Agents of SPECTRE
Actors who played members,associates and those on the payroll of the evil organisation. There may be SPOILERS
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Balding, quietly spoken, of slight build and possessed of piercing blue eyes -- often peering out from behind round, steel-rimmed glasses -- Donald Pleasence had the essential physical attributes which make a great screen villain. In the course of his lengthy career, he relished playing the obsessed, the paranoid and the purely evil. Even the Van Helsing-like psychiatrist Sam Loomis in the Halloween (1978) franchise seems only marginally more balanced than his prey. An actor of great intensity, Pleasence excelled on stage as Shakespearean villains. He was an unrelenting prosecutor in Jean Anouilh's "Poor Bitos" and made his theatrical reputation in the title role of the seedy, scheming tramp in Harold Pinter's "The Caretaker" (1960). On screen, he gave a perfectly plausible interpretation of the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, in The Eagle Has Landed (1976). He was a convincingly devious Thomas Cromwell in Henry VIII and His Six Wives (1972), disturbing in his portrayal of the crazed, bloodthirsty preacher Quint in Will Penny (1967); and as sexually depraved, alcohol-sodden 'Doc' Tydon in the brilliant Aussie outback drama Wake in Fright (1971). And, of course, he was Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967). These are some of the films, for which we may remember Pleasence, but there was a great deal more to this fabulous, multi-faceted actor.
Donald Henry Pleasence was born on October 5, 1919 in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, to Alice (Armitage) and Thomas Stanley Pleasence. His family worked on the railway. His grandfather had been a signal man and both his brother and father were station masters. When Donald failed to get a scholarship at RADA, he joined the family occupation working as a clerk at his father's station before becoming station master at Swinton, Yorkshire. While there, he wrote letters to theatre companies, eventually being accepted by one on the island of Jersey in Spring 1939 as an assistant stage manager. On the eve of World War II, he made his theatrical debut in "Wuthering Heights". In 1942, he played Curio in "Twelfth Night", but his career was then interrupted by military service in the RAF. He was shot down over France, incarcerated and tortured in a German POW camp. Once repatriated, Donald returned to the stage in Peter Brook's 1946 London production of "The Brothers Karamazov" with Alec Guinness although he missed the opening due to measles, followed by a stint on Broadway with Laurence Olivier's touring company in "Caesar and Cleopatra" and "Anthony and Cleopatra". Upon his return to England, he won critical plaudits for his performance in "Hobson's Choice". In 1952, Donald began his screen career, rather unobtrusively, in small parts. He was only really noticed once having found his métier as dastardly, sneaky Prince John in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955). It took several more years, until international recognition came his way: first, through the filmed adaptation of The Guest (1963), and, secondly, with his blind forger in The Great Escape (1963), a role he imbued with added conviction due to his own wartime experience.
Some of his best acting Donald reserved for the small screen. In 1962, the producer of The Twilight Zone (1959), Buck Houghton, brought Donald to the United States ("damn the expense"!) to guest star in the third-season episode "The Changing of the Guard". He was given a mere five days to immerse himself in the part of a gentle school teacher, Professor Ellis Fowler, who, on the eve of Christmas is forcibly retired after fifty-one years of teaching. Devastated, and believing himself a failure who has made no mark on the world, he is about to commit suicide when the school's bell summons him to his classroom. There, he is confronted by the spirits of deceased students who beg him to consider that his lessons have indeed had fundamental effects on their lives, even leading to acts of great heroism. Upon hearing this, Fowler is now content to graciously accept his retirement. Managing to avoid maudlin sentimentality, Donald's performance was intuitive and, arguably, one of the most poignant ever accomplished in a thirty-minute television episode. Once again, against type, he was equally delightful as the mild-mannered Reverend Septimus Harding in Anthony Trollope's The Barchester Chronicles (1982).
Whether eccentric, sinister or given to pathos, Donald Pleasence was always great value for money and his performances have rarely failed to engage.Blofled - You Only Live Twice- Actor
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Of Greek descent on both sides, the son of immigrants, Savalas was a soldier during World War II, although most of his enlistment records were destroyed in a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1973. He later studied psychology at Columbia University under the GI Bill.
Iconically bald, he often played character roles, sometimes as sadists or psychotics. He became famous in the 1970s when his role as Det. Theo Kojak in the TV movie The Marcus-Nelson Murders (1973) was expanded into the gritty Kojak (1973) TV series (1973-78).Blofled - On Her Majesty's Secret Service- Actor
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The son of a surveyor, Charles Gray was born and raised in Queen's Park, Bournemouth. As a young actor, he received his vocal training from the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon and at the Old Vic, having long abandoned his first job as clerk for a real estate agent. His voice was to become one of his most valuable tools. In fact, from January 1966, he subtly, almost imperceptibly, dubbed for Jack Hawkins after this actor became unable to speak his lines due to throat cancer. In later years, Gray's trademark voice was regularly heard on television commercials.
Gray's theatrical debut came in 1952 in the part of Charles the Wrestler (he measured 6 foot, 1 inches in height) in "As You Like It", appearing under his original name, 'Donald Gray'. From 1956, as 'Charles' Gray (since there already was a one-armed actor named Donald Gray), he took to leading dramatic roles, and won critical plaudits as Achilles in "Troilus and Cressida", Macduff in "Macbeth" and as the gluttonous Sir Epicure Mammon in Tyrone Guthrie's up-dated version of "The Alchemist", in 1962. He repeated his Old Vic performance as Henry Bolingbroke for his Broadway debut at the Winter Garden Theatre in 1956. A notable later performance, while touring the U.S. and Canada, was as the Prince of Wales in Peter Stone's tale of the famous 19th century actor Edmund Kean ("Kean", 1961). In 1964, Gray won the Clarence Derwent Award as Best Supporting Actor for his part in the controversial play "Poor Bitos", by Jean Anouilh, co-starring Donald Pleasence. He was offered his first role on the big screen, reprising a success on the West End stage in 1958, as Captain Cyril Mavors,in the satirical musical Expresso Bongo (1959).
For the next forty years, heavy-set, silver-haired, jut-jawed Charles Gray used his imposing frame and mellifluous voice to great effect in creating for the screen a memorable gallery of egocentric, imperious toffs, and suave, sardonic super-villains. While his performances at times verged on the camp, Gray cheerfully allowed himself to be cast within his range of basically unsympathetic characters, which he could play well and with ease. He tended to favour television as his preferred medium, though some of his most popular roles were for the big screen. Among his niche of staple characters were the coldly pompous military heavies (General Gabler in The Night of the Generals (1967), or the perpetually sneering, overbearing upper-class twits (true-to-form, as defecting spy Hillary Vance in the Thriller (1973) episode "Night is the Time for Killing"). At his evil best, he was commanding as the demonic acolyte Mocata, in The Devil Rides Out (1968) and as the feline-stroking, velvety-voiced nemesis of James Bond, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He was also suitably sinister as Bates the Butler, one of the red herrings of Agatha Christie's The Mirror Crack'd (1980).
Gray's recurring roles included Lord Seacroft (senior, as well as junior) in the short-lived satirical miniseries The Upper Crusts (1973) as a down-on-his-heels aristocrat, keeping up appearances after being forced to live in a high-rise housing estate; and as the sedentary brother of the famous sleuth at 221b Baker Street, Mycroft, in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976). Later, he was utilised as temporary replacement, first for Edward Hardwicke,and, subsequently, for the hospitalised star Jeremy Brett, in Granada Television's various instalments of the Sherlock Holmes saga (1985-1994). Gray died of cancer in March 2000, aged 71.Blofled - Diamonds Are Forever- Actor
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Max von Sydow was born Carl Adolf von Sydow on April 10, 1929 in Lund, Skåne, Sweden, to a middle-class family. He was the son of Baroness Maria Margareta (Rappe), a teacher, and Carl Wilhelm von Sydow, an ethnologist and folklore professor. His surname traces back to his partial German ancestry.
When he was in high school, he and a few fellow students, including Yvonne Lombard, started a theatre club which encouraged his interest in acting. After conscription, he began to study at the Royal Dramatic Theatre's acting school (1948-1951), together with Lars Ekborg, Margaretha Krook and Ingrid Thulin. His first role was as Nils the crofter in Alf Sjöberg's Only a Mother (1949). After graduation, he worked at the city theatres in Norrköping and Malmö.
His work in the movies by Ingmar Bergman (especially The Seventh Seal (1957), including the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death) made him well-known internationally, and he started to get offers from abroad. His career abroad began with him playing Jesus in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965); Hawaii (1966) and The Quiller Memorandum (1966). Since then, his career includes very different kind of characters, like Karl Oskar Nilsson in The Emigrants (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in The Exorcist (1973); Joubert the assassin in Three Days of the Condor (1975), Emperor Ming in Flash Gordon (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Never Say Never Again (1983); Liet-Kynes in Dune (1984) the artist Frederick in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986); Lassefar in Pelle the Conqueror (1987), for which he received his first Academy Award nomination; Dr. Peter Ingham in Awakenings (1990); Lamar Burgess in Minority Report (2002) and The Renter in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011), which earned him his second Academy Award nomination.
He became one of Sweden's most admired and professional actors, and is the only male Swedish actor to receive an Oscar nomination. He was nominated twice: for Pelle the Conqueror (1987) in 1988 and for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011) in 2012. He received the Guldbagge Award for Best Director in his directing debut, the drama film Ved vejen (1988). In 2016, he joined the sixth season of the HBO series Game of Thrones (2011) as the Three-eyed Raven, which earned him his Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Max von Sydow died on March 8, 2020, in Provence, France, and was survived by his wife Catherine Brelet and four children. He was 90.Blofled -Never Say Never Again- Actor
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Christoph Waltz is an Austrian-German actor. He is known for his work with American filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, receiving acclaim for portraying SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) and bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Django Unchained (2012). For each performance, he won an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Additionally, he received the Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival and a Screen Actors Guild Award for his portrayal of Landa.
