Robert Vaughn's amazing life: Magnificent Seven star's wildman days of sex, drugs and Steve McQueen

As America’s answer to James Bond, super-smooth spy Napoleon Solo bedded a string of women as he jetted around the globe on his death-defying missions.

The original Napoleon Solo, Robert Vaughn, died today aged 83 after a battle with acute leukaemia.

He revealed in an interview with the Mirror last year how his life mirrored that of his TV alter ego as he indulged in sex and drugs on a string of outrageous adventures.

In one of his most memorable exploits he feared he would be killed after smoking marijuana in a Mexican house of ill repute with his close friend, Steve McQueen.

The movie legends, who were filming hit western The Magnificent Seven, were set upon by the brothel’s bouncers when they couldn’t pay for the girls – and hedonistic McQueen had racked up quite a bill.

Hot shot: Robert Vaughn as Napoleon Solo

Hellraisers: With Steve McQueen in Bullitt

Vaughn told the Mirror: “They said, ‘How many girls would you like?’

"And Steve said, ‘SEVEN. We are The Magnificent Seven and we want seven girls’.

"Even though not all seven of us were there.”

And even though the pair of them were too drunk and stoned to be capable of sex anyway.

He says: “Steve was notorious for never carrying money.

"I didn’t know this as it was the first time we’d ever been out together.

Iconic: The Magnificent Seven get set for battle Stars: Vaughn with Stefanie Powers and David McCallum in The Man From U.N.C.L.E

“He pulled out his Diners Club card, the madam of the house looked at it and went over and got a very tall, big Mexican guy and he shook his head and said, ‘NO’.”

The magnificent two made a run for it, and found themselves being chased by the thuggish “revenue protectors”.

Vaughn says: “We just ran. I jumped out the window and ended up climbing over a wall, and as I dropped down on to a street I thought, ‘This is the end for me’.”

But they escaped unscathed from their 1960 late-night exploit, but Vaughn had another drug-related close call.

“I had one disastrous experience where I thought I’d lost my mind,” he says, recalling a night spent smoking pot. “I was terribly frightened and shaking.

“I spoke to a psychiatrist and he said, ‘You had what you call a psychotic breakdown. You’re very lucky to have come back from that, because some people don’t’.”

When he quit drugs, sex and booze were his vices of choice.

Both were in abundant supply when Vaughn and Scottish actor David McCallum, who played Russian spy, Illya Kuryakin, became the stars of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 1964.

Their roles were played by Superman actor Henry Cavill, 32, and Armie Hammer, 28, in the new U.N.C.L.E., which was a hit in the cinemas in 2015.

The TV version made Vaughn a heart-throb and he tells how he faced a dilemma when he met actor Richard Harris and Zsa Zsa Gabor at a 1960s showbiz party in London.

He says: “I found Zsa Zsa extremely attractive.” He planned to woo her back to his hotel and “seduce her”.

One that got away: He was too drunk to remember to chat up Zsa Zsa

“But when Richard came to the party we forgot all about the lady and went on a pub crawl,” he says.

“We ended up staying up pretty much all night. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a second chance with Zsa Zsa, and there’s definitely a sense of regret.”

She would not be the first or last screen beauty to pass his way.

In the 1950s, he had a lengthy fling with Rebel Without a Cause actress Natalie Wood.

And he recalls dancing with an intoxicated Judy Garland at a showbiz bash, only to feel her hand – at the time in a plaster cast – clasped to his crotch.

Fling: He romanced screen beauty Natalie Wood

He peeled it away as photographers snapped the awkward moment.

No publication used the pictures out of respect for Judy.

So great was the female attention after The Man From U.N.C.L.E. became a hit, Vaughn had to put an electric fence around his LA home to keep fans out.

He says: “It didn’t seem to work.

“More than once I was apprehended by girls who had climbed over the fence and were taking a good look at me while I was showering.

“Women even got in the house and were sitting in my lounge when I arrived home.

"I could have been a lothario of some considerable significance as so many girls were throwing themselves at me and David as a result of the show.

Remake: Henry Cavill and Armie Hammer as Solo and Kuryakin

“The volume was there, I just didn’t choose to partake. I didn’t live the life of a monk either, but it was too demanding, I was already working 12-hour days.”

Vaughn was born in New York to actor parents, Marcella Frances and Gerald Vaughn.

His parents split when he was five and he was raised by his grandparents, never seeing his father again.

He moved to LA to study theatre, and made his big screen debut in 1956 as an extra in The Ten Commandments, starring Charlton Heston.

He did a six-month spell in the army, then, in 1959, he was nominated for an Oscar after starring in The Young Philadelphians alongside Paul Newman.

A year later he made The Magnificent Seven with McQueen, Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson.

Sadly, his mother, Marcella, died of pancreatic cancer in 1961 and never got to see her son hit the big time.

Back in action: The big screen take on the heroes

While the Man from U.N.C.L.E., which also starred Leo G Carroll as spymaster Alexander Waverly, was Vaughn’s big breakthrough, it was almost the death of his career too.

Napoleon Solo was meant to be a small-screen 007, whose creator Ian Fleming was involved in the early stages of creating the TV series.

The show played on Cold War tensions by featuring a Russian and American spy working together for U.N.C.L.E. – the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement.

But Napoleon could not compete with 007.

The Magnificent Two: On set with Steve McQueen

Vaughn says: “Bond was the better character. We were quite limited with Napoleon’s character because we had a tiny budget.

"All of our views were supposedly Paris and Rome, but they were all shot over the MGM parking lot.

“It started to ebb in the ratings. Instead of doing it like Bond, they started doing it like Batman and The Green Hornet.

"It just became silly. We had scenes where they were shooting cupcakes out of guns.”

In 1968 The Man from U.N.C.L.E. was axed and Robert feared it would be the end for him, too.

But his old pal Steve McQueen saved his career.

Vaughn says: “Steve called me and said, ‘I’m gonna send you a script and see if you like it’.”

Comeback: Vaughn returned to TV for BBC series Hustle

The script was for Bullitt.

He says: “It was a huge hit, and I made a full transition from television to movies.”

After Bullitt in 1968, he had a stream of movie offers, starring in classics such as 1974 disaster flick The Towering Inferno, which also featured McQueen, and as the baddie opposite Christopher Reeve in Superman III in 1983.

In recent years, Vaughn returned to TV, and to the UK, first playing veteran conman Albert Stroller in BBC crime romp Hustle, from 2004 to 2012.

On the cobbles: Vaughn even made it to Coronation Street

He also had brief stint in 2012 playing Milton Fanshaw in Coronation Street.

In 2014 he was in London’s West End in the courtroom drama, Twelve Angry Men.

But he did not get a call from Guy Ritchie, who directed the new Man from U.N.C.L.E. movie.

Despite expressing a desire for a cameo role, Vaughn says: “I never heard a word.”

In later years in Connecticut with wife of 41 years, Linda. They adopted two children, Cassidy in 1976 and Caitlin in 1981.