It was September of 1964 and I was 11 years old…

That was the year that my favorite TV show, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., debuted…and my writing career began.

Already “boy crazy,” I fell head-over-heals for Napoleon Solo the moment I saw him. It was infatuation at first sight! He was the hero of this exciting new secret agent series.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was one of those shows that you never missed. If you missed it, you had just one more time to see that episode when it was repeated during the summer. There was no syndication; no video recordings. You and your television set had a date that could not be broken – same time, same station – each week. If you missed it, you REALLY missed it!

My best friend, Elaine, had a thing for Napoleon’s partner, Illya Kuryachin*. It was perfect. She and I could dream about them, talk about them, drool over their pictures in Tiger Beat and other teenie bopper magazines with no conflict. We each had our guy.

Truly my FIRST crack at writing came when I wrote my own Man From U.N.C.L.E. stories. Elaine helped me hone them. The characters we “played” in our imaginations had fictitious names but we knew they were us! What fun we had, typing it all up on Elaine’s antique manual typewriter that looked a lot like the one pictured below.

Vintage typewriter just like the one we used when writing our Man From UNCLE episodes

Little did anyone know in those days that a passion to write would come alive in me through that show. Oh, I have never written a screenplay that has actually been used. However, I have written many stories and articles as a hobby, and then career, ever since.

So, the Man From U.N.C.L.E. movie comes out on August 14, 2015. I don’t know. I think I may find it a little bit disappointing. Not because it won’t be well done. I am sure it is a great movie. But when I loved that show, though, I was a goofy preteenager. As a grownup? It probably won’t be the same. But I sure am going to give it a try.

For those of you who are way too young to remember the original, here is a little vignette for you to see. It was what we loved way back in 1964.

*Napoleon Solo in the original TV series was played by Robert Vaughn and Illya Kuryachin was portrayed by David McCallum (He is well known today as Ducky on NCIS.)