Christoph Waltz was born in Vienna, Austria, into a theatrical family, his mother Elisabeth Urbancic, an Austrian-born costume designer, and Johannes Waltz, a German-born stage builder. He has three siblings. His maternal grandmother was Viennese Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was fellow Burgtheater actor Emmerich Reimers. His maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychologist and psychiatrist who wrote the 1949 book "Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness".
Waltz attended the Theresianium and Billrothstrasse in Vienna. Upon graduation, he attended the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar before going to New York to the Lee Strasberg Institute. While in New York, Christoph met his first wife, and moved back to Vienna, then to London.
During the 80s, Christoph worked primarily in theatre, commuting from his home in London to Germany. Slowly Waltz began to work in TV, taking one-off roles in series, and TV movies. Film roles soon followed. Attempts to break into English-speaking film and TV were, however, unsuccessful. Waltz has expressed his gratitude to have been able to make a living and support his family through acting. For thirty years he worked steadily, tirelessly, in this manner.
It was not until he met Quentin Tarantino that his career in Hollywood took off. The role of Colonel Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds (2009) catapulted Waltz from a lifetime working in German TV/film to the new life of an international superstar and Academy Award-winning actor. He won 27 awards for his performance as Hans Landa, including the Cannes prix d'interpretation Masculin for 2009, the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor, the BAFTA Best Supporting Actor award, and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (which he won again for 2012's Django Unchained (2012)).
He also has portrayed computer genius Qohen Leth in the film The Zero Theorem (2013), American plagiarist Walter Keane in the biographical film _Big Eyes (2014), and 007's nemesis and head of SPECTRE Ernst Stavro Blofeld in _Spectre (2015)_. In Quentin Tarantino's 2009 film Inglourious Basterds, Waltz portrayed SS-Standartenführer Hans Landa, aka "The Jew Hunter". Clever, courteous, and multilingual - but also self-serving, cunning, implacable, and murderous. Waltz played gangster Benjamin Chudnofsky in The Green Hornet (2011). That same year, he starred in Water for Elephants (2011), Roman Polanski's Carnage (2011), and a remake of The Three Musketeers (2011). He played German bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained (2012), a role Tarantino wrote specifically for Waltz.
Waltz resides in Berlin and Los Angeles. His wife is costume builder Judith Holste.Oberhauser/Blofled - SPECTRE- Born in Vienna. Studied at Max Reinhardt School. Early years as entertainer at Reiss Bar in Vienna. Often appeared at still-existing Raimund-Theater. Met wife, Liselotte, on stage in Brno (now Czech Republic). She escaped to London in 1938, he in 1939, where they married that year. Frequent appearances on German BBC during the war. Appeared often on British stage, including "Point of Departure" (with Dirk Bogarde, Mai Zetterling and Brenda de Banzie), "Settled out of Court" (with Nigel Patrick) and "The Threepenny Opera" (with Bill Owen, Georgia Brown, George A. Cooper, Lisa Lee), playing the part of Peachum. Frequent TV appearances, including episodes of The Saint (1962) and The Avengers (1961). Resumed German-speaking career in 1965, starring in "Das Feuerwerk" in Munich (from which the song "Oh My Papa" comes). Among other stage appearances in Germany: "Der Talisman" and "Der Entertainer". Was back in Vienna on the stage, appearing at the Theater an der Wien in musicals, including: "Das Apartment" ("Promises, Promises"), in which he played the doctor (a version of "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" was inserted for him to sing), "Billy" (a version of "Billy Liar"), and "Die Graefin von Naschmarkt", in which he starred alongside Marika Rökk. Tales from the Vienna Woods (1979) was his last film. It was directed by Maximilian Schell, and was included in the 1979 London Film Festival. He died durng final rehearsals for his second appearance at the Salzburg Festival, playing together with Schell as the Dicke Fetter (the fat cousin) in the traditional "Jederman" ("Everyman").Voice of Blofled - From Russia With Love & Thunderball
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Joseph Wiseman was born on May 15, 1918 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He came to Broadway in the 1930s, where he was critically hailed for performances in Shakespeare's "King Lear", Clifford Odets' "Golden Boy" and Anton Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya". Motion pictures in which Wiseman has been seen include Detective Story (1951), starring Kirk Douglas, Viva Zapata! (1952) with Marlon Brando, The Garment Jungle (1957), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968), The Valachi Papers (1972) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz (1974) which brought him back to his native Canada for a co-starring role with Richard Dreyfuss.Julias No - Dr, No- Actor
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Long-faced, emaciated-looking character actor with a thin mustache and an impeccable English accent, Anthony Dawson was typecast in a variety of villainous roles in the 1950s and 1960s.
He was born Anthony Douglas Gillon Dawson in Edinburgh, Scotland, to Ida Violet (Kittel) and Eric Francis Dawson. His father was Scottish and his mother was of German and English descent. Dawson made his greatest impact in the Alfred Hitchcock classic Dial M for Murder (1954). He was excellent as Lesgate, seedy ex-Cambridge classmate of would-be wife murderer Wendice (Ray Milland). In the scene where Wendice blackmails him to commit the killing ("There were times I felt you belonged to me"), he is nervous and visibly torn between fear and avarice. Dawson gave similarly sinister performances in the thriller Midnight Lace (1960), where he menaced hapless Doris Day, and the Terence Fisher-directed Hammer horror The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) as Count Siniestro. In a film by Terence Young, the James Bond classic Dr. No (1962), Dawson played the geologist Prof. R.J.Dent, a henchman of the title character who attempts to assassinate the hero, then finds out to his cost what Bond's "license to kill" really means.
Dawson was also the first screen incarnation of Bond villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld (in From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965)), though the viewer only sees his hands stroking a white cat and hears the voice of Austrian actor Eric Pohlmann. A highly capable, immediately recognizable actor, Dawson deserved better roles than came his way after the mid-1960s. He eventually ended up playing small parts in minor Italian films and European co-productions, but should not be confused with the Italian horror director Antonio Margheriti who sometimes used the pseudonym 'Anthomy M. Dawson'.
An interesting footnote to Dawson's career are his unpublished memoirs, "Rambling Recollections", in which he vividly recalls meeting Hitchcock after first arriving in Hollywood. This took place at a dinner party given by the director at Perino's Restaurant in Los Angeles. Also present were 'Dial M' co-stars Grace Kelly and English actor John Williams. Dawson later escorted Kelly to her residence at Chateau Marmont, an apartment bloc on Sunset Strip. Dawson then intimated that an affair took place, which, however lasted just until Ray Milland arrived on the scene.Professor Dent - Dr No- Actress
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Striking, dark-haired beauty Zena Moyra Marshall was born of French (from her mother's side) and English/Irish (her father's) ancestry in Nairobi, Kenya. After the early death of her father, her mother remarried and moved the family to Leicestershire. Zena received her education from St Mary's Roman Catholic School in Ascot. Her interest in the acting profession matured after a wartime theatrical tour with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA), while still in her teens. After completing her training at RADA, her exotic looks led to a contract with the Rank Organisation where she was groomed by the so-called 'charm school' as a sultry temptress and second lead in costume films, romantic melodramas and thrillers.
Marshall made her screen debut in the stagey, moribund epic Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) with a bit-part as a handmaiden. Interestingly this film was also a screen bow for future James Bond star Roger Moore, uncredited as a Roman soldier. Marshall's subsequent career was anything but meteoric. For several years she was given only minor supporting roles in productions by Rank affiliates, such as GFD/Two Cities and Gainsborough, including Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), Snowbound (1948) and So Long at the Fair (1950). A brief sojourn in Hollywood resulted in a lacklustre Allied Artists musical, Let's Be Happy (1957), in which she played an amorous redhead, rivalling star Vera-Ellen for the affections of crooner Tony Martin. During the 1950s she managed to rekindle her theatrical career and, by the end of the decade, went on tour through Germany and the Netherlands with "The Late Edwina Black". Marshall was one of the first actresses to be featured in a British television commercial (for shampoo) on early ITV. Television did, in the end, become her favoured medium; she had some of her better on-screen moments in three episodes of Danger Man (1960), opposite Patrick McGoohan, between 1961 and 1964.
Zena Marshall's main claim to fame rests on her portrayal of the Eurasian double agent, Miss Taro, in the first ever Bond film, Dr. No (1962). Her character was, incidentally, the first woman seduced by Bond, prior to his encounter with Ursula Andress in the part of Honey Ryder. Another noted beauty, the reigning Miss Jamaica, Marguerite LeWars, was originally slated to screen test for Miss Taro. However, LeWars declined for reasons of 'personal modesty' and is merely glimpsed in the film in a bit part as an unnamed photographer. Marshall herself was at first unhappy with the script, but Terence Young, who had previously worked with her on the poorly-received costume biopic The Bad Lord Byron (1949), lightened some of the dialogue with humour. In the end, the bedroom scene with Sean Connery took three days to shoot, because Marshall struggled with the idea of having to spit in her co-star's face, after Bond has her character turned over to the superintendent of police. Miss Taro remains one of the most iconic of Bond villainesses.
Marshall's last roles of note were as an Italian countess in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965), and as a secretary fighting alien enemies (alongside Charles Hawtrey, incongruously cast as an accountant) in the insipid sci-fi outing The Terrornauts (1967). After that, she retired from the screen and settled into domestic life with her third husband, the writer/producer Ivan Foxwell.Miss Taro - Dr, NO- Actor
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Robert Archibald Shaw was born on August 9, 1927, in Westhoughton, Lancashire, England, the eldest son of Doreen Nora (Avery), a nurse, and Thomas Archibald Shaw, a doctor. His paternal grandfather was Scottish, from Argyll. Shaw's mother, who was born in Piggs Peak, Swaziland, met his father while she was a nurse at a hospital in Truro, Cornwall. His father was an alcoholic and a manic depressive; he committed suicide when Robert was only 12. He had three sisters--Elisabeth, Joanna and Wendy--and one brother, Alexander.
