Actors Who Have Been Prisoners Of War
Actors from film and television who have been prisoners of war in real life.
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Ronald Adam was a man who combined an acting career with an extra-ordinary military career that encompassed being a victim of the Red Baron in World War One to taking his revenge as an RAF fighter controller in the Battle of Britain. Born Ronald George Hinings Adams on the last day of 1896, he was educated at University College, London. When still only 17 years of age, Adams volunteered to join the British army on the outbreak of the first world war. On December 2nd 1914, he was commissioned as a temporary second Lieutenant in the 15th (reserve) battalion of the Middlesex regiment. He then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) as an observer and then undertook pilot training. Adams then served with 18 squadron and flew Sopwith Camel's with 44 squadron on home defense duties. He then joined 73 squadron, also flying Sopwith Camel's in France. On April 7th 1918, he was shot down near Villers-Brettoneux in northern France. Historians still debate who shot down Adams, some argue his victor was Ltn Hans Kirchstein, but many others think that he was the 78th victim of the legendary Baron Manfred von Richthofen, known to history as "The Red Baron". Adams was wounded and captured and, on the evening of his aerial defeat, was visited by a German orderly who gave him Von Richthofen's compliments. Ronald Adams spent eight months in hospitals and prison camps before he was re-repatriated on 17th December 1918, the 15th anniversary of the Wright brothers first powered flight.
Post-war Adams trained as a chartered accountant and then moved into theatre management, running the Embassy Theatre in London. He then decided to become an actor proper, altering his name slightly to Ronald Adam. He also wrote books and several of his plays were staged. From 1936 he began to work in films. On the outbreak of the second world war Ronald Adam rejoined the Royal Air Force (RAF) and during the Battle of Britain which raged over England in the summer of 1940 he was the fighter controller for the Hornchurch sector. No matter how good the RAF's Spitfire and Hurricanes were, they could not be effective unless they could intercept the armada of incoming German planes. It was Wing Commander Ronald Adam's job to co-ordinate the RAF fighter command interceptions from data gathered by radar and ground observers and then dispatch fighters to intercept. It was a vital role in one of histories decisive battles in which the future of western civilization was at stake. Post war Ronald Adam lived in Surbiton, Surrey and died on 28th March 1979. He was 83 years of age.- Heinz Bennent was born on 18 July 1921 in Stolberg, Germany. He was an actor, known for Possession (1981), The Last Metro (1980) and Im Jahr der Schildkröte (1988). He was married to Paulette Renou. He died on 12 October 2011 in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland.
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Hans Christian Blech was born on 20 February 1915 in Darmstadt, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Longest Day (1962), Battle of the Bulge (1965) and Wer zu spät kommt - Das Politbüro erlebt die deutsche Revolution (1990). He was married to Erni Wilhelmi. He died on 5 March 1993 in Munich, Bavaria, Germany.- Actor
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Scottish-born Derek Bond was a leading man of post-war British films fondly remembered for his portrayal of the titular hero in Ealing Studios' The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby (1947), an adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel.
The actor was born in Glasgow on January 26, 1920, the son of a commercial traveler and a beautician. Educated at the Haberdashers' Askes School in Hampstead, he originally sought out a career as a reporter/journalist. When that didn't pan out he turned to acting, training with the Finchley Amateur Dramatic Society and making his professional theatre debut with "As Husbands Go" in 1937. A member of the Colchester Repertory Company (where he met his first wife), he played a number of both comedic and dramatic roles until his burgeoning career was interrupted by WWII. Commissioned with the Grenadier Guards' 3rd Brigade, he was awarded the Military Cross after seeing action and suffering serious wounds in North Africa. Captured at one point, he served as a POW in Italy, where he produced and appeared in a number of army shows.
Following the war he returned to his acting career and was picked up by Ealing Studios. Life certainly imitated art when he made his film debut as a British POW in the stirring war drama The Captive Heart (1946) starring Michael Redgrave, Redgrave's wife Rachel Kempson and a virtual "Who's Who" supporting cast of British names. The film was set in a German WWII POW camp. Stardom was officially clinched when Ealing entrusted Bond, in only his second film role, to play the Nickleby lead opposite the renowned Cedric Hardwicke as his cruel Uncle Ralph. Bond also had a choice role portraying the doomed South Pole explorer Capt. Oates in Scott of the Antarctic (1948) opposite John Mills. Throughout the late 1940s the staid, classically good-looking actor played lead and second lead roles alongside a number of established or up-and-coming leading lovelies of the British cinema, including Jean Kent and Googie Withers in The Loves of Joanna Godden (1947), Jean Simmons in The Inheritance (1947), Phyllis Calvert in Broken Journey (1948), Ursula Jeans in The Weaker Sex (1948), Susan Shaw in Marry Me (1949) and Rona Anderson in Poet's Pub (1949).
Bond continued primarily in the "B" film ranks in the 1950s with a steady dose of light comedy (Tony Draws a Horse (1950), The Caretaker's Daughter (1952), Trouble in Store (1953)) and crime drama (The Quiet Woman (1951), The Hour of 13 (1952), Rogue's Yarn (1957), Gideon of Scotland Yard (1958)). He also was utilized on TV in the next decade as a co-presenter of Picture Parade (1956) for more than two years before joining "Tonight," an early-evening current-affairs program. Among his other series work included episodes of William Tell (1958) and The Saint (1962) and a notable recurring role on Callan (1967) starring Edward Woodward. A bright presence on the West End light comedy stage, his theatre resume included "A Scent of Flowers" (with a budding Ian McKellen), "Your Obedient Servant", "The Secretary Bird", "Murder at the Vicarage", "No Sex Please, We're British" and "The Mousetrap". He also wrote a number of plays for both TV and radio.
Bond was elected president of the British Actors' Equity Association during the 1970s. An outspoken, conservative leader, he resigned in 1986 amid political controversy and pressure from left-wing opponents, which prompted his amusing memoir, "Steady Old Man! Don't You Know There's a War On?" in 1990. Married three times, he passed away at age 86 on October 15, 2006, and was survived by his third wife, a son from his first marriage and a daughter from his second.- Peter Butterworth's promising career in the British Navy Fleet Air Arm ended when the plane which he was flying was shot down by the Germans in WW II and he was placed in a POW camp. There he became close friends with Talbot Rothwell (later a writer on the "Carry On" series, on which Butterworth often worked) and the two began writing and performing sketches for camp shows to entertain the prisoners (and to cover up the noise of other prisoners digging escape tunnels). Never having performed in public he was petrified but gamely sang a duet with Talbot. This sparked his enthusiasm to enter show business after the war and Talbot helped and encouraged him and he soon became a familiar character actor in both films and television. He specialized in playing gentle, well-meaning but somewhat eccentric characters (which, by most accounts, is what he was in real life). He was married to impressionist Janet Brown, who he met while doing a Summer show at Scarborough and their son, Tyler Butterworth, also became an actor. Butterworth died suddenly in 1979, as he was waiting in the wings to go onstage in a pantomime show.
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Maurice Chevalier's first working job was as an acrobat, until a serious accident ended that career. He turned his talents to singing and acting, and made several short films in France. During World War I he enlisted in the French army. He was wounded in battle, captured and placed in a POW camp by the Germans. During his captivity he learned English from fellow prisoners. After the war he returned to the film business, and when "talkies" came into existence, Chevalier traveled to the US to break into Hollywood. In 1929 he was paired with operatic singer/actress Jeanette MacDonald to make The Love Parade (1929). Although Chevalier was attracted to the beautiful MacDonald and made several passes at her, she rejected him firmly, as she had designs on actor Gene Raymond, who she eventually married. He did not take rejection lightly, being a somewhat vain man who considered himself quite a catch, and derided MacDonald as a "prude". She, in turn, called him "the quickest derrière pincher in Hollywood". They made three more pictures together, the most successful being Love Me Tonight (1932). In the late 1930s he returned to Europe, making several films in France and England. World War II interrupted his career and he was dogged by accusations of collaboration with the Nazi authorities occupying France, but he was later vindicated. In the 1950s he returned to Hollywood, older and gray-headed. He made Gigi (1958), from which he took his signature songs, "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" and "I Remember it Well". He also received a special Oscar that year. In the 1960s he made a few more films, and in 1970 he sang the title song for Walt Disney's The Aristocats (1970). This marked his last contribution to the film industry.- Actor
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Walter Chiari was born on 8 March 1924 in Verona, Veneto, Italy. He was an actor and writer, known for Romance (1986), Vanità (1947) and The Little Hut (1957). He was married to Alida Chelli. He died on 20 December 1991 in Milan, Lombardy, Italy.- Rupert Davies was born on 22 May 1916 in Liverpool, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965), My Friend Charles (1956) and Waterloo (1970). He was married to Jessica I. Knowles. He died on 22 November 1976 in London, England, UK.
