Robert Francis Vaughn was born at Charity Hospital in New York on November 22, 1932. The son of show-business parents, his father, Walter, was a radio actor and his mother, Marcella, was a stage actress. Robert came to the public's attention first with his Oscar-nominated role in The Young Philadelphians (1959) in 1959. The next year he was one of the seven in the western classic The Magnificent Seven (1960).
Despite being in such popular films, he generally found work on television. He appeared over 200 times in guest roles in the late 1950s to early 1960s. It was in 1963 that he received his first major role in "The Lieutenant" (1963). Robert took the role with the intention of making the transition from being a guest-star actor to being a co-star on TV. It was due to his work in this show that producer Norman Felton offered him the role of Napoleon Solo in "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." (1964).
North High, Minneapolis. University of Minnesota (Journalism major), quit after a year. Moved to Los Angeles and enrolled in L.A. City College majoring in drama, then transferred to California State University at Los Angeles and completed his Masters degree. After that, and while he was acting throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s, he studied at the University of Southern California and completed a Ph.D. in Communications. His thesis on the blacklisting of Hollywood entertainers during the McCarthy anti-communist era was published in 1972 as "Only Victims".