As a boy, he attended school in Truro and was quite an athlete, competing in rugby, squash and track events but turned down an offer for a scholarship at 17 to go to London, with further education in Cambridge, as he did not want a career in medicine but, luckily for the rest of us, in acting. He was also inspired by one of the schoolmasters, Cyril Wilkes, who got him to read just about everything, including all of the classics. Wilkes would take three or four of the boys to London to see plays. The first play Robert would ever see was "Hamlet" in 1944 with Sir John Gielgud at the Haymarket. Robert went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts with a £1,000 inheritance from his grandmother. He went on from the Academy, after two years (1946-1948) to Stratford-on-Avon, where he was directed by Gielgud, who said to Shaw, "I do admire you and think you've got a lot of ability, and I'd like to help you, but you make me so nervous." He then went on to make his professional stage debut in 1949 and tour Australia in the same year with the Old Vic.
He had joined the Old Vic at the invitation of Tyrone Guthrie, who had directed him as the Duke of Suffolk in "Henry VIII" at Stratford. He played nothing but lesser Shakespearean roles, Cassio in "Othello" and Lysander in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and toured Europe and South Africa with the company. Shaw was sold on Shakespeare and thought that it would be his theatrical life at that stage. He was discovered while performing in "Much Ado About Nothing" in 1950 at Stratford by Sir Alec Guinness, who suggested he come to London to do Hamlet with him. He then went on to his first film role, a very small part in the classic The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) with Guinness but a start nonetheless. It was also at this time that he married his first wife, Jennifer Bourne, an actress he had met while working at the Old Vic, and married her in Sallsbury, South Rhodesia, on August 1, 1952. Together they would have four daughters: Deborah, Penny, Rachel and Katherine.
He would also appear briefly in The Dam Busters (1955) and did the London production of "Tiger at the Gates" in June 1955 as Topman. He would also make "Hill in Korea" around that time and then, after taking on several jobs as a struggling actor and to support his growing family, he would be cast as Dan Tempest in The Buccaneers (1956). Shaw did not take his role seriously but made £10,000 for eight months' work. It was around that time that he wrote his first novel, "The Hiding Place." It was a success, selling 12,000 copies in England and about the same in France and in the United States. He also wrote a dramatization of it that was produced on commercial television in England, and Playhouse 90 (1956) aired a different dramatization in America. Around 1959, he became involved with well-known actress Mary Ure, who was married to actor John Osborne at the time. He slipped her his telephone number one night at 3 a.m. while visiting the couple, and she called him the next day. It was around then, in 1960, that Robert Shaw became a reporter for England's Queen magazine and covered the Olympics in Rome. Shaw and Ure acted together in Middleton's The Changeling at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1961. He was playing the part of an ugly servant in love with the mistress of the house, who persuades him to murder her fiance. Shaw and Ure had a child on August 31 even though they were still married to their other spouses. His wife, Jennifer, and Ure had children of his only weeks apart from each other. Ure divorced Osborne and married Shaw in April 1963. The couple was often quoted by the press as being "very much in love," and they would have four children together: Colin, Elizabeth, Hannah and Ian. That same year, after making the next two films, The Valiant (1962) and The Guest (1963), he made From Russia with Love (1963) and was unforgettable as blond assassin, Donald 'Red' Grant.
He also made Tomorrow at Ten (1963), as well as a TV version of Hamlet as Claudius. He would then film The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1964) with Ure and then star in Battle of the Bulge (1965) as German Panzer commander Hessler. He wrote "The Flag" on the set of the film. He was nominated for his next role, as Henry VIII in A Man for All Seasons (1966), an outstanding, unequal lead performance. He would write his fourth novel "The Man in the Glass Booth," which was later made into a play with Donald Pleasence and later into a film with Maximilian Schell. In 1967, he again starred with his wife in Custer of the West (1967) and went on to The Birthday Party (1969) and Battle of Britain (1969). One of his best performances of this decade was also as Spanish conqueror Pizarro in The Royal Hunt of the Sun (1969). His last published novel, "A Card from Morocco," was also a big success and he went on to make Figures in a Landscape (1970) with Malcolm McDowell as two escaped convicts in a Latin American country. As the father of Churchill in Young Winston (1972), he was once again his brilliant self, stealing the scene from John Mills, Patrick Magee, Anthony Hopkins and Ian Holm. After his portrayal of Lord Randolph Churchill, he made A Reflection of Fear (1972), a horror movie with Ure, Sondra Locke and Sally Kellerman. As chauffeur Steven Ledbetter in The Hireling (1973), he falls in love with Sarah Miles, an aristocratic widow he helps recover from a nervous breakdown. The film took the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival and was quite a thought-provoking film.
It was his performances in the following two films--USA-produced The Sting (1973) and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)--that Shaw became familiar once again to American audiences, but it was his portrayal as a grizzled Irish shark hunter named Quint, in Jaws (1975), that everyone remembers--even to this day. Hard to believe that Shaw wasn't that impressed with the script and even confided to a friend, Hector Elizondo: "They want me to do a movie about this big fish. I don't know if I should do it or not." When Elizondo asked why Shaw had reservations, Shaw said he'd never heard of the director and didn't like the title, "JAWS." It's also incredible that as the biggest box office film at the time, which was the first to gross more than $100 million worldwide and that he had ever been part of, he didn't make a cent from it because of the taxes he had to pay from working in the United States, Canada and Ireland. It was also during that time that he became a depressed recluse following the death of his wife, who had taken an accidental overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. Some have speculated throughout the years that her death was suicidal, but there was no evidence of that, and so it is mere sensationalism. Following Diamonds (1975), he made End of the Game (1975) and then delivered another brilliant performance as the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin and Marian (1976). During the same year, he also made Swashbuckler (1976) with Geneviève Bujold and James Earl Jones, a very lighthearted pirate adventure.
His next film, Black Sunday (1977), with Shaw playing an Israeli counterterrorist agent trying to stop a terrorist organization called Black September, which is plotting an attack at the Super Bowl, was a big success both with critics and at the box office. I wasn't surprised, considering the depth to which he was also involved in writing the script, although he didn't receive billing for it. Shaw was very happy with the success of his acting career but remained a depressed recluse in his personal life until he finished Black Sunday (1977), when he found himself in love with his secretary of 15 years, Virginia Dewitt Jansen (Jay). They were wed on July 29, 1976, in Hamilton, Bermuda. He adopted her son, Charles, and the couple also had one son, Thomas. During his stay in Bermuda, Shaw began work on his next movie, The Deep (1977), which teamed him and writer Peter Benchley once again, which may have been a mistake in that everyone expected another Jaws (1975). At one point, discussing how bad the film was going, Shaw could be quoted as saying to Nick Nolte, "It's a treasure picture Nick; it's a treasure picture." It did well at the box office but not with critics, although they did hail Shaw as the saving grace. He had done it for the money, as he was to do with his next film, for he had decided when Ure died that life was short and he needed to provide for his 10 children.
In 1977, Shaw traveled to Yugoslavia, where he starred in Force 10 from Navarone (1978), a sequel to The Guns of Navarone (1961). He revived the lead role of British MI6 agent Mallory, originally played by Gregory Peck. He was a big box office draw, and some producers were willing to pay top wages for his work, but he felt restricted by the parts he was being offered. "I have it in mind to stop making these big-budget extravaganzas, to change my pattern of life. I wanted to prove, I think, that I could be an international movie star. Now that I've done it, I see the valuelessness of it." In early 1978, Shaw appeared in Avalanche Express (1979) which was to be his last film; in which he played General Marenkov, a senior Russian official who decides to defect to the West and reveals to a CIA agent, played by Lee Marvin, that the Russians are trying to develop biological weapons. An alcoholic most of his life, Shaw died--before the film was completed--of a heart attack at the age of 51 on August 28, 1978. In poor health due to alcoholism during most of the filming, he in fact completed over 90% of his scenes before the death of director Mark Robson two months earlier, in June 1978, brought production to a halt.
While living in Ireland and taking a hiatus from work, Shaw was driving from Castlebar to his home in Tourmakeady, Ireland, with wife, Virginia, and young son, Thomas, after spending the day playing golf with friends on a local course as well as shopping with Virginia in the town. As they approached their cottage, he felt chest pains which he claimed to Virginia had started earlier that day while he was playing golf but whose pains subsided. He pulled the car over a few hundred yards from his cottage and told her he would get out and walk the pains off. After taking four or five steps from the parked car, he collapsed by the side of the road, and his wife ran to the cottage to phone for help. An ambulance arrived 15 minutes later, and Shaw was taken to Mayo General Hospital in Castlebar, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.Red Grant - From Russia With Love- Actress
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Lotte Lenya was a Tony Award-winning and Academy award-nominated actress and singer. While best remembered in the U.S. for her supporting role as Rosa Klebb in the classic Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), she is celebrated in Germany for her ground-breaking performances in the plays of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht and her recordings of songs from those works.
She was born Karoline Wilhelmine Charlotte Blaumauer on October 18, 1898, in Vienna, Austria (at that time Austro-Hungarian Empire), into a working class family. Young Lenya was fond of dancing. In 1914 she moved to Zurich, Switzerland. There she began using her stage name, Lotte Lenya. In Swizerland she studied classical dance, singing and acting and made her stage debut at the Schauspielhaus. In 1921 she moved to Berlin and blended in the city's cosmopolitan cultural milieu. In 1924 she met composer Kurt Weill, and they married in 1926. She performed in several productions of 'The Threepenny Opera', which became an important step in her acting career.
In 1933, with the rise of Nazism in Germany, Lotte Lenya escaped from the country. At the same time, being stressed by the circumstances of life, she divorced from Kurt Weil, to be reunited with him two years later. In 1935 both emigrated to the United States and remarried in 1937. After Kurt Weill's death, she dedicated her efforts to keeping Weill's music played in numerous productions worldwide. In 1957 she won a Tony award for her role as Jenny, performed in English, in a Broadway production of 'The Threepenny Opera'.
