Book signings are fairly predictable. The author is either in a good mood and allows for a moment of chat, or it's a quick signature, head down. Somebody from the store keeps up a tense whine of "Move the line along, next!"
What was I expecting with Robert Vaughn? A combination of the two. He seemed the type who'd be tolerant for at least a few seconds of adulation or one question, maybe.
My instincts seemed correct when I watched him gracefully do a brief Q&A before the signing. He was polite but distant, and a fanboy question, "What was your favorite Man from UNCLE episode" got the cold, factual response of, "None of them." He was just an actor on the assembly line of a weekly show, and the part wasn't much of a challenge was it?
The brief Q&A almost had me intimidated, but I did want to ask him a question.
It was about the most disturbing and vivid Q&A interview I'd read when I was a kid. It originally appeared in Man's Magazine, March 1964.
At the time, Vaughn was a minor celebrity starring in a TV show called "The Lieutenant." His superstardom was six months away, September of 1964, when "The Man from UNCLE" premiered.
The Q&A was re-published in a book called "Hollywood Uncensored," a paperback that collected various celebrity articles that had appeared in Man's Magazine in 1963 and 1964.
The Vaughn chapter was the most remarkable. The other chapters were written in typical tabloid style. There were quotes from people who knew the star. Maybe some quotes pulled from other articles about the star. There was room for the writer to make assumptions and "color" and slant the story. But the Vaughn piece? Q&A. And fascinating. Vaughn seemed to open up about his disturbed childhood, his early sex life, his shoplifting fun, and most weirdly of all, how his grandparents kept him leashed on a clothesline in the backyard, so he wouldn't wander away or cause trouble.
The piece was titled "The Scarred Past of a Hollywood Actor."
Fast forward over 40 years, and Vaughn was offering up his autobiography. It was called "A Fortunate Life." Really?
I got to Barnes & Noble early, and began to read the chapter on his childhood. I was shocked.
There was NOTHING at all about the backyard or the "goddam rope." NOTHING.
What he'd said in that magazine piece about the incident coloring his life...had he blocked it all out? Was he now presenting himself as well-adjusted and his life a series of mostly "fortunate" incidents and choices? His childhood was actually cheerful and mundane?
When it was my turn to place my book in front of him for personalization (thank you) and signature, I mentioned that I was surprised that the chapter on his childhood was so different from the 1964 interview, the one where he talked about the rope and the backyard trauma.
Vaughn replied, not really making eye contact, "That never happened."
Stunned, and moving away to let the next fan get a chance, I said, "Well, I'm glad for that. Glad it was just...a story."
When he died I went back and read that Q&A again.
"That never happened."
Really? The interviewer made up the entire Q&A? It reads like a transcription. Who'd make up this stuff?
Frankly, I do know the world of pulp magazines and tabloids. I know how the twisting and slanting is done. I know the glee that editors feel in taking down a star via a load of crap or an unflattering photo. But the Vaughn piece was pretty damn convincing.
The interviewer being long dead, the trail was now cold. I couldn't ask, "So, you got an interview with a minor celebrity and, what, had to trick it up to make it worth printing? You invented all kinds of insane stuff and had the NERVE to present it in Q&A form? Really??"
I never had an excuse to interview Robert Vaughn, and to find out whether "A Fortunate Life" was revisionist history or the truth, or whether the entire Q&A was just the work of an incredibly inventive yellow journalist.
Robert Vaughn had a very interesting style as an actor. He was one of the few (Gene Barry was another) who presented himself as a reluctant hero. Like Gene Barry, Vaughn was the master of the scornful glare. His mouth would sometimes open in a kind of nauseous disgust and then close again, words unsaid. Vaughn's Napoleon Solo and Barry's Bat Masterson and Amos Burke loved the ladies but had a great ambivalence towards ones who came on too strong.
Was Vaughn's restrained acting style somehow tied to being tied up in that backyard as a child?
He said, "That never happened."
Tabloid journalism boldly done in Q&A format, and a lie? Or was "A Fortunate Life" an attempt to re-write history?
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