David McCallum

David Keith McCallum Jr. (born 19 September 1933) is a Scottish actor and musician. He first gained recognition in the 1960s for playing secret agent Illya Kuryakin in the television series The Man from U.N.C.L.E. In recent years, McCallum has gained renewed international recognition and popularity for his role as NCIS medical examiner Dr. Donald “Ducky” Mallard in the American television series NCIS. With John Leyton and William Russell, he is one of the last living actors from the 1963 classic The Great Escape.

McCallum was born 19 September 1933, in Maryhill, Glasgow, the second of two sons of orchestral violinist David McCallum Sr. and Dorothy (née Dorman), a cellist. When he was three, his family moved to London for his father to play as the leader of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Early in the Second World War, he was evacuated back to Scotland, where he lived with his mother at Gartocharn by Loch Lomond.