Lotte Lenya shot to international fame with her portrayal of Contessa Magda Terbilli-Gozales, Vivien Leigh's friend in The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961). The role brought Lenya an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress. She gained additional fame after she appeared as Rosa Klebb, former head of operations for SMERSH/KGB, and now a sadistic Spectre agent with poisonous knife in her shoe, in From Russia with Love (1963). She died of cancer on November 27, 1981, in New York. She is entombed with Kurt Weill in a mausoleum, in Mount Repose Cemetery, in Haverstraw, New York, USA.Rosa Klebb - From Russia With Love- Walter Gotell was born on 15 March 1924 in Bonn, Germany. He was an actor, known for Moonraker (1979), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and A View to a Kill (1985). He was married to Celeste F. Mitchell and Yvonne Hills. He died on 5 May 1997 in London, England, UK.Mozeny - From Russia With Love
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Looking back at his filmography, it isn't difficult to imagine Vladek Sheybal in a scene, lobbing Molotov cocktails at advancing German troops, against a backdrop of war-torn Warsaw. However, this part of his life played out for real. A member of the Polish underground, he was twice captured and interned in concentration camps. Both times he escaped. After the war, he was undecided about whether to become a doctor or an actor. His father, a painter and professor of Fine Arts, put pressure on him to become an architect. Acting won out, of course, and Vladek spent six months at the prestigious Stanislavsky School of Acting and a further four years to complete his training at the Drama Director's School. By the time he shared a dressing room with Roman Polanski on stage at the National Theatre in Warsaw, he had become one of Poland's leading actors. He was first acclaimed on screen in Andrzej Wajda's story of the Polish Resistance during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, Kanal (1957). Ironically, by his own admission, Vladek had 'not a drop of Polish blood' in him, his ethnic background being a mixture of Armenian, Scottish and Austrian. He spoke fluent French, Italian and German before ever learning English.
Taking advantage of a scholarship to perfect his craft, Vladek went to England in the early 1960's and decided to stay. His limited command of English and a lack of connections forced him to take on a number of menial jobs. With his last ten pounds in his pocket, he went to Oxford to study English literature. As his English improved, he began to teach drama. Before long, his successful staging of a Russian play at the Oxford University Opera Club led to a job with the BBC as actor/director. Prompted by Sean Connery (whose then-girlfriend Diane Cilento Vladek had directed on stage), he reluctantly took the part of chess grandmaster and SPECTRE agent Kronsteen in From Russia with Love (1963), emerging as one of the most memorable of the early James Bond villains.
With his cultured voice, sharp nose and piercing, hypnotic eyes, Vladek's became one of the most recognizable faces on screen in the 60's and 70's. For the most part, he was typecast in sardonic, sinister or eccentric roles, tailor-made as Central European or Soviet spies, in both episodic television (eg The Saint (1962), Secret Agent (1964)) and motion pictures (eg S*P*Y*S (1974)). Perfecting his trademark screen personae was partly down to advice from actress Bette Davis, who, according to a 1992 interview in FAB magazine, instructed him to 'narrow his eyes, lower his voice to a whisper and make long pauses'. Affecting these mannerisms served him well, even when he was not playing the bad guy. On several occasions, he appeared in films by Ken Russell, notably as the decadent sculptor Loerke, in Women in Love (1969), and as the Cecil B. DeMille caricature De Thrill, in The Boy Friend (1971). He was also the arcane, enigmatic psychiatrist Dr. Doug Jackson, in Gerry Anderson's cult sci-fi series UFO (1970) (a part he secured after having previously played a similar character in the movie Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969) for the same production team). In 1977, he was presented by The Dracula Society with the Hamilton Deane Award for his performance as a creepy innkeeper in an episode of the short-lived anthology series Supernatural (1977). The prize was presented to him by none other than Christopher Lee.
During the latter stages of his career, Vladek revisited the stage, appearing in fringe venues in London in the title role of "Mahler" (1973), as Shylock in "Variations on The Merchant of Venice" (1977) and as Friedrich Nietzsche in "The Eagle and the Serpent" (1988). He also taught acting classes at the London Academy of TV and made several forays into French cinema as middle-aged men obsessed with younger women. A consummate perfectionist at his craft and one of the great European character actors, Vladek died unexpectedly in October 1992 at his home in London, aged 69.Kronsten - From Russia With Love- Actor
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Sicilian born actor/writer/director was very popular with European audiences, but largely unknown to the west apart from his portrayal of the villainous SPECTRE agent "Emilio Largo" in the spectacular James Bond film Thunderball (1965). However, due to his heavy accent, Celi's voice was dubbed by Robert Rietty. Two years later Celi popped up in the appalling James Bond spoof Operation Kid Brother (1967) starring Neil Connery brother of Sean Connery.
Additional to his many film appearances in Italian productions, Celi spent many years on stage in South America to very positive reviews, and directed three films made in South America, Caiçara (1950), Tico-Tico no fuba (1952)_ and L'Alibi (1969)_.
He passed away on February 19th 1986 from a heart attack.Emilo Largo - Thunderball- Actress
- Producer
Luciana Paluzzi's an Italian actress, best known for playing SPECTRE assassin ,Fiona Volpe, in the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball.
In the film, Thunderball she had auditioned for the part of the lead Bond girl, Dominetta "Domino" Petacchi, but producers cast Claudine Auger, changing the Domino character from an Italian to a Frenchwoman and renaming her Dominique Derval.
Paluzzi's first film was an uncredited walk-on part in Three Coins in the Fountain (1954).Fiona Volpe - Thunderball- Actor
- Soundtrack
Tough-looking New Zealander, with a long string of credits as an actor in Australian films and theatre. He was also prolific on radio as actor, announcer and compère. In August 1952, Doleman won a £300 prize for his performance in an Actor's Choice half-hourly play, entitled "The Coward". He used this as a travelling fund for a trip to Hollywood and was duly cast in a supporting role in the adventure film His Majesty O'Keefe (1954). That was followed by an uncredited bit in Alfred Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder (1954). More substantial roles, however, failed to materialise. Doleman consequently returned to Australia, where he found regular work on radio and on stage in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, between 1957 and 1960.
Doleman had his best spell in Britain in the 1960's: fondly remembered as SPECTRE operative Count Lippe in the James Bond movie Thunderball (1965), and as the hard-edged spook Colonel Ross in the Harry Palmer trilogy, beginning with The Ipcress File (1965). In a similar vein, he also made a worthy antagonist for Patrick McGoohan as the first 'Number 2' in The Prisoner (1967). Doleman eventually settled in Los Angeles, where he died of lung cancer in January 1996.Count Lippie - Thunderball- Beleaguered-looking French-British character actor, born André Gaston Maillol in Toulouse. Active in the United Kingdom (where he would take out citizenship by naturalisation in 1967) and billed as André Maranne from 1956, he provided a cultivated presence as stereotypical French gendarmes, customs officers, and waiters. His best-known role was that of Herbert Lom's bespectacled and hapless aide, Sergeant François Chevalier, in six Pink Panther movies. He also appeared in an episode of Fawlty Towers (1975) as a culinary aide to Basil. Maranne was genuinely myopic but disliked wearing his glasses on screen.
While TV appearances were undoubtedly his forte, on occasion Maranne graced the big screen. Aside from the Pink Panther films, notable appearances included a deft comic turn in Darling Lili (1970) (alongside the equally hilarious Jacques Marin) and as Admiral Pierre-Charles de Villeneuve, the ill-fated commander of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in The Nelson Affair (1973). For BBC radio, Maranne worked as presenter of Bonjour Francoise (1968), a French language course for beginners. He also acted in La Chasse au Trésor (1968), a BBC drama series for young children, designed to teach the basics of French. It was set in France and featured an all-French cast.
Maranne retired in 1991 to Brighton, England, where he died in 2021, aged 94.Spectre 10 - Thunderball - Actor
- Soundtrack
Philip Locke was born on 29 March 1928 in St. Marylebone, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Thunderball (1965), Doing Time (1979) and Oliver Twist (1982). He died on 19 April 2004 in Dedham, Essex, England, UK.Vargas -Thunderball- George Pravda was born on 19 June 1916 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Prague, Czech Republic]. He was an actor, known for Thunderball (1965), Firefox (1982) and The Man in the Mirror (1966). He was married to Hana Maria Pravda. He died on 30 April 1985 in London, England, UK.Kutze - Thunderball
- Teru Shimada was born on 17 November 1906 in Mito, Ibaraki, Japan. He was an actor, known for You Only Live Twice (1967), Tokyo Joe (1949) and Battle of the Coral Sea (1959). He died on 19 June 1988 in Encino, California, USA.Osato -You Only Live twice
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- Soundtrack
Born Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Karin Dor studied acting and ballet at school and began in films as an extra. The attractive redhead made an indelible impression on Austrian director Harald Reinl (who became her first husband in 1954) and this paved the way to higher profile roles. Her first significant featured appearance was in Reinl's melodrama Der schweigende Engel (1954). Karin subsequently shared top billing in a classroom drama about wayward matriculation students, Ihre große Prüfung (1954). During the initial segment of her career she played nice girls, mainly wide-eyed ingénues, innocent victims and assorted naive juveniles in war and period dramas (As Long as You Live (1955)), Heimatfilms (Almenrausch und Edelweiß (1957)) and operettas (The White Horse Inn (1960)).
By 1960, a more glamorous, lithe and sensual Karin had graduated to juicer roles as heroines in Edgar Wallace potboilers (beginning with Der grüne Bogenschütze (1961)) and a series of Karl May European westerns, invariably directed by Reinl and co-starring Tarzan actor Lex Barker (a combination which proved equally successful for other crime/sci-fi franchises, including The Invisible Dr. Mabuse (1962)). Many of these pictures enjoyed only limited release and were rarely exhibited outside Germany.
