Diane Kachmar
Actor David Hedison may be best-known for playing James Bond’s CIA buddy, Felix Leiter, in Live and Let Die (1973) and Licence to Kill (1989), as well as Captain Crane on the television series, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968). Long before those roles, Hedison appeared as a CIA agent of a different sort in the 1959-1960 20th Century Fox Television series, Five Fingers. His role was as Victor Sebastian, a double agent within the then active Communist Party. Through his adventures every week, he was able to thwart their many nefarious plots, all while romancing his lover and muse, chanteuse Simon Genet, in addition to keeping his cover intact as a bon vivant talent agent at Wembley and Sebastian of London, Paris, and New York. Quite a balancing act, yet Victor Sebastian was always able to pull it off. Five Fingers was one of three shows in 1959 that led 20th Century Fox Studios’ entry into series television. The other two shows were the successful Adventures in Paradise (1959) and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis (1959-1963). Some viewers believe that had Five Fingers not been programmed on Saturday nights against the Western, Gunsmoke (1955-1975)-the #1 show on television-Five Fingers might have enjoyed that same success. The sixteen episodes chronicled here were syndicated around the world through 1965 and in the United States until the late 1970s. Five Fingers was a truly class act of a series. Discover why the series has lasted for over fifty-five years in the hearts of the show’s fans.
