Definite List of Deceased Actors from James Bond Franchise
This is list of all main or significant cast members of James Bond movie franchise who have past away in order of death date.
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- Actor
- Producer
Born in Mexican revolution times, Pedro Armendáriz was the first child of Mexican Pedro Armendáriz García-Conde and American Adele Hastings. He was raised in Churubusco, then a suburb of Mexico City, before the family traveled to Laredo, Texas. They lived there until 1921, the year Armendáriz' parents died. His uncle Francisco took charge of his education, and young Pedro went to the Polytechnic Institute of San Luis Obispo, California. There, he studied business and journalism. He graduated in 1931 and returned to Mexico City where he found work as a railroad employee, insurance salesman and tourist guide. He was discovered by director Miguel Zacarías when Armendáriz was reciting Hamlet's monologue (to be or not to be) to an American tourist in a cafeteria.
After that, Armendáriz began a brilliant career in Mexico, the United States and Europe. Together with Dolores Del Río and Emilio Fernández, Armendáriz made many of the greatest films in the so-called Mexican Cinema Golden Era: Wild Flower (1943), Bugambilia (1945), Maria Candelaria (1944), among others. He was considered a prototype of masculinity and male beauty. His green eyes and almost perfect features made him perfectly cast in any role he made. But it was his passion, force and acting abilities, combined with his quality of a gentleman what made him an instant favorite of great directors like John Ford, international costars like María Félix, Sean Connery or Susan Hayward, and his fans in Mexico and other countries.Kerim Bey. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died June 18, 1963. Cause of death "suicide by gunshot".- John Kitzmiller was born on 4 December 1913 in Battle Creek, Michigan, USA. He was an actor, known for Dr. No (1962), Valley of Peace (1956) and Without Pity (1948). He was married to Dusia Bejic. He died on 23 February 1965 in Rome, Lazio, Italy.Quarrel. Appeared in Dr. No (1962). He died February 23, 1965. Cause of death "cirrhosis of the liver".
- 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. Appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). She died December 21, 1969. Cause of death "heart attack".- Actor
- Writer
John McLaren was born on 10 October 1911 in Keoma, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor and writer, known for Goldfinger (1964), The Avengers (1961) and The Wind of Change (1961). He was married to Hella Toros. He died on 10 May 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Brigadier. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died May 10, 1970. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Soundtrack
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.Albert R. Saxby. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died May 3, 1972. Cause of death "lung and throat cancer".- Bill Nagy was born on 21 February 1921 in Hungary. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Danger Man (1960) and The Long Shadow (1961). He was married to Janet Macfarlane. He died on 19 January 1973 in London, England, UK.Midnight. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died January 19, 1973. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Born in Chicago in 1917, David Bauer found more success as an actor in Europe than he did in his home country. He was one of those caught up in the anti-Communist hysteria that swept the US, and especially Hollywood, in the 1950s. Bauer left the US and settled in Great Britain. He found a niche in British television, playing a variety of crooked American businessmen, attorneys, etc. He appeared in such series as The Saint (1962) in The Element of Doubt (1962) and had a memorable turn in the Living in Harmony (1967) episode of the fondly remembered Patrick McGoohan series The Prisoner (1967). He appeared in The London Beat (1972)), an episode of the American cop series shot in England, playing an American mob boss.
Bauer, for some reason, didn't appear in all that many films during his time in England, his best known probably being The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1965) in which he played a judge and Patton (1970), as American Lt. Gen. Harry Buford. He had parts in two James Bond films, You Only Live Twice (1967) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He also worked on the British stage, both as an actor and director. He died in London in 1973, at age 55.Mr. Slumber. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died February 8, 1973. Cause of death "heart attack". - Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
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.Grant. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died August 28, 1978. Cause of death "heart attack".- Sydney Tafler was born on 31 July 1916 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Operation Diplomat (1953) and It Always Rains on Sunday (1947). He was married to Joy Shelton. He died on 8 November 1979 in London, England, UK.Liparus Captain. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He died November 8, 1979. Cause of death "cancer".
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Leonard Barr was a comic and eccentric dancer who was famous for truly being Dean Martin's uncle, as he was the brother of Dino's mother, Angela Crocetti (née Barra). They were Italians of mixed Neapolitan and Sicilian ancestry.