Karin succeeded at last to break her stereotyping by playing a pathological serial killer wielding a cutthroat razor in another Wallace/Reinl outing, Room 13 (1964), and - for a total change of pace -- essayed Brunhilde in a two-part filming of the epic 'Die Nibelungen' (also directed by Reinl). With her international appeal now widening, she appeared in The Face of Fu Manchu (1965), a British-West German co-production, as a scientist's daughter menaced by the titular villain. To follow was arguably her best-known international role as an early 'Bond girl', Helga Brandt (alias Number Eleven), a SPECTRE operative whose failure to eliminate J.B. results in her being dropped into a piranha-infested pool by super villain Blofeld (Donald Pleasence) in You Only Live Twice (1967). She was then engaged by Alfred Hitchcock for the part of Cuban resistance leader Juanita de Cordoba in Topaz (1969) in which her character came to a similarly sticky end. Karin's career never quite recovered from this director's rare box-office aberration. British Times reviewer and Hitchcock specialist John Russell Taylor described the picture as "generally flat, undistinguished, and lacking in any sign of positive interest or involvement on his (Hitchcock's) part". In the wake of Topaz, Karin's screen appearances became infrequent, except for a couple of guest spots on American crime shows, followed by an of unsuccessful feature film comeback attempt in the incongruous thriller Warhead (1977). She was latterly seen on German television in several episodes of Rosamunde Pilcher (1993). Karin's third husband was actor and stuntman George Robotham who predeceased her in 2007.Helga Brandt - You Only Live Twice- Ronald Rich is known for You Only Live Twice (1967), Doctor Who (1963) and The Benny Hill Show (1955).Hans - You Only Live Twice
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Burt Kwouk was a British actor, who was best known for his role as Cato in the Pink Panther films, and for playing Mr Ling in the third James Bond film, Goldfinger.
Kwouk was born in Warrington, but was brought up in Shanghai. He made his film debut in the 1957 film Windom's Way. In Goldfinger (1964) he played Mr. Ling, a Chinese expert in nuclear fission; in the non-Eon spoof Casino Royale (1967) he played a general and in You Only Live Twice (1967) Kwouk played the part of a Japanese operative of Blofeld.
He also made appearances in many television programmes, including a portrayal of Imperial Japanese Army Major Yamauchi in the British drama series Tenko and as Entwistle in Last of the Summer Wine.
Kwouk died on 24 May 2016, at the age of 85.Spectre 3 - You Only Live Twice- Actress
- Soundtrack
Ilse Steppat was born on 30 November 1917 in Barmen, Germany. She was an actress, known for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Marriage in the Shadows (1947) and The Blue Swords (1949). She was married to Max Nosseck. She died on 21 December 1969 in West Berlin, West Germany.Irma Bunt - On Her Majesty Secret Service- Yuri Borienko was born on 7 November 1932 in Russia. He was an actor, known for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) and Department S (1969). He died in 1999.Grunther - On Her Majesty Secret Service
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An instinct for acting showed very early for Bruce. In 1935, aged 3, he distracted his mother from the worries of Depression Era Chicago by recreating stuff they'd seen at the movies like FDR struggling to walk, putting his little body thru it, to try to understand by experiencing it. A knack for comedy showed when as part of a church pageant his #1 line, ''No room at the Inn", booming hugely out of a tiny body sent the whole congregation into laughter. He so enjoyed it he repeated it even louder to louder laughter then again and again continuing even as he was chased by the minister all over the altar to gales of laughter.
At age 6, he had his first job, earning 60 cents for 6 days of delivering groceries. From then on there was always a job after school, Saturdays and summers, such as on a Chicago Loop newsstand or in a glass factory ladling molten glass. At age 15, his desperate father asked him to quit school to help support the family. His mother saved him by herself taking a job. School was showing him two paths out of poverty: Art (selling paintings) and Football (the 1949 Chicago high school city champs) and a chance for a scholarship. He played for two college seasons and moonlighted on a semi-pro team. Then a new window opened -- posing at an Art Institute class with a naked lady who said, ''How would you like to- [pause] - be a Gorilla?'' She was a stripper and needed a guy strong enough to wear a 90 lb. ape suit and toss her around. A magician at the club tapped him jokingly with his magic wand, saying "Bruce, you are an actor".
Drafted into the U.S. Army for the Korean War, he served there for the last six months of that war, and came back with malaria, delaying his football. He tried out for a play (in 1955) never having had an acting class or read a book on it, but he was a natural, got the lead and great reviews, went to summer stock did a new play every week. He did a dozen years of theatre, on Broadway and off-Broadway. He visited Hollywood in 1965. In 1967, he made it his home.Mr Wint - Diamonds Are Forever- Actor
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A jazz bassist turned actor, Putter Smith got his breakthrough role as the henchman Mr. Kidd in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) after producer Harry Saltzman spot him at a Thelonious Monk concert. He and Bruce Glover as Mr. Wint give a lot of trouble to his victims and to James Bond as well. The role made him a recognizable face in the 1970s and after this big break, Smith appeared in the following films: Win, Place or Steal (1974), Love Thy Neighbor (1984) and In the Mood (1987). He still performs music whenever he gets the opportunity.Mr Kidd - Diamonds Are Forever- Actor
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Hollywood stalwart Bruce Cabot's main claim to fame, other than rescuing Fay Wray from King Kong (1933), is that he tested for the lead role of The Ringo Kid in John Ford's Western masterpiece Stagecoach (1939). John Wayne got the role and became the most durable star in Hollywood history, while Cabot (eventually) found himself a new drinking partner when the two co-starred in Angel and the Badman (1947). In the latter stages of his career, Cabot could rely on Wayne for a supporting part in one of the Duke's movies.
It wasn't always so. In the 1930s Cabot's star shone bright. He was born with the unlikely name Etienne Pelissier Jacques de Bujac in Carlsbad, New Mexico, the son of French Col. Etienne de Bujac and Julia Armandine Graves, who died shortly after giving birth to the future Bruce Cabot. After leaving the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, the future thespian hit the road, working a wide variety of jobs including sailor and insurance salesman, and doing a stint in a knacker's yard. In 1931 he wound up in Hollywood and appeared in several films in bit parts.
The young Monsieur de Bujac met David O. Selznick, then RKO's central producer (a job akin to Irving Thalberg's at MGM), at a Hollywood party, which led to an uncredited bit part as a dancer in Lady with a Past (1932) and a supporting role in The Roadhouse Murder (1932). On a parallel career track at the time, Marion Morrison (John Wayne) had failed to follow up on his audacious debut in Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail (1930) (the Duke had appeared in 18 movies previously but had only been billed in one, as "Duke Morrison" in the unlikely John Wayne vehicle Words and Music (1929)). Cabot and Wayne eventually appeared in 11 films together.
Although Cabot was prominently featured in the blockbuster "King Kong" in 1933, he never did make the step to stardom, though he enjoyed a thriving career as a supporting player. He was a heavy in the 1930s, playing a gangster boss in Let 'em Have It (1935) and the revenge-minded Native American brave Magua after Randolph Scott's scalp in The Last of the Mohicans (1936); over at MGM, he ably supported Spencer Tracy as the instigator of a lynch mob in Fritz Lang's indictment of domestic fascism, Fury (1936). A freelancer, he appeared in movies at many studios before leaving Hollywood for military service. Cabot worked for Army intelligence overseas during World War II; after the war, he continued to work steadily, with and without his friend and frequent co-star, the Duke.
Bruce Cabot died in 1972 of lung and throat cancer. He was 68 years old.Saxby - Diamonds Are Forever- Born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1927 (not 1929 as some references give) Joe Robinson came from a famous family of wrestlers. Both his father Joseph Robinson Senior and grandfather John were world champions. Following in their footsteps Joe Junior won the wrestling European Heavyweight Championship in 1952, beating Axel Cadier in London. At that time he was billed as Tiger Joe Robinson. He was also interested in acting and studied at R.A.D.A. After injuring his back wrestling in Paris, Joe decided to concentrate on acting, and after a few bit parts in films his first leading role came in the keep-fit documentary Fit as a fiddle (1952). He also played Harry "Muscles" Green in the musical Wish You Were Here (1952) on the West End stage. His most memorable film role was in A Kid For Two Farthings (1955) in which he wrestled Primo Carnera. Like most muscular actors he was invited to Rome in 1960 where he appeared in five Italian epics. At the same time, Joe and his younger brother Doug Robinson became popular stunt arrangers, particularly on the James Bond films. Joe and Doug, together with Honor Blackman co-authored the book "Honor Blackman's Book of Self-Defence" published by Andre Deutsch in 1965. Joe was also a judo champion and black belt at karate, and opened a martial arts centre in Brighton where he is now retired.Peter Franks - Diamonds Are Forever
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Klaus Maria Brandauer was a music student and studied drama at Stuttgarter Hochschule. He was a true stage actor and therefore didn't like to work in movies except for two small parts in The Salzburg Connection (1972) and Októberi vasárnap (1979). This changed when Hungarian director István Szabó gave him a leading part in Mephisto (1981). Brandauer received the actors award in Cannes and that opened door to international films. Together with the movies Colonel Redl (1985) and Hanussen (1988), all directed by István Szabó, these three movies formed the 'German trilogy' of Brandauer. He received a Golden Globe and Oscar nomination for his role of Bror Blixen in Out of Africa (1985). The first movie he directed himself was Georg Elser - Einer aus Deutschland (1989). He also played the leading role in this movie.Maxmillan Largo - Never Say Never Again- Actress
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Barbara Carrera was born Barbara Kingsbury on December 31, 1945 in Bluefields, Nicaragua. This stunning former model became best known for her screen performances playing a sinister femme fatale. In doing so, she has achieved minor cult status and has quite a loyal fanbase. The tall and tanned Carrera first cropped up in minor roles taking advantage of her exotic features in The Master Gunfighter (1975), Embryo (1976) and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977). She broke through with mainstream North American audiences playing Clay Basket in the miniseries Centennial (1978), and Lucia Flavius Silva's mistress in the miniseries Masada (1981).
She sizzled on screen with Armand Assante as the sexy yet evil doctor in I, the Jury (1982), was the love interest of Texas Ranger Chuck Norris in Lone Wolf McQuade (1983), and gave her best role to date as assassin Fatima Blush opposite Sean Connery in Never Say Never Again (1983), and then as Emma Forsayth in the miniseries Emma: Queen of the South Seas (1988). In 1985-86, she played the role of business executive turned serial killer Angelica Nero on the primetime soap opera Dallas (1978). Carrera has most recently been seen guest starring on the popular television series That '70s Show (1998) and Judging Amy (1999).Fatima Blush - Never Say Never Again- Actor
- Stunts
Proud and passionate Angle, Pat Roach, was born and raised in Birmingham, England and grew to be a mountain of a man standing at six feet, five inches tall, with doorway-wide shoulders and a barrel chest.