- The ever-impressive, chameleon-like British character actor Roy Dotrice was born on the Island of Guernsey, which is part of the United Kingdom, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France. He was the first-born child of Louis and Neva Dotrice who prospered as bakers. The Germans occupied the island in 1940 and he and his mother and brother escaped to England.
Advancing his real age, Roy joined the Royal Air Force at age 16 and was trained as a wireless operator and air gunner. In 1942 his plane was shot down and he was captured where he served out the remainder of WWII (over three years) as a prisoner of war in Germany. He was introduced to the idea of performing when he took part in various makeshift concerts in order to raise the spirits of his fellow captives.
Following WWII and his release, Roy decided to pursue his acting ambitions. After studying at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, he began appearing in English repertory where he met and married (1947) actress Kay Dotrice who at the time was performing under her given name of Katherine (Kay) Newman. Throughout the early post-war years, the couple performed together in repertory with Charles Denville and the Denville Players. At different times he was a member of the Liverpool, Manchester and Oldham repertory theatres. Also during this great time of productivity, Roy produced and directed some three hundred stage plays. He formed his own troupe, the Guernsey Theatre Company, in 1955. The highlight of his theatrical career, however, began in 1957 when Roy became a member of the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford, England, (later the Royal Shakespeare Company). For the next nine years he performed in a lengthy succession of the Bard's works, first in small parts as various players, officers and gentlemen. He subsequently went on to become a notable Iago, Falstaff and Julius Caesar, among others. A popular performer, he had an uncanny ability to play much older than he was. He later went on to perform with the American Shakespearean Festival.
The notoriety he received from his abundant classical theatre experience led directly to radio, film, television and Broadway offers. Roy has appeared in a number of Broadway productions over the years, receiving a Tony nomination for his work in "A Life" and finally winning the trophy for his heralded performance in the 2000 revival of "A Moon for the Misbegotten" starring Cherry Jones and Gabriel Byrne. Known for his considerable success in one-man shows such as Abraham Lincoln, Charles Dickens, Will Rogers and Winston Churchill, his superb one-person show "Brief Lives", drawn from the Elizabethan diaries of John Aubrey, played for over 1,700 performances over a period of nearly a decade. At one time this set a record for a solo performance and was listed in the "Guinness Book of World Records".
Dotrice made his credited feature movie debut supporting Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris in The Heroes of Telemark (1965), and has since lent class and distinction to a spattering of films. Among his list of credits include the bawdy comedy Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969); the sumptuous biopic Nicholas and Alexandra (1971); the Oscar-winning Amadeus (1984), Milos Forman's adaptation of composer Mozart's life in which Roy portrayed Mozart's stern and domineering father Leopold; and The Cutting Edge (1992) as an Olympic skating coach.
Perhaps better remembered on the small screen, he appeared magnanimously as a host of monarchs including his Edward IV in The Wars of the Roses (1965) and King George IV in the syndicated miniseries Shaka Zulu (1986). To American audiences he is probably best known as Jacob Wells, the Beast's surrogate father, in the dramatic series Beauty and the Beast (1987). Dotrice was also cast in the recurring role of Father Barrett, a Catholic priest and confidante of Judge Henry Bone (played by Ray Walston), on the acclaimed Emmy-winning drama Picket Fences (1992).
Since the end of the 1970s he has lived and worked primarily in America. More recently he appeared on stage reviving his outstanding 1993 role as George Bernard Shaw in "The Best of Friends" in 2006. Millennium work included the films Alien Hunter (2003), These Foolish Things (2006), Played (2006), Go Go Tales (2007). Enjoying a recurring role on the British TV series Life Begins (2004), Roy made his last TV appearances on two 2012 episodes of "Game of Thrones" as Hallyne.
