath racing car driver at least had the justification being able to bring a truly unique skill set to the job, but Emma Peel and Mary Smith have no such excuse. It makes sense that Napoleon might recruit an innocent connected to a case occasionally, but once they become a regular, they should at least be able to expect a salary and some sort of pension plan in return for risking their lives. In fact, unlike Steed's first (male) partner, no reason is ever given for why Cathy or Emma assist him at all: episodes that would have introduced them were recut and shunted back into the TV schedule, so that they first appear as his partners without any explanation at all.
The uncomfortable subtext, that the contribution of women like Emma and Mary needs no official recognition, because the men involved may take it for granted, is about as ugly as it comes. I doubt it was intended, but the casual de-valuing of women's work doesn't speak well of the values of the decade. If anything, it says rather too much.
Nevertheless, that three different creators all independently managed to hit upon variations on this theme within a couple of years of one another in the 60's must mean something, and if no-one was copying anyone else, then the possibility still remains that all were responding to some still older source of inspiration. Perhaps, in imagining their fantasy super-spies, dropping in to help solve unusual cases like some sort of government-sanctioned Doctor Who, they were all subconciously drawing on the Sherlock Holmes archtype, where the genius crime-fighter comes accompanied by his personal Watson equivalent. Perhaps, as with the Innocents formula that UNCLE eventually settled upon, they hoped to draw on the fantasy that anyone could wind up partnering James Bond. Perhaps they simply thought it would be more interesting if one of their protagonists wasn't a full-time professional. Two out of the three appear to have given little if any thought to the less fortunate implications of the concept. Nor, apparently, did most of the audience of The Avengers back in its own day.
In any case, it's certainly for the best that Felton and Rolfe wound up revising their concept of UNCLE before it made it to the screens -- not just because that would have denied us the much-beloved UNCLE we got, but also because The Avengers already existed. The world didn’t particularly need another secret agent with a full-time-amateur assistant, but the idea of partnering an American agent and a Russian was even more daring, and it’s highly unlikely anyone else would have come up with it independently (let alone managed to get it to screen) had Rolfe and Felton not hit upon the idea.
As one last, minor addendum to that Norman Felton and Ian Fleming design Napoleon Solo-post from earlier, a couple of interesting quotes from unrelated sources:
During World War II, Fleming put his writing talents to use as part of British Naval Intelligence. [...] Fleming’s work eventually extended to the United States. He was responsible for helping to create an American organization focused on international intelligence gathering. In 1941, he drew up a detailed chart for the chief of the OSS, showing how the new organization should be run. For his efforts, he was awarded an engraved .38 Colt Police Positive revolver.
-- 10 Celebrities Who Spied on the Side
Fleming’s Napoleon Solo was known to his neighbours as a writer. He never wore a hat, and he owned a pet bird that he talked to, which Fleming felt would be “useful in getting over plot problems.” His Solo had served in a Canadian Highland regiment (adopting Felton’s original descriptions of Solo as Canadian) and kept prints of his unit on his wall, along with a display showing the evolution of the Colt revolver.
-- The Man From UNCLE book, by Jon Heitland
ICWYDT, Mr. Fleming. Though FTR, I am fairly certain no reference to any colt revolver ever made it into the show.
