Bob's your U.N.C.L.E. - Daily Mail Weekend, 12th March 2005

From the suave Napoleon Solo to the avuncular con man in Hustle, Robert Vaughn has had an extraordinary acting career. But nothing is quite as remarkable as his own story - and the mystery of the boy who believed Robert was his father and grew up to marry Claudia Schiffer. By Alice Fowler.

Desperation in his eyes, the man enters the church, lights a candle and hurries to the confessional. "I'm not a churchgoer, Father," he whispers. "But you have got to help me." On the other side of the grille, the priest listens intently as the man -- a well-heeled gangster turned celebrity chef -- confesses the dark secret that possesses him. As he bares his soul, the priest sits back -- with the wolfishly triumphant grin of a con man who has found his latest victim. Of course, as fans of the hit BBC drama Hustle will already have guessed, this is no ordinary 'priest'. Rather, it is Albert Stroller: the avuncular con man, played by Robert Vaughn, who -- in this stylish and stylised drama, now back for a second series -- ropes in the victims for his fellow con artists to deceive, humiliate and part from their cash. Unusually for British television, Hustle celebrates the 'long con': the kind of elaborate and inventive scam portrayed in movies such as The Sting and Ocean's Eleven. Vaughn is joined by Adrian Lester as Mickey 'Bricks' Stone, the gang's charismatic leader; Robert Glenister as Ash, its highly creative fixer; Marc Warren as new boy Danny; and Jaime Murray as the head-turningly gorgeous Stacie, who, in a neat reversal of gender stereotypes, oversees the gang's finances. But it is Vaughn, star of the cult 1960s show The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and classic films such as Bullitt and The Magnificent Seven, whose presence adds gravitas. He relishes the parallels between Hustle and the heyday of his career. "The dialogue is clever and sophisticated, not unlike The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," he reflects. "Suppose Napoleon Solo at the end of his career in the Secret Service realises he can't live on his government pension, and decides to take advantage of his great knowledge and skills. That could be the background story for Albert." Written by Tony Jordan, best known for his work on EastEnders, Hustle contains his characteristic blend of pace and humour. Vaughn describes how, before winning the part, he was sent three scripts. "Usually I read ten pages and stop. With Hustle, that didn't happen. My wife was watching me and said, "Why are you still going?" The truth was, I thought the scripts were intelligent, light-hearted and well-written." At a film studio in south-east London, where the second series is being made, Vaughn is sitting in his dressing room. If Hustle is fun to watch, it is clearly no less enjoyable to make. "In the 50 years I've been working I can honestly say I haven't had more fun than I've had with these guys," he enthuses. "You get three good laughs before lunch. They all do superb trick voices. It's like working with 50 people, not four." It was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (United Network Command for Law and Enforcement), which ran from 1964-8, that made Vaughn and his co-star David McCallum (as fellow spy Illya Kuryakin) into superstars. When the Beatles visited LA in 1965, they asked to meet them; so huge were the waiting crowds that Vaughn and McCallum had to slip out the back of the building and were whisked away in armoured trucks. When the U.N.C.L.E. stars toured Japan that year, thousands of teenage girls wept. FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was inundated with letters from people desperate to join the ranks of U.N.C.L.E. By the time U.N.C.L.E. was at its peak, Steve McQueen -- who had starred with Vaughn in The Magnificent Seven, the 1960 western which helped make Vaughn's name -- was determined to woo his old friend to the big screen for his rogue detective thriller, Bullitt. "I was very lucky. Steve wanted me for the role but, like a fool, I kept turning him down because I didn't understand the script," remembers Vaughn. "Every time he sent me a new script, he upped my salary -- until, eventually, I understood the script. I was very fortunate. Bullitt was an enormous success. That film helped me make the transition from television to movies." Bullitt, he adds proudly, also broke new ground, as the first film to feature a major, choreographed car chase. After Bullitt, he continued to combine film and TV work, including a stint in London in the early 1970s for the television series The Protectors. In total he has appeared in some 130 films and 100 TV programmes, as well as acting on radio, and directing and working on stage. A huge success on-screen, off-screen Vaughn led the kind of life of which Hollywood kiss-and-tell stories are made. "In the Fifties and Sixties, if you were known to have plenty of money, being a bachelor in Hollywood was like being in heaven," he remembers, with evident relish. "I certainly had fun in heaven before I met my wife." In 1956 -- the year he was signed up by Burt Lancaster's film company with a generous contract -- he dated the 18-year-old actress Natalie Wood, a huge star after making Rebel Without A Cause with James Dean. Natalie took him to his first film premiere: Elia Kazan's Baby Doll. As the flashbulbs went off around them, Natalie gripped his arm and told the waiting crowd, "This is Robert Vaughn. Remember his name, boys, 'cause he's gonna be a big star." When his fling with Natalie ended, he continued to play the field. "I wasn't married until I was 41, and I'd had a lot of years in Hollywood as a single man. Marriage is very stabilising, children are very stabilising. If I'd lived the second 30 years like I lived the first, I wouldn't be here now." His marriage, in 1974, to actress Linda Staab marked the end of his womanising ways. Like Warren Beatty when he married Annette Bening, he was ready to settle down. "Beatty had sowed his wild oats and was done. I was definitely done, too," he asserts. He and Linda adopted two children: Cassidy, 