Roy's devoted wife Kay died on August 2, 2007, after 60 years of marriage. The couple has three daughters (Michele Dotrice, Karen Dotrice and Yvette Dotrice), all whom at one time or another were actresses. Karen, who is now primarily out of the business, became the best known perhaps for her childhood Disney portrayals, notably in Mary Poppins (1964). Combined, his daughters have presented him with seven grandchildren. Roy died on October 16, 2017. - Actor
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Clive Dunn was born on 9 January 1920 in Brixton, London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Dad's Army (1968), The Avengers (1961) and Bootsie and Snudge (1960). He was married to Priscilla Morgan and Patricia Kenyon. He died on 6 November 2012 in Faro, Algarve, Portugal.- Actor
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Denholm entered RADA at the age of 17, but dropped out after a year having hated every minute being there. He joined the RAF in 1940, trained as a gunner/radio operator, and was shot down over Germany in 1942. In the POW camp he and his fellow prisoners staged various productions in a theatre constructed out of old packing cases. After the war he joined a London repertory company and his career took off particularly when Laurence Olivier chose him for the starring role in Venus Observed, for which he won a Clarence Derwent award. When another Olivier production Ring Around the Moon transferred to New York Denholm replaced Paul Schofield in what became a Broadway hit. Returning to Britain he was signed to a film contract and appeared in such movies as The Cruel Sea, The Sound Barrier, Alfie, King Rat, and others in addition to appearing on television and making countrywide theatre tours. In 1983 he won a BAFTA Award for his role as the butler in Trading Places and followed it with a Best Supporting Actor Award for his role in A Private Function. Prior to that he won an Evening Standard Best Actor award for Bad Timing.- Actor
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Born in 1911, young Heinz Engelmann first joined the Physical Education Institute before turning to drama studies. No wonder that he found many roles requiring sportsmanship in the fist years of his career. On the other hand, he was also often cast as a soldier or an officer. After a six year interruption due to the war, Heinz Engelmann resumed his activities on the big screen but soon became a TV regular. He is remembered particularly for his participation to several series such as Förster Horn (1966) (in the title role), Drei Frauen im Haus (1968), with Magda Schneider and Junger Herr auf altem Hof (1969). He also made more and more dubbing (he was the German voice of stars like John Wayne, Stewart Granger, Rock Hudson, William Holden, etc.), wrote the German text of American movies and series and supervised their post-synchronization. One of the last times Heinz Engelmann appeared in the flesh was in Barbet Schroeder's classic about drugs More (1969). He died in 1996, aged 85.- Arthur Scofield Franz was born in Perth Amboy, NJ, to Dorothy and Gustav Franz, German immigrants. He was a reliable character actor in many 1940s and 1950s "B" pictures, often cast as a friendly small-town businessman or professional (as in The Doctor and the Girl (1949)) or the lead's sympathetic friend (as in Invaders from Mars (1953)). He wasn't confined to just "B" pictures, however. He had good parts in such major productions as Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) and Alvarez Kelly (1966) and acquitted himself well. However, the film he's probably best remembered for is Edward Dmytryk's solid little "B" thriller The Sniper (1952), in which he turned in an outstanding performance as a mentally unstable ex-soldier in San Francisco who, after being rejected by a woman he was interested in, snaps and terrorizes the city by taking out his old army rifle and stalking and picking off women.
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Heinrich George was born on 9 October 1893 in Stettin, Pomerania, Germany [now Szczecin, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland]. He was an actor and producer, known for Metropolis (1927), Burning Hearts (1945) and Die Degenhardts (1944). He was married to Berta Drews. He died on 25 September 1946 in Soviet Special Camp No. 7, Oranienburg, Brandenburg, Germany.- Michael Goodliffe was born on 1 October 1914 in Bebington, Cheshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for A Night to Remember (1958), Peeping Tom (1960) and The One That Got Away (1957). He was married to Dorothy Margaret Tyndale. He died on 20 March 1976 in Wimbledon, London, England, UK.
- Tom Greenway was born on 5 June 1909 in Booneville, Arkansas, USA. He was an actor, known for Rawhide (1959), Big Timber (1950) and Have Gun - Will Travel (1957). He died on 8 February 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
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The massive brooding face and nose of British actor Percy Herbert is familiar to movie goers and TV audiences alike. A seemingly unlikely stage discovery by no one less than the great Dame Sybil Thorndike of British theater, Herbert moved into movie roles by the early 1950s. Initially fitting in as a featured cockney character, he nevertheless moved on to a wide variety of roles, especially as British and American soldier characters, some notable early ones being in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957) and The Guns of Navarone (1961). An interesting coincidence was that his character name was Grogan in both movies - though he was promoted from a private in the first movie to a sergeant in the second.
He always seemed at home, lending a believable accent and memorable presence to such as: the menacing baron who joins in the killing of Archbishop Thomas Becket, Richard Burton, in Becket (1964), the hapless Confederate soldier-with a broad southern accent of Mysterious Island (1961), the sensible Scots-American deputy Mac Gregor in TV's short-lived Cimarron Strip (1968) with Stuart Whitman. In the course of over 90 film appearances, Herbert fitted in and lent to genres from fantasy and horror to history and drama with a sort of sturdy and matter-of-fact competence which makes him a most memorable big and small screen presence.- Actor
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Ed Kemmer was born on 29 October 1920 in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA. He was an actor, known for The Spider (1958), Space Patrol (1950) and Giant from the Unknown (1958). He was married to Fran Sharon and Elaine Edwards. He died on 9 November 2004 in New York City, New York, USA.- Actor
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Wolfgang Kieling was born on 16 March 1924 in Berlin, Germany. He was an actor and assistant director, known for Torn Curtain (1966), Polizeirevier Davidswache (1964) and Jeder stirbt für sich allein (1970). He was married to Monika Gabriel, Gisela Uhlen, Jola Jobst and Johanna Kieling. He died on 7 October 1985 in Hamburg, West Germany.- Actor
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Klaus Kinski was born as Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig (now Sopot, Poland), to Susanne (Lutze), a nurse, and Bruno Nakszynski, a pharmacist. He grew up in Berlin, was drafted into the German army in 1944 and captured by British forces in Holland. After the war he began acting on the stage, quickly gaining a reputation for a ferocious talent and an equally ferocious temper. He started acting in films shortly afterward, showing an utter disregard for the quality of the productions he appeared in and churning out so many that a complete filmography is almost impossible to assemble.
However, he did turn out memorable work for director Werner Herzog, a similarly driven and obsessive character. Herzog and Kinski pushed each other to extremes over a 15-year working relationship, which finally ended after filming Cobra Verde (1987), a production plagued by volcanic clashes between the star and director, involving--among other things--violent physical altercations and mutual death threats. He subsequently directed and starred in the notorious Paganini (1989), his only film as director and which was marked by (again) clashes between Kinski and his producers, who accused him of turning their movie into a pornographic film and sued him in court. His autobiography, "All I Need is Love", a vicious attack on the film industry, was withdrawn for legal reasons and subsequently re-released as "Kinski Uncut" in the US & UK, "Ich brauche Liebe" in Germany, and in various other languages.- Actor
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Hardy Kruger was born Eberhard August Franz Ewald Krüger in Wedding, Berlin, thee son of Auguste (Meier) and Max Krüger. At thirteen years, he became a member of the "Hitler Jugend" (Hitler Youth), as did all 13-year-old boys in Germany then. The purpose of the organization was to prepare the boys for military service. At age 15, Hardy made his film debut in a German picture (Junge Adler (1944)), but his acting career was interrupted when he was drafted into the German army in 1944 at age 16 and posted to an infantry regiment.
Years later, Hardy related how he "hated that [Nazi] uniform." During the filming of A Bridge Too Far (1977) in which he portrayed a Nazi general, he wore a top-coat over his S.S. uniform between takes so as "not to remind myself of my childhood in Germany during W.W.II." It is said, that during his war years, Hardy was captured and taken prisoner by U.S. forces but attempted to escape thrice, the third time successfully.
After the war, Hardy returned to acting, and eight years later was "discovered" by foreign film distributor J. Arthur Rank who promptly cast him in three British pictures, practically filmed back-to-back: The One That Got Away (1957), Bachelor of Hearts (1958) and Chance Meeting (1959), in which he appeared simply as a foreigner and not a German, as was usually the case. Following the release of these films, Hardy's career took off. Despite anti-German sentiment that still prevailed in postwar Europe, Hardy, described as "ruggedly handsome" and a "blond heartthrob," became an international favorite, paving the way to his first American role as co-star with John Wayne in the Tanganyika-shot wildlife adventure Hatari! (1962).
Hardy was so taken aback by the beauty of the land, that he bought the film's location ("Momilla Farm") and built a small home for himself and a small bungalow hotel for tourists to see the animals. Hunting was forbidden on the property, and, later, a cattle farm was started with the meat being sold to local hotels. Hardy described his home there as "a sort of African Walden where I can get away from the world from time to time."
In 1979, due to the dissolution of the alliance of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania (formerly Tanganyika), the border with Kenya was closed and remained so for half a decade which caused a serious decline in tourism. The business aspects of his property were shut down for a period of time, but eventually things picked up and the place was transformed into a proper tourist hotel, known (fittingly) as Hatari Lodge.
Fluent in English, French and German, Hardy found himself in much demand by British, French, American and German producers and became more selective in his scripts. "I'd rather sit out a picture than take a role I don't think is right for me" he would later say. He died in January 2022, in Palm Springs, California, 11 years after his last film credit.- Sam was a very well known, un-sung, British Actor from 1946 to his death in 1982. He was originally born in Northern Ireland but came over to London England as a boy with his mother and her brothers, setting up home in Bayswater, then Shepherd's Bush, then Chiswick. He was sent to Dunstable school. Before the Second World war he worked at Alvis Cars and Whiteley's Department Store in the bedding department but also entered Talent Contests as a stand up and impressionist. He got a job with the Oscar Rabin Band at the Hammersmith Palais as part of his 'Hot Shots' introducing the band's numbers, and telling a few gags and tap dancing in a few numbers. In 1939 at the start of the war, he was called up as he'd been very briefly in the Territorial Army. According to his autobiography, "Quick Mum He's on Now" he made over 240 films, many of the titles as yet unloaded to IMDb. The autobiography, recently discovered by his son Jonathan (also on IMDb) in his mother's loft after her death, was never published during his lifetime, but is a witty informative follow up to his successful "For You the War is Over" written about his incarceration in a German prison camp from 1939 to 45 , and selling over 40,000 in paperback. He similarly made thousands of TV appearances once more uncredited. Jonathan intends to publish the book next year.
- Desmond Llewelyn was born in South Wales in 1914, the son of a coal mining engineer. In high school, he worked as a stagehand in the school's productions and then picked up sporadic small parts. His family would not give up their effort to prevent him from a life on stage, so an uncle who was a high-ranking police officer arranged for Llewelyn to take the department's physical exam.
"Thank God, I flunked the eye test, and they wouldn't take me. I suspect the inspector had a hangover because he also failed this other chap I knew, who went out the same day and passed the physical for the Royal Navy, which had a lot tougher test."
After failing the police exam, Llewelyn thought about becoming a minister, realizing after a week-long retreat of quiet and meditation that the ministry "was definitely not for me." Llewelyn persevered in his acting quest, and was accepted to the Royal Academy for the Dramatic Arts in the mid 1930s.
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939, halted his acting career, and Llewelyn was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the British army. He was assigned to the Royal Welsh Fusiliers and was sent to France in early 1940.
In a short time, his regiment was fighting the Germans, and Llewelyn's company was holding off a division of German tanks. Llewelyn explained that "eventually, the tanks broke through and many of us jumped into this canal and started swimming down it to the other side, figuring that our chaps were still over there. But the Germans were the only ones there," and Llewelyn was captured, and held as a prisoner of war for five years.
At one prison camp, the prisoners had dug a tunnel and were planning to escape the next morning. Llewelyn was down in the tunnel doing some maintenance work in preparation of the escape when the Germans found out about the tunnel and caught him down in it, a crime that earned Llewelyn 10 days in solitary, which Llewelyn called "a blessing of sorts. After spending every day of several years sleeping in a room with 50 other people, the quiet and privacy was rather nice."