Born Leonard Barra on September 27, 1903 in West Virginia, he became a stand-up comic who delivered one-liners dead-pan, in the style of Henny Youngman. He first appeared on TV in 1950 as a comic dancer, thanks to his nephew Dino, when Martin was hosting the The Colgate Comedy Hour (1950), with his then-partner Jerry Lewis.
Barr didn't appear again, until 1964, when he next appeared as a comic dancer, this time on The Hollywood Palace (1964).
He continued to appear on TV, sporadically during the 1960s until his career as a TV comic and an actor took off starting in 1970. He appeared in the hit film, Diamonds Are Forever (1971), (which was Sean Connery's return to the role of Bond) as 'Shady Tree', and then appearing in the Oscar-winning film, The Sting (1973) - both times as a comic. He continued to work steadily in TV and in movies until his death on November 22, 1980, when he was 77 years old.Shady Tree. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died November 22, 1980. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Art Department
Hasan Ceylan was born on 24 February 1922 in Istanbul, Turkey. He was an actor, known for From Russia with Love (1963), Üç Ahbap Çavuslar (1975) and Three Giant Men (1973). He died in December 1980 in Istanbul, Turkey.Foreign Agent. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died December 1980. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Writer
Best remembered as 'M' in the James Bond films, Bernard Lee was a popular character player in British films throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Born into a theatrical family, he made his stage debut at age six and later attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He first appeared on the West End stage in London in 1928, and continued to work in the theatre during the 1930s, taking only occasional film roles.
It was only after World War II that he concentrated his efforts on the cinema, and was much in demand in British films of the 1950s as friendly authority figures, including army sergeants, police detectives or navy officers. Detectives became a particular specialty, and he played this role in more than a dozen films, including The Blue Lamp (1950), Beat the Devil (1953) and The Detective (1954). In the early 1960s, he also made regular appearances as police detectives in the The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre (1959) second feature series, usually as "Inspector Meredith". He also made memorable appearances in The Third Man (1949), Operation Disaster (1950), Glory at Sea (1952), Pursuit of the Graf Spee (1956), Dunkirk (1958) and Whistle Down the Wind (1961).
He was effectively cast against type in only two films, as the union agitator in The Angry Silence (1960), and as a disgruntled civil servant who becomes a spy for the Russians in Ring of Treason (1964).
In 1962, he made his first appearance as the head of the British secret service in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962). He went on to be featured in the next ten films in the series, appearing with Sean Connery, George Lazenby and, later, Roger Moore as Bond, and will probably be considered the definitive "M" by more than one generation of Bond fans.M. Appeared in Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Live and Let Die (1973), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979). He died January 16, 1981. Cause of death "stomach cancer".- Actress
- Soundtrack
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. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died November 27, 1981. Cause of death "cancer".- Actor
- Director
- Additional Crew
Curd Jürgens (commonly billed as "Curt Jurgens" in anglophone countries) was one of the most successful European film actors of the 20th Century. He was born Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens on December 13, 1915, in Solln, Bavaria, in Hohenzollern Imperial Germany, a subject of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Of Franco-German parentage, Jürgens -- who was born during the closing days of the second year of the First World War -- would abandon the country of his birth after the end of World War II: Jürgens became an Austrian citizen in 1945 and lived part-time in France.
Jürgens entered the journalism profession after receiving his education, and married Louise Basler, an actress. Basler, the first of his five wives, encouraged him to switch careers and become an actor. He learned his new profession on the Vienna stage, which retained his loyalty even after he became an global film star. Jürgens was sent to a concentration camp for "political unreliables" in 1944, due to his anti-Nazi opinions. It was this experience in Nazi Germany that led him to become an Austrian citizen after the war.