Pat wrestled competitively under the name of "Bomber" Roach, and at one time held both the British and European Heavyweight Wrestling Championships. While still in the wrestling game, Roach broke into acting with a bit part in the Stanley Kubrick film Barry Lyndon (1975). He quickly became popular as an enforcer or warrior figure and appeared on-screen with some of Hollywood's biggest names. Many people would remember him as the muscle-bound, bald German guard who hands out a beating to Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), before being cut down by a spinning plane propeller.
In other film roles, Roach nearly eliminates 007 Sean Connery in the Bond film Never Say Never Again (1983), in dual roles as a resurrected demon and as a fierce warrior, he fought Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Conan sequel Conan the Destroyer (1984), and was back as a ferocious Indian guard pummeling poor Harrison Ford once again in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), before falling into a rock crusher.
He also appeared in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Red Sonja (1985) and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991). Apart from his film activity, Pat ran a gymnasium in Birmingham, operated a used appliance business in the local markets and was known as a warm-hearted and genial man who was happy to chat with admiring fanatics, sign autographs and pose for photographs.
Roach was also very popular with English television audiences for his portrayal of gentle giant "Brian 'Bomber' Busbridge" in the series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983) and was scheduled to appear in the fifth series of the show, when he died of cancer on July 17, 2004. He was 67 years old.Lippi - Never Say Never Again- Actor
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- Writer
Mads Mikkelsen's great successes parallel those achieved by the Danish film industry since the mid-1990s. He was born in Østerbro, Copenhagen, to Bente Christiansen, a nurse, and Henning Mikkelsen, a banker.
Starting out as a low-life pusher/junkie in the 1996 success Pusher (1996), he slowly grew to become one of Denmark's biggest movie actors. The success in his home country includes Flickering Lights (2000), En kort en lang (2001) and the Emmy-winning police series Unit One (2000).
His success has taken him abroad where he has played alongside Gérard Depardieu in I Am Dina (2002) as well as in the Spanish comedy Torremolinos 73 (2003) and the American blockbuster King Arthur (2004).
He played the role of Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the critically acclaimed NBC series Hannibal (2013), from 2013 to 2015, with great success.Le Chiffre - Casino Royale- Actor
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Born 1948 in central Copenhagen. Lived there ever since. Did 25 years of theatre, - like Alceste in the Misanthropist, Richard in Richard lll (solo), Faust in Faust, Astrov in Vanja, a lot of worried men,- stopped doing it in 1998. Since then only worried men on film. Worked on more than 100 films by Per Fly, Marc Forster, John Madden, Lone Scherfig, Sydney Pollack, Jan Troell, Martin Campbell, Anette K Olesen, Pernille Fischer Christensen, and others. Since 2000 lives with Tove Bornhoeft, wonderful Danish theatre manager/director/actress. Two grown up daughters. No animals. Dogs, pigs, chickens, cats, birds, horses, fish, rabbits - all gone now.Mr White - Casino Royale, Quantam Of Solace, SPECTRE- Actor
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Simon Abkarian was born Simone Abkarian on March 5, 1962, in Gonesse, a northeastern suburb of Paris, France, into a French - Armenian family. Young Simon Abkarian grew up in a trilingual environment, he learned French at school in addition to his native Armenian, and also learned English by watching American films since he was a kid. He spent most of his childhood in France until the age of nine, then went with his parents to Beirut, Lebanon.
From 1971 to 1977 young Abkarian lived with his mother and father in Lebanon. He studied dancing with the Lori Dance Ensemble in Beirut. There he attended Armenian school and also studied French and English. In 1977, his father went to war in Lebanon, and 15-year-old Abkarian with his mother moved back to Paris. A few years later he moved to New York and continued his studies of dancing and acting at the Antranik company in New York, then moved to Los Angeles, California. In 1983-1985 he studied acting and joined the Armenian Theatre Company Artavadzt of the AGBU under the leadership of director Gerald Papazian. In 1984, he joined the workshop at renown Theatre du Soleil on tour in Los Angeles during the Olympics Art Festival. Abkarian took a month-long acting workshop from Mnouchkine's mask-maker, Georges Bigot, then was auditioned by Ariane Mnouchkine who invited him to join the company. In 1985 Abkarian returned to Paris, France. There he resumed a successful stage acting career, and had an eight-year-long collaboration with Ariane Mnouchkine, the legendary director of Théâtre du Soleil. There he played leading roles in Greek tragedies and became known for his charismatic performances. He also directed several stage plays in Paris, including Shakespeare's 'Love's Labour Lost' at the Bouffles du Nord, and Aeschylus's 'The Last Song of Troy' at Bobigny, among others. In 2001 Abkarian won the highest award in French theatre for an actor - the Prix Molière, for his performance in 'Une Bête Sur La Lune' (aka.. Beast on the Moon). Since 1993, Abkarian and his actress-director wife, Catherine Schaub-Abkarian, started their own theatre T.E.R.A. (Theatre Espace Recherche Acteur) in Paris. There he has been playing and directing classical and contemporary plays. In the season of 2005-2006, he was brought by The Actors' Gang to direct Shakespeare's 'Love's Labor's Lost' in Los Angeles.
Abkarian made his film debut in 1989, in a short film Ce qui me meut (1989) by director Cédric Klapisch. During his early film career, Abkarian enjoyed a fruitful collaboration with Cédric Klapisch in 6 French films, becoming noticed in the award winning When the Cat's Away (1996). He earned critical acclaim for his portrayal of painter Archil Gorky in Atom Egoyan's award winning epic Ararat (2002). Simon Abkarian won awards for his performance as Eliahou in Ve'Lakhta Lehe Isha (2004) by director Ronit Elkabetz. That same year Abkarian gave a stellar performance in his first leading role in English, co-starring as He, a passionate Lebanese doctor turned cook who is in love with an American woman (Joan Allen) in Yes (2004) directed by Sally Potter. He made a step forward in his film career with the supporting role as Alex Dimitros in Casino Royale (2006), playing in several powerful scenes opposite Daniel Craig.
Simon Abkarian has been generously involved in the humanitarian causes of the Armenian people across the world. He has been a frequent participant, host and presenter at numerous charitable events and ceremonies related to the Armenian causes. He was also a member of French President Jacques Chirac's delegation to Armenia in October of 2006.Alex Dimitros - Casino Royale- Ivana Milicevic (pronounced Ee-vah-nah Mee-lee-cheh-veech) was born on April 26, 1974, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (part of Yugoslavia at the time), into a Croat family. She is the daughter of Tonka and Damir Milicevic, and has a younger brother, Tomo. The family emigrated to the United States, and young Ivana was raised in Michigan. She attended Athens High school in Troy, Michigan, and worked as a model during her school years. She became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
In 1992, Milicevic graduated from high school and moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of an acting career. She was a struggling stand-up comedienne, trying to win over crowds with her stories of the modeling business. In 1996, she made her film debut under the name Ivana Marina with a one-line role as a former girlfriend of Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire (1996). In 1997, she followed up with a guest role on NBC's Seinfeld (1989) and made guest appearances on several other television shows, including Royal Pains (2009) and playing the love interest of John Casey on Chuck (2007). She played bit parts in Vanilla Sky (2001) and Love Actually (2003), among her many other cameo appearances. Milicevic capitalized on her experience as a comedienne in a supporting role as Russian model Roxana Milla Slasnikova in the romantic comedy Head Over Heels (2001). She appeared as a lookalike of Uma Thurman's character opposite Ben Affleck, trying to fool him into thinking she is Uma's character, in Paycheck (2003). In a departure from her one-dimensional roles, Milicevic showed her dramatic talent in a supporting role as Milla Yugorsky in a dark and gritty drama Running Scared (2006). In 2006, she started a recurring role on the CBS TV series Love Monkey (2006).
In 2006, Milicevic made a big step forward in her career appearing as Valenka, one of three Bond girls in Casino Royale (2006), for which she did most of her scenes on locations in Prague and in London. She resides in Los Angeles, California.Valenka - Casino Royale - An artist of international range and reputation, Richard Sammel is fluent, and has acted in, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. He has starred in some forty films and sixty television films, shot on locations ranging from Sweden to Italy, Portugal to Slovakia, England to the Balkans, but also Canada, South Africa, and the United States, for such directors as Quentin Tarantino, Luc Besson, Martin Campbell, Bertrand Tavernier, Claude Lelouche, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Roberto Begnini, Dario Argento, McG and Michel Hazanavicius. He has acted, danced and directed for the stage in theaters all over Europe, Russia and Canada.
The prolific actor has recently completed "A Day Like a Week", a supernatural thriller in which Sammel stars opposite Armand Assante for director Kader Ayd. Sammel returns for the seventh season of "The French Village", an enormously popular French TV series in which he has had a leading role since its beginning. Sammel also stars as 'Thomas Eichhorst' in the hit FX series "The Strain", for director Guillermo Del Toro and Carlton Cuse.
Sammel made his professional acting debut in 1981 on stage in Hildesheim, Germany. From 1983, he worked in France, as a musician, dancer and actor where his breakthrough came in 1987, with an acclaimed performance in Catch, by the Company Nelson Dumont. Beginning in 1989, he worked in Rome with theater director Giorgio Barberio Corsetti, and met Susan Strasberg, who assisted him in securing his film debut, the lead role in Il Piacere Delle Carni, for director Barbara Barni. In 1993, Sammel moved to Paris and landed the lead role in the musical film version of the Brecht-Eisler opera The Lindberghs Flight. An indelible performance in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds in 2009 brought Sammel international recognition. In 2012, he won "Best Actor" at the Syracuse International Film Festival for his performance in Ruggero Dipaola's Apartment in Athens.
His other film credits include Les Miserable du XX Siècle for director Claude Lelouche; Life is Beautiful for director Roberto Begnini; the original Taxi written by Luc Besson; Casino Royale for director Martin Campbell; Beauty and the Beast opposite Vincent Cassel and Léa Seydoux for director Christophe Gans; and most recently McG's Three Days to Kill opposite Kevin Costner.
