How 'NCIS' said goodbye to David McCallum, longtime Atlantic Beach resident who was wed in Valley Stream
"NCIS" will pay tribute to David McCallum, who appeared in all 457 episodes of the drama, in Monday's episode airing at 9 p.m. on CBS. Credit: CBS / Sonja Flemming
"NCIS" said goodbye Monday night to David McCallum, who played medical examiner Donald “Ducky” Mallard. The long-running CBS military police procedural honored the Scottish-born actor — and longtime Atlantic Beach resident — who died in September at age 90, on the episode titled "The Stories We Leave Behind." The episode is now available to stream on Paramount+.
Brian Dietzen, who plays Dr. Jimmy Palmer, co-wrote the episode, in which Palmer came to Ducky’s house with coffee, but discovered that he had died in his sleep.
The episode inserted clips of McCallum as the team solved a case on which Ducky had worked: Helping the child of a late Marine seeking to posthumously clear her father’s name.
"We wanted to honor a life well-lived, 60 years in this business and 20 years on our show," Dietzen told USA Today. "This allows fans to grieve with us. We've all experienced this loss."
"The best way of honoring Ducky was to have him solve one last case with the team," Dietzen told the newspaper. "Even posthumously, he's the one that cracks the case."
McCallum had been a fan favorite on the show and had appeared in 457 episodes since "NCIS" premiered in 2003. Although McCallum resided in Santa Monica, California, when he was working on the series, he and his wife, Katherine Carpenter, also maintained a home in Atlantic Beach.
The couple, in fact, had strong ties to Long Island. Carpenter grew up in Cedarhust and was a prominent member of Long Island's social circle when she and McCallum, then starring in the immensely popular spy series "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," met in 1965 at a photo shoot for Glamour magazine. After dating for two years, they were married at Lutheran Church of Our Saviour in Valley Stream on Sept. 16, 1967. McCallum's "U.N.C.L.E." co-star, Robert Vaughn, was among the guests.
The Sept. 17, 1967, edition of Newsday featured photos of the new bride and groom exiting the church as a crowd of more than 2,000 fans lined the street.