His appearance in The Devil's General (1955) ("The Devil's General" (1955)), established him as a star of German cinema, and his role as Brigitte Bardot's older lover in Roger Vadim's ...And God Created Woman (1956) (And God Created Woman (1956)) made him an international star. Always interested in multilingual European actors with good looks and talent, Hollywood beckoned the 6' 4" Jürgens, casting him in The Enemy Below (1957) as a WWII German U-boat commander in a duel with American destroyer commander Robert Mitchum. He constantly was in demand to play Germany military officers (e.g., The Longest Day (1962), the most expensive black-and-white film ever made) -- indeed, his last role was as "The General" in the miniseries Smiley's People (1982) -- and Germanic villains (e.g., "Cornelius", the cowardly and treacherous trading company representative, in Lord Jim (1965)) for the rest of his life. One of his most famous roles in the English-language cinema was as the James Bond villain, "Karl Stromberg", in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); it was Moore's favorite Bond film.
Jürgens considered himself primarily a stage actor and often performed on the Vienna stage. Though the world knew him as a cinema actor, he also directed several films and wrote several screenplays and an autobiography, "Sixty and Not Yet Wise" (1975). His death from a heart attack in 1982 in Vienna was front-page news across Austria and Germany.Stromberg. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He died June 18, 1982. Cause of death "heart attack".- Actor
- Stunts
Michael Brennan was born on 25 September 1912 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Thunderball (1965), The Onedin Line (1971) and Johnny Nobody (1961). He was married to Mary Hignett. He died on 29 June 1982 in Chichester, West Sussex, England, UK.Janni. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died June 29, 1982. Cause of death "undisclosed".- The most famous henchman of the entire James Bond series of spy thrillers, Harold Sakata will forever be remembered as the villainous "Odd Job" in the ultimate Bond film, Goldfinger (1964), with his lethal martial arts and steel-brimmed bowler hat. He was born Toshiyuki Sakata in Hawaii, of Japanese descent. From a young age he was a proficient sportsman who developed a keen interest in wrestling, and won a Silver Medal in weightlifting for the light heavyweight division of the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. Sakata then went on to become a professional wrestler, and appeared under the name "Tosh Togo" where he became a "bad guy" wrestler who allegedly threw salt in his opponent's eyes.
Although he had no acting background, Sakata came to the attention of Bond producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli when they were casting for the key role of the mute Asian villain "Odd Job". Sakata's steely gaze and powerful physique made him perfect for the role as Auric Goldfinger's (Gert Fröbe) deadly bodyguard, and the fight sequence between Sean Connery and Sakata in a glittering, gold-filled Fort Knox remains one of the highlights of the Bond series.
Unfortunately, Sakata never broke free of the "Odd Job" stereotype, and his remaining film appearances saw him cast as military figures, muscle-bound brutes or further mute bodyguards. He died from cancer in 1982, but had assured himself a very unique place in modern film history.Oddjob. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died July 29, 1982. Cause of death "liver cancer". - Paul Hardwick was born on 15 November 1918 in Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Romeo and Juliet (1968), Octopussy (1983) and A Man for All Seasons (1966). He died on 22 October 1983 in London, England, UK.Soviet Chairman. Appeared in Octopussy (1983). He died October 22, 1983. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- One of the most familiar Asian character actors in American films of the 1930s and 1940s, Richard Loo was most often stereotyped as the Japanese enemy flier, spy or interrogator during the Second World War. Chinese by ancestry and Hawaiian by birth, Loo spent his youth in Hawaii, then moved to California as a teenager. He attended the University of California and attempted a career in business. However, the stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent economic depression forced him to start over. He became involved with amateur, then professional, theater companies and in 1931 made his first film. Like most Asian actors in non-Asian countries, he played primarily small, stereotypical roles, though he rose quickly to familiarity, if not fame, in a number of fine films. His features led him to be a favorite movie villain, and the coming of World War II gave him greater prominence in roles as vicious Japanese soldiers in successful pictures such as The Purple Heart (1944) and God Is My Co-Pilot (1945). He had a rare heroic role as a weary Japanese-American soldier in the Korean War drama The Steel Helmet (1951), but spent far too much of his career in later years performing stock roles. His wife, Bessie Loo, was a well-known Hollywood agent.Hai Fat. Appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He died November 20, 1983. Cause of death "cerebral hemorrhage".
- Roland Culver was born on 21 August 1900 in Crouch End, Middlesex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Thunderball (1965), Dead of Night (1945) and To Each His Own (1946). He was married to Nan Hopkins and Daphne Rye. He died on 1 March 1984 in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, England, UK.Foreign Secretary. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died March 1, 1984. Cause of death "heart attack".