Richard Sammel was born in Heidelberg, Germany. He studied music, especially the violin, and then went on to follow his true passion, which was acting. He studied both music and acting in Hildesheim, Germany; acting and directing in Aix en Provence; and acting with both Susan Strasberg and Francesca de Sapio in Rome. He is drawn to roles that require physical play, rhythm and timing, a reflection of his dance training; and those that require a deep emotional inner life, a reflection of his intense training in method acting. He lives in Paris and Berlin.Gettler - Casino Royale - Clemens Schick was born on 15 February 1972 in Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. He is an actor, known for DogMan (2023), Andor (2022) and Futuro Beach (2014).Kratt - Casino Royale
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Isaach De Bankolé, César Award-winning actor, was born on the Ivory Coast. He was discovered on the streets of Paris while studying to be an airline pilot. He has a degree in acting from Cours Simon and a Masters in Mathematics from the Universite de Paris. Most recently, he has appeared in the films Black Panther (2018) and Shaft (2019).Steven Obanno - Casino Royale- Actor
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Sebastien Foucan was born on 27 May 1974 in Paris, France. He is an actor, known for Casino Royale (2006), The Tournament (2009) and Twist (2021).Mollaka - Casino Royale- Actor
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Claudio Santamaria is born in Rome. His career begins on the big screen in 1998, but his big break arrives in 2001, when Gabriele Muccino casts him for "L'Ultimo Bacio". Throughout the years he appears in many movies and in 2005 he wins the Nastro D'Argento for Best Actor for "Romanzo Criminale" directed by Michele Placido. The Italian and international movies that highlighted his career include: "Il Cartaio" by Dario Argento, "Torneranno I Prati" by Ermanno Olmi, "Casino Royale" by Martin Campbell, "600 Kilos d'or pur" by Eric Besnard and "Pauline Dètective" directed by Marc Fitoussi. He voiced Christian Bale's Batman in Italian in "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", "The Dark Knight Rises" and Batman in "The Lego Movie", "LEGO Batman - The Movie", The LEGO Movie 2 - The Second Part" and in the Spotify Podcast "Batman - Un'autopsia". He is beloved from the tv audience for his performance in the biopic of the famous Italian singer "Rino Gaetano - Il Cielo è Sempre Più Blu" and being himself a great musician he performed all the songs in this series. In 2015 he appears as the protagonist, Orlando Mieli, in the TV series "È Arrivata la Felicità", a romantic comedy acclaimed by the Italian public since the pilot episode, this is why the second season was confirmed in 2017. The past few years he works in theatre, acting in "Occidente Solitario" by Martin McDonagh directed by Juan Diego Puerta Lopez and "Gospodin" by Philipp Lohle directed by Giorgio Barberio Corsetti. In 2017 he acts as Enzo Ceccotti in "Lo Chiamavano Jeeg Robot", directed by Gabriele Mainetti: It was thanks to this role that he wins the David Di Donatello as Best Actor. In the meantime he debuts as a director with the short movie "The Millionairs"; his cinematic journey proceeds throughout the next few years with "Brutti e Cattivi", first movie by Cosimo Gomez, "Rimetti a Noi i Nostri Debiti" by Antonio Morabito, "Tutto il Mio Folle Amore" directed by Oscar Wininng director Gabriele Salvatores presented in the 76th Venice International Film Festival. He continues his creative journey with the director Gabriele Muccino working on "Gli Anni Più Belli" released in 2020. In 2021 he is presented in the 78th Venice International Film Festival with the Film "Freaks Out" directed by Gabriele Mainetti where he acts as "BeastMan" affected by hypertrichosis with super-human strength. In 2022 he is Matteo, Postulator of the Vatican, in the Sky series "Christian" directed by Stefano Lodovichi and Antonio Nicastro, manager of the daily newspaper "L'Ora - Inchiostro contro Piombo" directed by Piero Messina, Ciro D'Emilio and Stefano Lorenzi. He also voiced the brave monster hunter Jacob Holland in Italian in the animated Netflix show "Il Mostro Dei Mari". In 2023 he acts as Franco in the drama "Educazione Fisica" directed by Stefano Cipani and presented as preview in the National Film Festival in Rome, he returns in the second season of the series "Christian" as Matteo, and is the voice of Super Mario in the animated movie "Super Mario Bros - The Movie".Carlos - Casino Royale- Actor
- Director
- Writer
Mathieu Amalric was born on 25 October 1965 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He is an actor and director, known for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) and Munich (2005).Dominc Greene - Quantam of Solace- Anatole Taubman was born in Zurich, Switzerland and is of Russian-Polish-Slovakian-Austrian-and-former-East-Prussian blood. In 1991 he made his baccalauréat at the renowned Gymnasium of the Benedictine boarding school of the monastery Einsiedeln and in 1994 he graduated from the reputable drama-school 'Circle in the Square' in NYC. He's fluent in five languages (English, French, Swiss-German, German and Italian) and is also truly cosmopolitan in his work. Taubman has starred and co-starred in over 50 feature films and TV productions. Since 1998, he has been busy working and with international success in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland and for the USA throughout Europe and beyond. Among other credits Anatole Taubman is best known for his impressive English-language TV work in Band of Brothers (HBO), Servants (BBC), POW (ITV), Spooks VI (BBC), Waking The Dead VII - Pièta (BBC) or The Tudors II (Showtime) and established himself as a fine character actor in feature films like Mein Name is Bach (CH/D), Luther (D), Marmorera (CH), Fay Grim (USA), Snipers Valley (D), Secret Défense (F), Taken / 96 Hours (F / USA) and in 2009 Pope Joan (D), Same Same But Different (D) or in Chanel & Stravinsky (F).
Anatole Taubman is a member of the German Film Academy and of the European Film Academy. Anatole Taubman is Spokesperson for UNICEF Switzerland.Elvis - Quantam Of Solace - Actor
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Neil Jackson was born on 5 March 1976 in Luton, Bedfordshire, England, UK. He is an actor and writer, known for Stargirl (2020), The King's Man (2021) and Absentia (2017).Slate - Quantam Of Solace- Actor
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Simon Kassianides was born on 7 August 1979 in London, England, UK. He is an actor and director, known for The Mandalorian (2019), Unforgettable (2017) and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (2013).Yusef Kaibira - Quantam Of Solace- Actor
- Soundtrack
Versatile character actor Paul Ritter was born Simon Paul Adams in Gravesend, Kent on 20 December 1966. Whilst not from a show business family, he had strong thespian connections as his mother was a class-mate of comic actor Bernard Cribbins and his father attended the same school as the great comedian and writer Eric Sykes; whom Paul would portray in the TV drama 'Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This.' In the last decade of the twentieth century and beginning of the 2000s he built up an enviable roster of stage roles, working with the National Theatre in 'The Royal Hunt of the Sun', 'All My Sons', 'Coram Boy', 'The Hot-House', 'The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- time' and more recently as John Major in 'The Audience'. For the Royal Shakespeare company he took part in a host of classical plays including 'Troilus and Cressida' and 'The White Devil' and in 2009, along with co-stars Amanda Root, Jessica Hynes and Stephen Mangan, he was nominated for a Tony award when the Old Vic's revival of 'The Norman Conquests' played on Broadway. In the second decade of the twenty-first century he became one of television's most welcome ubiquitous actors in such varied parts as a Scots vicar in 'Mapp and Lucia', a mother-dominated gay spy in 'The Game', in police dramas 'Vera' and 'No Offence' and as Pistol in the BBC's adaptation of 'Henry IV', for which performance the Telegraph newspaper described him as 'an actor destined for greatness soon'. However, he was arguably best known for playing eccentric, usually shirtless Martin Goodman hosting his 'bambinos' for their 'Friday Night Dinner' in the Channel 4 sitcom of that name. Paul, succumbing to a brain tumour, passed away peacefully at home surrounded by family on 5th April 2021 at the age of 54.Guy Haines - Quantam Of Solace- Stunts
- Actor
Taurus World Stunt Award Winner Glenn Foster is known for his work on Quantum of Solace, on which he played the double agent 'Mitchell' during the opening sequence. This sequence involved a chase across rooftops in Siena, Italy and a dramatic fight whilst hanging from ropes in the art gallery. The climax to this sequence was actually used to close out a 50 Year James Bond montage at the 2013 Oscar Ceremony. He is more recently known for work in which he Stunt Doubles for Robert Downey Jnr.Mitchell - Quantam Of Solace- Actor
- Producer
- Music Department
Javier Bardem belongs to a family of actors that have been working on films since the early days of Spanish cinema.
He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, to actress Pilar Bardem (María del Pilar Bardem Muñoz) and businessman José Carlos Encinas Doussinague. His maternal grandparents were actors Rafael Bardem and Matilde Muñoz Sampedro, and his uncle is screenwriter Juan Antonio Bardem. He got his start in the family business, at age six, when he appeared in his first feature, "El picaro" (1974) (A.K.A. The Scoundrel). During his teenage years, he acted in several TV series, played rugby for the Spanish National Team, and toured the country with an independent theatrical group. Javier's early film role as a sexy stud in the black comedy, Jamón, Jamón (1992) (aka Ham Ham) propelled him to instant popularity and threatened to typecast him as nothing more than a brawny sex symbol. Determined to avert a beefcake image, he refused similar subsequent roles and has gone on to win acclaim for his ability to appear almost unrecognizable from film to film. With over 25 movies and numerous awards under his belt, it is Javier's stirring, passionate performance as the persecuted Cuban writer, Reynaldo Arenas, in Before Night Falls (2000) that will long be remembered as his breakthrough role. He received five Best Actor awards and a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his portrayal.Silva - Skyfall- Actor
- Producer
Born Pär Ola Norell on 3 December, 1971 in Tyresö, Sweden, he is a Swedish actor, best known for his roles in European movies. He grew up in the suburbs of Stockholm, raised by his father, who divorced his mother when Rapace was one year old. He studied philosophy at University of Montpellier in France. His first role was the Swedish comedy-drama Together (2000). He then went on to get roles in Swedish television series, such as Tusenbröder (2002) and Wallander (2005). In 2012 he became widely recognizable by playing a minor villain in Skyfall (2012). He was married to Noomi Rapace from 2001 to 2011, they have a son, Lev. In 2019 he married Sonja Jawo. He and Jawo live in Paris, France.Patrice - Skyfall- Jens Hultén was born on 6 December 1963 in Stockholm. He is an actor, known for Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation (2015), Skyfall (2012) and Alpha (2018).Silva Merc - Skyfall
- Actor
- Producer
- Soundtrack
Andrew Scott is an Irish actor who started his career at a very young age. He made his first appearance on television in an advertisement for a brand of porridge at the age of 6.
