The Warner Archive – which I’ve said some great things about, especially when it comes to putting TV rarities on DVD – has now issued the entire 29-episode series on a Girl From U.N.C.L.E. DVD collection which can be purchased here. To promote this release, Ms. Powers took the time to do interviews with several media outlets, including KSiteTV. Here’s what she had to say – questions are bold, answers are not.
Before getting the role of April Dancer, were you familiar with the original Man From U.N.C.L.E. series?
Yes.
Had you been a fan or a regular viewer?
I don’t regularly do anything. But I watched it, yes.
Was there an added pressure on doing this show, being one of the first female leads in an action adventure series?
No. It wasn’t even an issue at that time. It was not just one of the first, in actual fact it was the first hour long television series of any kind starring a woman.
Do you think it paved the way for later series with strong female leads?
I don’t think it paved the way for anything, because it wasn’t made an issue of until many years later, when somebody said “Did you realize that that was what it was?” It was decidedly not an issue.
It’s always good when something is not made an issue of, and it becomes just a part of a normal activity. There’s no reason why there shouldn’t have been a woman starring in an hour long show, but it hadn’t happened before. I suppose it’s a watermark of some kind, but it was never made into an issue.
Can you talk about the tone that the writers and producers went for with this show?
Let me put it into a historical perspective. The James Bond movies had become extremely successful. There were two of them out, I think, by the time The Man From U.N.C.L.E. came on, and anything to do with espionage, counter-espionage, in an international, stylish sort of way, I think the watermark was set by the first James Bond movies, and these came afterwards. There was Batman with Adam West, was a series out of England called The Avengers, and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was the distillation of all of that, descending from the success of 007.
The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. was a spin-off from The Man From U.N.C.L.E., but while there was a wry kind of slight ironic humor in the other shows, The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. really reflected much more of the kind of pop art that had become successful, which became popular with TV shows like The Green Hornet and Batman. Those two shows were sort of pop art.
So along came The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. which was sort of a combination of both, and also it brought the style – but was more, shall I say, “mid-Atlantic” than The Man From U.N.C.L.E., so that it capitalized on the success of Carnaby Street, and Mary Quant, and Vidal Sassoon, and the fashion that was coming from England and was so popular in the 1960’s.
So that puts you in a historical perspective of what the show was a reflection of.
You mentioned Batman. Like with Batman, a lot of major actors guested on your show. Was The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. something that people lined up to do?
I think also we have to come back to what it is from a historical perspective. It was a time when the motion picture studios were breaking up. The anti-trust laws had been put into effect and it was the waning days of the studio system, at the time that I was sold to MGM to do The Girl From U.N.C.L.E., because my contract with Columbia was exclusive for movies. No television was allowed.
Movie houses were closing down, so it was a serious time in Hollywood, because there were work for anybody, so a lot of people were available suddenly to do television, which was a completely new idea, for the quality of performers that appeared on our show. We were the beneficiaries of that unfortunate period of time.
Did you have a particular favorite guest star who came on to the show?
Many. [Laughs] Of course, I loved Boris Karloff. And Peggy Lee. And Stan Freiberg.
And Boris Karloff did his episode in drag?
Yes.
Did you ever expect to see the series released on DVD?
I was hoping it would, because I was so frequently asked about it. Why had it been so neglected? Why didn’t it reappear on the late night “movie time” channels that show some of the older shows?
I think it did appear a long time ago on there once, but either The Man From U.N.C.L.E. nor The Girl From U.N.C.L.E. really re-appeared.
Is it true that you can speak several languages, and you used that ability in the show?
Whenever it cropped up, but I don’t think it was a pointed effort. I think there were a lot of accents that we assumed as characters. But yes, I do speak quite a few languages.
I see the one season had 29 episodes. How long was the average shoot?
It was the same way that we filmed Hart to Hart. We had a seven day turnaround for a show, and on the eighth day, we would start another show.
Were the writers and producers taxed in trying to create so many episodes between two U.N.C.L.E. series?
Of course. Definitely. Writers are a bit like the battered children of the television and film industry. They really do get a workout on television.
Big thanks to Stefanie Powers for taking the time to do this interview. We leave you all with a clip from The Girl From U.N.C.L.E.:
