I had a crush on Ilyia! But I liked the other guy, too. I was 9 when it started.

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. was appointment TV when I was a kid. Napoleon Solo and Ilyia Kuryakin were so cool! My friends and I played "spy" at school during recess (when we weren't playing Batman that is)

Napoleon Solo is a bit sleazy, in the old James Bond manner, but there are lots of whiz bang things. Their crusty old boss was also fun. Girl From U.N.C.L.E. also had its moments.

Napoleon Solo! That was his name! How could I have forgotten that?

Most of my knowledge comes from hunting down the old comic books, Big Little Books (boy, I miss my Big Little Books, which would apparently be worth large money now), and various kid-oriented novelizations. Ilya always came off as wonderfully snarky.

And he was cute!

There was one episode of NCIS when the subject of what people were like when they were younger, and Ducky remarked in passing that "I looked just like Ilyia Kuriachin." I love the writers for that!

Actually, it's Gibbs who says that. Not quite totally self-referential.

And the pictures of Ilyia in Ducky's house on Mrs. Mallard's bedside table. I quite enjoy when they use an actor's history as part of the character's history. They do that in Castle, when his mom is occasionally looking at tapes of her old parts and Castle comes in and says something like, "Oh, revisting your prom?" when there was something from Incredible Hulk.

I also like it when the writers incorporate the actors' personal histories into the characters, or at least reference it in passing. One of my favorite examples was in NCIS S1, when a one-shot character's family money was explained as coming from his grandfather being the Swiss Army knife importer for the U.S. market. That's Michael Weatherley's father IRL.

Tony once made reference to dating Jessica Alba, but I don't remember the context.