After the war, Llewelyn returned to London and revived his career, eventually being cast as his trademark Q in From Russia with Love (1963). Since 1963, Llewelyn has appeared as Q in every Eon Productions Bond film, except Live and Let Die (1973).
Llewelyn was omitted from Live and Let Die (1973) because producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli felt that too much was being made of the gadgets and they would play it down. Llewelyn said he "was quite disappointed" at being left out of Live and Let Die (1973).
Fans, however, missed Q, and Llewelyn got a call shortly after the release of Live and Let Die (1973) telling him that he would be in the next Bond film, The Man with the Golden Gun (1974).
Llewelyn, who admits that his mechanical abilities in real life are virtually nil, is geared up for the next Bond movie. "I'd love to be in the next one," Llewelyn said. "Of course, if you consider my age, they should have put me out to grass a long time ago." - Günter Meisner was born on 18 April 1926 in Bremen, Germany. He was an actor and director, known for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971), The Boys from Brazil (1978) and In a Glass Cage (1986). He was married to Gisela Albrecht Meisner. He died on 5 December 1994 in Berlin, Germany.
- Hannes Messemer was born on 17 May 1924 in Dillingen an der Donau, Bavaria, Germany. He was an actor, known for The Great Escape (1963), General Della Rovere (1959) and The Devil Strikes at Night (1957). He was married to Monika Keusch, Susanne Korda, Rose Schäfer and Herta Jung. He died on 2 November 1991 in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.
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Alexander Moissi was born on 2 April 1879 in Trieste, Austria-Hungary. He was an actor and director, known for Die Königsloge (1929), Der junge Goethe (1919) and Figaros Hochzeit (1920). He was married to Johanna Terwin and Marie Urfus. He died on 23 March 1935 in Lugano, Switzerland.- Parfrey was born Sydney Woodrow Parfrey in New York City, New York, to Hazel (James) and Sidney Parfrey, both Welsh immigrants. One of the most interesting character actors to emerge on American film and television in the 1960s, Parfrey brought a quirky charisma to every role he played, from shopkeepers to space-age simians. His noted turn as the unbalanced informer in Broadway's "Advise and Consent" (1961) set the standard for his offbeat, conspiratorial persona in dozens of TV and movie appearances into the 1980s. Always a supporting player receiving inconsistently deferential billing, Parfrey did manage some focal TV guest-star roles, mainly in the late sixties, and a few big A-movie parts, most notably as one of the wretched prisoners in Papillon (1973). Parfrey's association with that film's director, Franklin Schaffner, also included his bit as one of the three "See No Evil" orangutan judges in Planet of the Apes (1968) (he would don the prosthetics again for the pilot of the spinoff TV series). In addition, Parfrey also turned up in the unofficial repertory companies of both Clint Eastwood and Don Siegel. His determination to bring that edgy "something extra" to his profession lives on in his son, the "underground" publisher Adam Parfrey.
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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.- Actor
- Director
- Soundtrack
Born on 26 May 1923 in Wuppertal, he served with the Nazi German Waffen-SS in World War II. After attending acting lessons at the theater in Stendal, where he also made his stage debut, he performed on several important stages in Germany, but became widely popular as cinema and television actor in the late 1950s and 1960s, probably best known as gentleman gangster in The Great British Train Robbery (1966). Nevertheless, the role of his role was the character of "Stephan Derrick", a Munich Chief Inspector, who became a cult figure all over the world. He played the role from 1974 to 1998 and received several awards such as the Golden Camera, Bambi and the Italian Telegatto.- Writer
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was born on 11 November 1922 in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA. He was a writer and actor, known for Back to School (1986), Slaughterhouse-Five (1972) and General Electric Theater (1953). He was married to Jill Krementz and Jane Marie Cox. He died on 11 April 2007 in New York City, New York, USA.- Klausjürgen Wussow was born on 30 April 1929 in Cammin, Pomerania, Germany [now Kamien Pomorski, Zachodniopomorskie, Poland]. He was an actor, known for The Black Forest Hospital (1985), Der grüne Bogenschütze (1961) and Sergeant Berry (1974). He was married to Sabine Scholz, Yvonne Wussow, Ida Krottendorf and Jolande Frantz. He died on 19 June 2007 in Rüdersdorf bei Berlin, Brandenburg, Germany.