Celebrity Watch!: 11/11/16

Actor Robert Vaughn, best known as the secret agent Napoleon Solo in The Man from UNCLE, has died aged 83.

Vaughn was also famous for his role as Lee in the Magnificent Seven, and television roles in Hustle and Coronation Street.

The iconic actor died after a battle with acute leukaemia, his manager, Matthew Sullivan, told the BBC.

Vaughn died in New York on Friday morning surrounded by his family, he said.

The suave, debonair and impeccably dressed star

David McCallum, from the hit TV show NCIS, who as Illya Kuryakin starred alongside Vaughn in The Man From UNCLE, told TVLine.com he was "utterly devastated" by the news.

"Robert and I worked together for many years and losing him is like losing a part of me. My deepest sympathies go out to Linda and the Vaughn family," he said.

Vaughn, who was "a few months shy of 84" had been seeking treatment for his leukaemia, Mr Sullivan said.

"He was a great human being. I enjoyed every day of working with him," he said.

Vaughn had only recently finished two projects - an appearance on Law and Order: SVU, and a starring role in the upcoming film Gold Star, about a young woman caring for her dying father.

Famous films Vaughn worked on included Bullitt and Towering Inferno, both with Steve McQueen, and he took the role of the villain in Superman III.

He was also well-known in Britain for his 1970s appearance as Harry Rule in the ITV series, The Protectors.

The plot featured three wealthy individuals getting together each week, usually in exotic locations, to solve crimes and protect the innocent.

Though extremely popular, it was later described by Vaughn in his autobiography as "tasteless junk".

Decades later, he would have another hit UK series with Hustle, a BBC series in which he played elderly con man Albert Stroller, responsible for setting up potential targets for a younger generation of grifters.

He is survived by his wife Linda and two children, Cassidy and Caitlin Vaughn.

On social media, fans paid tribute to his work.

"Robert Vaughn, such a fine actor, one of the best Columbo villains (no higher praise than that) and an utterly charming man," tweeted Stephen Fry.

He is survived by his wife Linda and two children, Cassidy and Caitlin Vaughn.

On social media, fans paid tribute to his work.

"Robert Vaughn, such a fine actor, one of the best Columbo villains (no higher praise than that) and an utterly charming man," tweeted Stephen Fry.

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Robert Vaughn, the urbane actor who starred as the American spy Napoleon Solo on the slick 1960s NBC series The Man From U.N.C.L.E., died Friday. He was 83.

Vaughn, who received an Oscar nomination for playing Paul Newman's hard-drinking buddy Chet in the 1959 drama The Young Philadelphians, died of acute leukemia in a hospital on the East Coast, his manager Matthew Sullivan told The Hollywood Reporter. He had been undergoing treatment for his illness in New York and Connecticut.

Vaughn's memorable performances also included turns as one of the seven gunmen in The Magnificent Seven (1960), as a steely senator in Bullitt (1968) — those two opposite Steve McQueen — as an addled studio chief in Blake Edwards' S.O.B. (1981) and as a corporate villain in Superman III (1983).

For his work in Washington: Behind Closed Doors, a 1977 ABC miniseries that was based on John Ehrlichman's book, The Company, Vaughn received an Emmy Award for playing a crude aide to the president, a character based on Richard Nixon's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman.

Shortly after starring as a U.S. Marine captain in the short-lived NBC drama The Lieutenant — a show created by future Star Trek legend Gene Roddenberry — Vaughn landed the role of the charismatic Solo on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., another series from MGM Television and producer Norman Felton's Arena Productions.

On the Cold War-era series, which lasted four seasons and spawned a sequel and several movies stitched together from episodes, Vaughn teamed with Russian spy Illya Kuryakin (played by Scottish actor David McCallum) as members of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

The outfit, with headquarters cleverly concealed in a dry cleaner's shop in a New York City brownstone, fought the evil forces of T.H.R.U.S.H., thought to be an acronym for Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.

Felton, who was a friend of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, gave Vaughn some advice on how to play Solo, the actor related in a 2015 interview with Entertainment Weekly.

He pursued journalism at the University of Minnesota, where he was selected as the male finalist in a radio contest for actors for 1951. That recognition gave him the confidence to move west, where he studied drama at Los Angeles City College and won an award for playing the lead in a production of Mr. Roberts.

After a talent scout spotted him on stage in Calder Willingham's End as a Man, Vaughn signed with Harold Hecht and Burt Lancaster's film company — one of the first independents in Hollywood — but was drafted into the U.S. Army.

He received another Emmy nomination for portraying Woodrow Wilson in the 1979 NBC miniseries Backstairs at the White House; was the furtive Gen. Hunt Stockwell on NBC's The A-Team and a con man on the British series Hustle; and showed up in David Zucker's BASEketball (1998).

In the late 1970s, Vaughn attended night classes at USC and earned his doctorate in communications after writing a dissertation, Only Victims: A Study of Show Business Blacklisting, about the dark period in Hollywood history.

He married actress Linda Staab in 1974, and they adopted children Caitlin and Cassidy. They survive him.