- Francis De Wolff was born on 7 January 1913 in Essex, England, UK. He was an actor, known for From Russia with Love (1963), Moby Dick (1956) and The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959). He was married to Linda Finch, Melissa Dundas and Jean Fairlie. He died on 18 April 1984 in Sussex, England, UK.Vavra. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died April 18, 1984. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Gabor Vernon was born on 23 March 1925. He was an actor, known for Octopussy (1983), The Tomorrow People (1973) and Quest of Eagles (1979). He died on 23 April 1985 in Islington, London, England, UK.Borchoi. Appeared in Octopussy (1983). He died April 23, 1985. Cause of death "undisclosed".- 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. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died April 30, 1985. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actor
- Writer
- Producer
Patrick Barr, born into a judicial family in British India in 1908, was active for more than half a century on the stage, screen and, later, very successfully on television.
Tall and distinguished, the son of a judge and (in retirement) theatrical manager, Barr was educated at Radley and Trinity College, Oxford, winning a "blue" in the 1929 University Boat Race.
Having first worked as an engineer, he made the move to acting at the comparatively late age of twenty-five. His West End stage debut, followed in 1936 in a production of "The Country Wife" at the Old Vic. The following year, he made his debut on the New York stage.
During the Second World War, he was a conscientious objector serving with a Free French ambulance unit in North Africa. For his bravery, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre.
On his return to the United Kingdom, he resumed his acting career in a revival of Noël Coward's "Private Lives" at the Apollo Theatre. For the next fifteen years, he appeared almost non-stop on the West End Stage, the longest-running being "Like a Dove", in which he played "Lord Dungavel" for over two years. By the mid 1950s, the popularity of television was growing dramatically and Barr became more widely-known as a result, twice becoming "Television Actor of the Year".
In 1970, he made a strong return to the stage, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company for the season at Stratford. He played the ghost in "Hamlet", "Alonso" in "The Tempest" and "Escalus" in "Measure for Measure".
His first film, The Merry Men of Sherwood (1932) was the first of numerous character parts and, while never attaining first billing as he had on the stage and television, his talents were always in demand.
Patrick Barr died aged 77 on August 29 1985.British Ambassador. Appeared in Octopussy (1983). He died August 29, 1985. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Director
- Writer
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.Largo. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died February 19, 1986. Cause of death "aortic aneurysm".- Toby Robins was born on 13 March 1931 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. She was an actress, known for For Your Eyes Only (1981), Space: 1999 (1975) and Princess Daisy (1983). She was married to Bill Freedman. She died on 21 March 1986 in Kensington, London, England, UK.Iona Havelock. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). She died March 21, 1986. Cause of death "breast cancer".
- Suzanne Jerome was born on 21 January 1960 in Surrey, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Octopussy (1983), Mixed Doubles (1985) and The Comic Strip Presents (1982). She died on 4 December 1986 in Cornwall, England, UK.Gwendoline. Appeared in Octopussy (1983). She died December 4, 1986. Cause of death "suicide".
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Although he liked to sign his autographs, perhaps jokingly, "Milton Gaylord Reid" his real name was Milton Rutherford Reid and he was born in Bombay on 29 April 1917. His father Edgar William Reid was a Scottish-born Customs and Excise inspector who had married an Indian lady. Milton moved to London in 1936, settling in Shepherd's Bush, and during his early career worked as a commercial traveller.
In 1939 he married fashion artist Bertha Lilian Guyett (a marriage that lasted over 40 years), before war service as a cavalry trooper with the 22nd Dragoons. It was during this period that he first appeared on film, in the army propaganda feature The Way Ahead (1944). After the war he trained as a wrestler, turning professional in 1952, firstly as a Tarzan-like character called Jungle Boy wearing leopard skin trunks. He also continued to play small parts in films, usually as a tough guy or bodyguard, often as a cruel henchman such as the Japanese executioner in The Camp on Blood Island (1958).