28, now working in insurance, and Caitlin, 22, at college in Washington D.C. There was, however, an undercurrent to the happy family life that Vaughn depicts. Before his marriage, he had a relationship with a London party girl named Kathy Ceaton, the daughter of a property tycoon. Ceaton had a son, Matthew, whom it was widely accepted was Vaughn's. Initially, he doted on the baby, before abruptly severing all contact just before his first birthday. Matthew, meanwhile, was brought up believing that Robert Vaughn was his father. All this burst into the headlines in 2002, when Matthew Vaughn -- by now a successful film producer in partnership with Guy Ritchie -- prepared to marry supermodel Claudia Schiffer. Just before the wedding, Matthew's life was rocked by the revelation that he was not, in fact, Vaughn's son. Why, if Vaughn was not his father, had Matthew discovered the truth so late, at the age of 31? "That is a matter between Matthew and his mother," Vaughn responds, with some discomfort. "It's their problem, not mine." But was it true that Matthew only made his devastating discovery just one week before his wedding? "I really have no idea. I only know what I read in the English press, that he didn't find out until the week before he married Claudia." The two, he goes on, are not in touch. "Why would I be? He's not my son. The relationship between us is nonexistent. Zero. I don't know what happened in those years, when he was growing up. I was obviously not involved." The matter, says Vaughn, was resolved, scientifically and legally, at the Superior Court of Los Angeles during the 1980s. "I was legally required to support him until the tissue testing was carried out. The blood tests were done, and that was the end of the support." Had he always been convinced that Matthew was not his son? "I knew," Vaughn responds, with emphasis. "I'd been in Hollywood a long time as a bachelor." In fact, he was unable to father children at all. His wife, Linda, has said, "There's never been any possibility of Robert being Matthew's father. Matthew's mother has known that for years. When Robert and I failed to have children, we were tested and it was discovered that neither of us could have kids. That was when Robert insisted on the DNA testing, which proved conclusively that he was not Matthew's father." One imagines that, by a strange irony, the two might have much in common. Matthew, after all, has masterminded gangster films such as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch and Layer Cake -- not so far from the territory trod with such panache by Robert Vaughn. His biological father, however, is George Albert Harley Drummond, also known as George de Vere Drummond, a minor British aristocrat who is a godson of the late King George VI and godfather to model Jodie Kidd. For private use, Matthew has now adopted the name Matthew de Vere Drummond. How did Vaughn feel when the truth about Matthew's parentage emerged so publicly? "I felt sorry for Matthew," Vaughn replies. And have they ever been in contact? "No." He speaks with reluctance -- but only rarely does Vaughn's practised twinkle fade. At 72, he retains the charm of the ladies' man, laced with the intelligence of the intellectual. As we talk, he eats his lunch -- poached salmon, steamed courgettes, a bowl of strawberries -- the choice of a man professionally obliged to watch his weight. Strewn across his desk are books about Shakespeare: background reading, he explains, for his memoirs, which he has been writing for some years. He is currently researching Hamlet, a role he has played three times. Born in New York in 1932, he came from a show-business family: his father, Walter, was one of the most successful radio actors of the 1940s, while his mother, Marcella, was a stage actress. His parents divorced when he was two, and he only saw his father two or three times after that. As well as encouraging him to act -- teaching him Hamlet's 'To be or not to be' speech before he could read -- his mother taught him how to play poker. In Hustle, Albert is partial to the game (although, in truth, he often loses). Playing cards on set reminds Vaughn of filming The Magnificent Seven. "We were filming in New Mexico, and the stuntmen and the actors played poker for eight hours a day," he remembers. "Steve McQueen was a big winner. Yul Brynner was a big loser." And Vaughn himself? "I was somewhere in the middle," he replies. Today, he is the only one of the film's title characters who is still alive. (The others were Brynner, McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson, Brad Dexter and Horst Buchholz.) "I'm the last man standing," he says, sounding suddenly lonely. "Two years ago my wife said I should get a three-piece black suit made because I'd been to so many funerals." Now, though, Hustle is bringing Vaughn's name to a new generation of viewers. Isn't there a risk, though, that by making the gang's exploits so entertaining, the series glamorises crime? "I don't think so," argues Vaughn, "for the reason that we only deal with extremely rich people. They can afford to lose the money. There's a saying that behind every fortune there's a great crime, and I feel it's a fairly accurate observation." Watch Hustle for a while and it's clear the gang operates as a kind of family. At its heart is Mickey, the father; Stacie, the mother, and Danny, the wayward child. On the edge, but crucial to the group's survival, is the dependable Ash. And, overlooking them all, dispensing the wisdom of decades of experience, stands the unmistakable figure of Albert: the inimitable Robert Vaughn, overseeing his family. "The creators of Hustle wanted a classic feel," points out his co-star Adrian Lester, sounding almost awed. "And with Robert, we've got that by the bucketload."

Vaughn Again: Robert Vaughn on the joy of Hustling, and why he could never have fathered the famous son they claimed was his (153K) "If I'd lived the second 30 years like I lived the first, I wouldn't be here now." Matthew Vaughn (with his wife, Claudia Schiffer, and their children) The stars of Hustle.

Thanks to Dave R for scanning this article!