He was born into an Irish family where his father, Jim, worked in a recruitment agency and his mother, Nora, taught art. He has an older sister, Sarah, and a younger sister, Hannah.
He received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in an Affiliated Theater for the play A Girl in a Car with a Man at Jerwood Theater Upstairs and the Irish Film and Television Award for Best Actor for the film Dead Bodies.
He is known for his portrayal of Paul McCartney in the 2010 BBC drama Lennon Naked and for his portrayal of villain Jim Moriarty in the modern adaptation Sherlock, also produced in 2010 by the BBC and for which he received the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor in 2012.
In November 2013, he revealed his homosexuality during an interview for the British daily The Independent, while indicating that he did not play it in the interpretation of his roles: "Fortunately, nowadays, people don't perceive homosexuality as a defect. But it's also not a quality, like kindness. Or a talent, like knowing how to play the banjo. It's simply a fact. Of course, that's part of what I'm sending back, but I don't want to play with it. I'm not advertising it; I think it's important when you're an actor. But there's a difference between privacy and secrecy, and I'm not a secretive person. All I really want to do is continue doing my job, which is pretending to be a bunch of different people. It's as simple as that. »
In 2014, he took on the role of a priest in Ken Loach's film: Jimmy's Hall.
In 2015, he appeared in the new James Bond: 007 Spectre, as Max Denbigh aka "C", a member of the British government whose goal is to shut down the Double-0 spy branch.
In 2017, he returned to the role of Hamlet in the theater, under the direction of Robert Icke, for nearly 150 performances. The piece lasts almost 4 hours. His performance was unanimously praised by critics.
In 2019, he played "the priest" in the second season of the multi-award winning British series: Fleabag. A role which will notably earn him a nomination for the Golden Globes in 2020, as best supporting role in a TV series. Fans of the series will nickname "the hot priest", this Catholic priest with whom Fleabag will fall in love. He will reprise the role of the priest in 2020, in a "special" episode of the Irish series Normal people.
The same year, he reunited with Sam Mendes, with whom he had already collaborated several times in the past, in the film 1917.
Then he participated in an episode of the successful British series: Black Mirror for episode 2 of season 5 entitled Smithereens.
In 2020, Andrew Scott landed the lead role in the series Tom Ripley, adapted from the novels by Patricia Highsmith. The same year, the actor read the poem Everything is Going to be All Right by Irish poet Derek Mahon, in a video posted on Instagram by actress Emilia Clarke. This reading is dedicated to Irish men with cancer.
Andrew Scott will be part of the jury for the 2021 GQ Grooming Awards, a ceremony created by GQ magazine and which celebrates men's cosmetic products.
Andrew Scott is filming in November 2020 alongside Ruth Wilson in the television adaptation for HBO of the play Oslo by J.T. Rogers. With Steven Spielberg as executive producer.
In March 2021, Andrew Scott will begin filming Lena Dunham's new film: Catherine, Called Birdy, the adaptation of the book of the same name, alongside Billie Piper.Max Denbeigh/C - SPECTRE- Actor
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David Michael Bautista, Jr. was born on January 18, 1969 in Washington, D.C., to Donna Raye (Mullins) and David Michael Bautista, a hairdresser. He has Filipino and Greek ancestry.
When WCW officials told him he'd never make it in sports entertainment, Bautista pushed himself to achieve his dream of being a Superstar. In May 2002, he made his debut on SmackDown using the ring name Batista, but it wasn't until a move to Raw and two victories over Kane that "The Animal" began to make noise in the WWE Universe. The wins impressed Ric Flair and Triple H, who were looking to align themselves with the industry's brightest new stars. After a lengthy search, they identified Randy Orton and Batista. Collectively the four Superstars became known as Evolution.
Batista earned his first championship alongside "The Nature Boy" when the duo captured the WWE Tag Team Championships in December 2003. As Evolution dominated WWE, Batista started to emerge from the shadows of Triple H and Ric Flair. By the time Batista won the 2005 Royal Rumble Match, World Heavyweight Champion Triple H viewed him as a serious threat to his title.
After a triceps injury at the hands of Mark Henry forced Batista to relinquish the title in January 2006, he vowed to return. Batista successfully regained the World Heavyweight Championship at Survivor Series in 2006. Four months into his second reign, Batista faced the Undertaker at WrestleMania 23. "The Animal" took Undertaker to the limit, but was unable to stop the streak of "The Deadman" at WrestleMania. Though disappointed, Batista stayed hungry and always managed to keep himself in the championship hunt for the rest of his career.
At Bragging Rights in 2009, Batista shocked the world when he blamed Rey Mysterio for a loss to Undertaker, then attacked his former tag team partner. "The Animal" then became locked in a tense rivalry with another former friend, John Cena, over the WWE Championship. The grueling match at Over the Limit led to a wheelchair-bound Batista declaring "I quit!" the following night on Raw before fading from the WWE Universe in May 2010. Following his departure from WWE, Bautista appeared opposite Vin Diesel in the Universal film Riddick (2013) and RZA's feature directorial debut The Man with the Iron Fists (2012), in which he played the villainous Brass Body and starred opposite Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu. His other film credits include The Scorpion King 3: Battle for Redemption (2012), where he played Argomael; the action film House of the Rising Sun (2011); and Wrong Side of Town (2010) opposite rapper Ja Rule.
Two years later, he joined MMA and won his first professional MMA fight. In January 2014, he made his long awaited return to the WWE, before quitting a second time in June of that same year. He did this in order to promote Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), which was released on August 1, 2014, and starred Chris Pratt, Benicio Del Toro, Zoe Saldana, and Djimon Hounsou, alongside Bautista.
He will shoot Kickboxer: Vengeance (2016), directed by John Stockwell, and co-starring martial artist Alain Moussi and UFC fighter Georges St-Pierre. The remake of the 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme film, Kickboxer (1989) is about two brothers David and Kurt Sloan; When David wins the Karate World Championship, a promoter lures him to Hong Kong, despite his brother's protestations that the man is a crook. When Kurt travels to Thailand to meet his brother, he discovers he has died and seeks his revenge.
After starring in films such as, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), Hotel Artemis (2018), Escape Plan 2: Hades (2018), and Final Score (2018), he made a special guest appearance on WWE Smackdown! (1999) for it's 1000 episode reuniting with his former Evolution members Triple H, Randy Orton, and Ric Flair on October 16, 2018. The following year on February 25, 2019, he made his return to WWE Raw (1993) when he attacked Ric Flair on his 70th birthday at the end of the episode sending a message to Triple H that would ultimately lead to a No Holds Barred match for WrestleMania 35 (2019). Batista added the stipulation that if he wins the match, Triple H will have to retire from in-ring competition. As a result, Triple H was finally able to beat Batista for the first time and won the match, which ultimately led to Batista announcing his official retirement from wrestling in the WWE. Following his retirement, he will continue with his career as an actor in Hollywood.
His next films scheduled for release will be; Stuber (2019), Avengers: Endgame (2019), Escape Plan: The Extractors (2019), and My Spy (2020). He is one of many professional wrestlers to make the smooth transition from wrestling into the entertainment world.Mr. Hinx - SPECTRE- Actress
- Art Department
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Brigitte Millar is an award-winning London based, bilingual European/English, actress. Her family ancestry goes back to the famous painter Emil Nolde and she has inherited his natural creativity. But Emil died in abject poverty and although his paintings now fetch seven-figure sums, Brigitte's artistic skills were heavily discouraged. And would have been lost forever but for the support and encouragement of her brother. Out of work having been made redundant from the dull and boring day job, Brigitte considered the possibility of a dancing career. But her brother steered her towards acting and a lifelong talent and passion was discovered. Shortly after finishing drama college, Brigitte was cast as 'Emmeline Vance' in 'Harry Potter' directed by David Yates and she has worked consistently on many high-quality projects since. In 2011 she won the award for Best Supporting Actress at the International Film Festival in Los Angeles for her role as 'Amelia Holland' in the multi-award-winning feature film 'David is Dying' directed by Stephen Lloyd Jackson. This film won 8 awards in the United States alone. The first British Independent feature film to do this. Brigitte has worked with a range of highly-respected experienced actors including Dakota Blue Richards in 'The Quiet Hour ' which was nominated for the award for Best UK Feature Film at the International Raindance Film Festival in 2014. She is an active member of the Actors Centre in London and has studied with many of the masters including the American acting coaches Jack Waltzer and Bernard Hiller. Having played the villain, Dr. Vogel in Spectre opposite Daniel Craig and Christoph Waltz, she will be reprising her role in No Time To Die. directed by Cari Fukunaga,. In 2019, she received an Award of Merit for Acting for her role as Claire Winters in the passion project Nox at the Film Festival in Atlanta/USA. In 2020, she was awarded Best Supporting Actress for the same role at the INDIE X Festival in L.A/USA. And now with her O1 visa in her hands, she is ready to take on any challenge. Her hobbies include Ballroom and Latin American dancing, Argentine Tango, horse-riding, reading, visiting art galleries and meditation.Dr. Vogel - SPECTRE- Actor
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Marc Zinga was born on 21 October 1984 in Likasi, Democratic Republic Of Congo. He is an actor and director, known for Spectre (2015), Mr. Nobody (2009) and The Mercy of the Jungle (2018).Moreau - SPECTRE