His breakthrough came in 1959 when he was required to shave his head for the role of Yen the pirate in Ferry to Hong Kong (1959). He remained shaven-headed for the rest of his career, also changing his wrestling image to that of The Mighty Chang, an oriental giant. On stage he played in pantomime at the London Palladium as the Slave of the Lamp, and in the Italian epics he usually played exotic roles or menacing villains in adventures like The Wonders of Aladdin (1961) (The Wonders of Aladdin) and Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators (1964) (Spartacus and the Ten Gladiators) in which he had a memorable fight to the death with Dan Vadis. However, most people remember Milton Reid as the bodyguard sorting out pretty girls for his boss in a long-running pipe tobacco commercial. In 1964 Milton challenged The Great Togo (a.k.a. Harold Sakata) to a wrestling contest to decide who would play the coveted role of Odd-Job in Goldfinger (1964). Unfortunately, Milton had already been killed off as a henchman in the first Bond movie Dr. No (1962), so the producers were forced to pick Sakata and the "eliminator contest" wasn't needed, although Milton did land the part of Sandor in a later Bond adventure, The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
Although he became a popular and familiar character actor in dozens of films and television shows, the work did not produce immense wealth and in 1965 Milton found himself in court for non-payment of a £52 car repair bill, incurred when he was in Rome shooting spy movie Desperate Mission (1965). The kindly judge, however, ordered the debt to be repaid at ten shillings (50 pence) per month, even inviting Milton to come back and see him again if he was in any difficulty!
Having retired from wresting and with film parts becoming fewer, Milton decided to try his luck in "Bollywood" and in 1980 returned to India. However, various problems arose and in 1981 he was arrested by Indian police for "trespassing, damaging furniture and disconnecting a telephone." The trouble started when he visited his mother and sister in Bangalore, and there was a dispute with tenants at his sister's bungalow. Police also complained of violence and abuse when they tried to detain him, and there were accusations of a manservant being assaulted.
The following year Milton was stated by some reference works to have died from a heart attack, but that was incorrect. The actor's son (same name) was still receiving correspondence sent by his father from Bangalore up to December 1986. Significantly, nothing was heard after that date, and the present assumption is that Milton Reid died in obscurity somewhere in India during the early part of 1987, although no death certificate or confirmation has been received by the family. Sadly, Bertha died in England in 1997, at the age of 90, still not knowing what had become of her husband. However, research continues.
Special thanks to Milton Reid (junior) for his kind help in the preparation of this biography.Sandor. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He died 1987. Cause of death "heart attack".- Stunts
- Actor
Joie Chitwood was born on 14 April 1912 in Denison, Texas, United States. He was an actor, known for Live and Let Die (1973), A Small Town in Texas (1976) and Phobia (1980). He died on 3 January 1988 in Tampa, Florida, USA.Charlie. Appeared in Live and Let Die (1973). He died January 3, 1988. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Stuart Saunders was born on 9 April 1909 in Croydon, Surrey, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Octopussy (1983), The Crawling Eye (1958) and The 2nd Best Secret Agent in the Whole Wide World (1965). He was married to Mary Cambridge. He died on 4 January 1988 in Camden, London, England, UK.Major Clive. Appeared in Octopussy (1983). He died January 4, 1988. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actor
- Writer
Gérard Buhr was born on 8 May 1928 in Strasbourg, Bas-Rhin, France. He was an actor and writer, known for A View to a Kill (1985), The Day of the Jackal (1973) and Love and Death (1975). He was married to Patricia Karim. He died on 8 January 1988 in Paris, France.Auctioneer. Appeared in A View to a Kill (1985). He died January 8, 1988. Cause of death "undisclosed".- 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.Mr. Osato. Appeared in You Only Live Twice (1967). He died June 19, 1988. Cause of death "undisclosed".
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- Writer
- Soundtrack
Tall, portly built German born actor (and talented violinist) who notched up over 100 film appearances, predominantly in German-language productions. He will forever be remembered by Western audiences as the bombastic megalomaniac "Auric Goldfinger" trying to kill Sean Connery and irradiate the vast US gold reserves within Fort Knox in the spectacular "James Bond" film Goldfinger (1964). However, due to Fröbe's thick German accent, his voice was actually dubbed by English actor, Michael Collins.
While commonly perceived as cold hearted & humourless from his Goldfinger (1964) portrayal, quite to the contrary, Fröbe was a jovial man and a wonderful comedic performer. His light hearted talents can be best viewed in The Ballad of Berlin (1948), Der Tag vor der Hochzeit (1952), Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), and Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965). Fröbe also portrayed dogged detective Kriminalkommissar Kras/Lohmann pursuing the evil Dr. Mabuse in The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse (1960), The Return of Dr. Mabuse (1961) and The Terror of Doctor Mabuse (1962).Auric Goldfinger. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died September 5, 1988. Cause of death "heart attack".- Margaret Lacey was born on 25 October 1911 in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, England, UK. She was an actress, known for Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Island of Terror (1966) and Far from the Madding Crowd (1967). She died on 4 October 1988 in Llandudno, Wales, UK.Mrs. Whistler. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died October 4, 1988. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actress
- Soundtrack
Brenda Arnau was born on 17 June 1941 in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. She was an actress, known for Live and Let Die (1973), Frost's Weekly (1973) and The Benny Hill Show (1969). She was married to Michael Bastow and Michael Arnaud. She died in November 1989 in London, England, UK.Singer. Appeared in Live and Let Die (1973). She died November 1989. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Additional Crew
Peter Burton was born on 4 April 1921 in Bromley, Kent, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Dr. No (1962), A Clockwork Orange (1971) and The Avengers (1961). He was married to Lillias Walker. He died on 27 November 1989 in Chelsea, London, England, UK.Major Boothroyd/RAF Officer in Car. Appeared in Dr. No (1962) and Thunderball (1965). He died November 27, 1989. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Director
- Producer
Leonard Sachs was born on 26 September 1909 in Roodeport, Transvaal, South Africa. He was an actor and director, known for Thunderball (1965), The Men of Sherwood Forest (1954) and John Wesley (1954). He was married to Eleanor Summerfield. He died on 15 June 1990 in Westminster, London, England, UK.Group Captain. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died June 15, 1990. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actress
- Writer
Jill Bennett was born on 24 December 1931 in Penang, Malaysia. She was an actress and writer, known for The Nanny (1965), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Moulin Rouge (1952). She was married to John Osborne and Willis Hall. She died on 4 October 1990 in Kensington, London, England, UK.Jacoba Brink. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). She died October 4, 1990. Cause of death "suicide by overdose".- William Foster-Davis was born on 8 May 1904. He was an actor, known for Dr. No (1962). He died on 5 January 1991.Superintendent Duff, Appeared in Dr. No (1962). He died January 5, 1991. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Cassandra Harris was born on 15 December 1942 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. She was an actress, known for For Your Eyes Only (1981), Remington Steele (1982) and Rough Cut (1980). She was married to Pierce Brosnan, Dermot Harris and William Firth. She died on 28 December 1991 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Lisl. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). She died December 28, 1991. Cause of death "ovarian cancer".
- Distinctive character actor, born in Calcutta and educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge. His acting career was interrupted by wartime service (for six years) in the British Army. He then joined the Old Vic Company and subsequently appeared on screen. With his hooked nose and furtive eyes, he made the perfect sinister villain, playing an assortment of Arabic or Central Asian diamond smugglers, drug dealers or black market racketeers. Occasionally, he was on the right side of the law, notably as commissioner Govindaswami in Bhowani Junction (1956), or as a cardinal in The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968). Early on in his career, Maitland worked for Hammer Studios where he had memorable roles as Patel Shari, a member of the murderous Kali sect in The Stranglers of Bombay (1959), and as an evil Malay servant, dedicated to worshipping The Reptile (1966).
Marne was also very active on British television (The Saint (1962), Department S (1969), and others) in very much the same capacity. He stood out as the mysterious dissident Pandit Baba in the excellent award-winning miniseries The Jewel in the Crown (1984). From the early 1970's until his death, he lived in Rome.Lazar. Appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He died 1992. Cause of death "undisclosed". - Actor
- Writer
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/Ernst Blofeld. Appeared in Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965). He died January 8, 1992. Cause of death "cancer".- Gerry Duggan was born on 19 July 1910 in Dublin, Ireland. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Four Desperate Men (1959) and McCloud (1970). He died on 27 March 1992 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.Hawker. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died March 27, 1992. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Cec Linder was born on 10 March 1921 in Radziechów, Poland. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Lolita (1962) and Quatermass and the Pit (1958). He was married to Joan Patricia Nuttall. He died on 10 April 1992 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.Felix Leiter. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died April 10, 1992. Cause of death "heart attack".
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- Soundtrack
The British character actor Laurence Naismith was a Merchant Marine seaman before becoming an actor. He made his London stage debut in 1927 in the chorus of the musical "Oh, Boy." Three years later, he joined the Bristol Repertory and remained with them until the outbreak of World War II. After serving nine years in the Royal Artillery (with the final rank of Acting Battery Commander), Naismith returned to the stage and also made his film debut. His seafaring background came in handy in a number of film roles, including the steamboat captain in Mogambo (1953), Dr. Hawkins in Boy on a Dolphin (1957), the captain of the Titanic in A Night to Remember (1958), and the First Sea Lord in Sink the Bismarck! (1960). Naismith also made numerous television appearances, including the recurring roles of Judge Fulton on The Persuaders! (1971) and Father Harris on Oh, Father! (1973).Sir Donald Munger. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died June 5, 1992. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Director
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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.Kronsteen. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died October 16, 1992. Cause of death "ruptured aortic aneurysm".- Best remembered in Britain for the television series Arthur of the Britons (1972), Ken Russell's The Devils (1971) and as the villain in For Your Eyes Only (1981). His break into films came with Don Levy's Herostratus (1967). His career was intermittently successful, interspersing notable performances with spells of unemployment. Michael was unmarried, living in Hampstead, London, and under treatment for depression at the time of his suicide in 1992.Locque. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). He died December 2, 1992. Cause of death "suicide by hanging".
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- Writer
Milo Sperber was born on 20 March 1911 in Poland. He was an actor and writer, known for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Operation Crossbow (1965) and The Woman in White (1982). He died on 22 December 1992 in Camden, London, England, UK.Markovitz. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He died December 22, 1992. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Writer
Willoughby Gray was born on 5 November 1916 in London, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for The Princess Bride (1987), A View to a Kill (1985) and Madame Bovary (1964). He was married to Felicity Gray. He died on 13 February 1993 in Salisbury, Wiltshire, England, UK.Dr. Carl Mortner. Appeared in A View to a Kill (1985). He died February 13, 1993. Cause of death "cancer".- Actor
- Camera and Electrical Department
Hervé Villechaize was born in Montauban, France on April 23, 1943. He stopped growing very early and his father (who was a surgeon) tried to find a cure by visiting several doctors and hospitals. But there was none, so Hervé had to live with his small height and also with undersized lungs. He studied at the Beaux-Arts in Paris and made an exhibition of his own paintings, which were well received. At 21, he left France for the USA where he continued to paint and to make photographs. He also started to participate in some movies and was quickly offered several roles for plays and then for cinema. His first big success was The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) where he was a killer associated to the villain Scaramanga (played by Christopher Lee). He inspired the TV-series Fantasy Island (1977) where he took the role of "Tattoo", the faithful servant of "Mr. Roarke" (Ricardo Montalban). This series was a great success and, thanks to it, Villechaize became famous and rich, mostly because of his enigmatic and charming smile.
In 1983, he argued with the producers of the show in order to earn as much money as Montalban but, instead, he was fired; he also lost his model-actress wife. The series continued without him but stopped one year later, when the media response meter decreased because of the lack of Tattoo's character!
Villechaize became alcoholic and depressed, so he missed several roles that he was offered. His health problems also increased (mostly suffering from ulcers and a spastic colon), and he nearly died of pneumonia in 1992. On the afternoon of Saturday September 4th, 1993, after having watched a movie, he wrote a note and made a tape recording before shooting himself in his backyard. His common-law wife, Kathy Self, discovered his body and called the ambulance which took him to the Medical Center of North Hollywood where he died at 3:40 pm. Villechaize was cremated and his ashes were scattered off Point Fermin, in Los Angeles.Nick Nack. Appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He died September 4, 1993. Cause of death "suicide by gunshot".- Louis Blaazer was born on 30 October 1925. He was an actor, known for Dr. No (1962). He died in 1994.Pleydell-Smith. Appeared in Dr. No (1962). He died 1994. Cause of death "undisclosed".
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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).Blofeld. Appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). He died January 22, 1994. Cause of death "prostate cancer".- Actor
- Writer
- Director
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.Blofeld. Appeared in You Only Live Twice (1967). He died February 2, 1995. Cause of death "complications from heart valve replacement surgery".- Mitsouko was born on 3 September 1941 in Tianjin, China. She was an actress, known for Z7 Operation Rembrandt (1966), License to Kill (1964) and Les femmes d'abord (1963). She died on 28 March 1995 in Paris, France.Mlle. LaPorte. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). She died March 28, 1995. Cause of death "suicide".
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- Soundtrack
Born as Arthur John Stainer, he was the younger son of Ferdinand (Frank) Steiner and Lilian Blumberg. His brother was the film actor Leslie Howard and his sister the casting director Irene Howard. His uncle was the film director Wilfrid Noy. He married the actress Jean Compton Mackenzie (a daughter of the actor Frank Compton) in 1936 and they had a son together, the stage actor Alan Howard.
Arthur appeared in several television programmes such as Whack-O, a school comedy in which he played the hapless assistant headmaster Pettigrew to Jimmy Edwards's headmaster, and he was in the 1959 film version Bottoms Up. He appeared in many films, including American Friends, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins, and had the small role of Cavendish in the James Bond film Moonraker.
Balding, worried-looking London-born comic actor, who first rose to prominence as Jimmy Edwards's long-suffering headmaster in 'Whack-O!' on BBC radio. The show was later transferred to the screen by BBC TV and ran from 1956 to 1960 in its original format.Cavendish. Appeared in Moonraker (1979). He died June 18, 1995. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Reggie Carter was born in 1936 in Panama. He was an actor, known for Dr. No (1962), The Lunatic (1991) and Sankofa (1993). He was married to Barbara Lewars and Sheila Hill. He died on 2 September 1995 in Red Hills, St. Andrew's Parish, Jamaica.Mr. Jones. Appeared in Dr. No (1962). He died September 2, 1995. Cause of death "myocardial infarction".
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Claudio Brook was born on 28 August 1927 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico. He was an actor, known for The Exterminating Angel (1962), Licence to Kill (1989) and Simon of the Desert (1965). He was married to Mercedes Pascual, Alicia Bonet and Eugenia Avendaño. He died on 18 October 1995 in Mexico City, Distrito Federal, Mexico.Montelongo. Appeared in Licence to Kill (1989). He died October 18, 1995. Cause of death "stomach cancer".- 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 Lippe. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died January 30, 1996. Cause of death "lung cancer".- Michael Ebbin was born on 5 June 1945 in Pembroke, Bermuda. He was an actor, known for Live and Let Die (1973). He died on 27 April 1996 in Hamilton, Bermuda.Dambala. Appeared in Live and Let Die (1973). He died April 27, 1996. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- The role which best epitomised James Cossins was the fussy, repressed Brown in Villain (1971). He began movie acting in the mid '60s and featured in such films as Richard Lester's How I Won the War (1967), Hammer's The Lost Continent (1968), the Jack Wild vehicle Melody (1971) and the aforementioned cult classic Villain (1971) with Richard Burton. He was also particular effective as a driving test examiner in the comedy thriller Otley (1969) with Tom Courtenay.
His contribution was usually limited to no more than a few minutes of screentime but he was always effective. On television he was quite prolific putting in appearances in, to name just a few, The Avengers (1961), Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em (1973), Bless This House (1971), Bergerac (1981), Minder (1979) and perhaps most memorably, Fawlty Towers (1975). He was a specialist in officious, blustering characters. In 1974 he joined a number of British character actors to have featured in a Bond movie, playing Colthorpe in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). It was five years before he returned to cinema screens in The Great Train Robbery (1978).
After appearing as Lord Carnaryon in Sphinx (1981) he made his last big film in 1982, Gandhi (1982), though he was far down the cast list. Two more films of little note were to follow, Grand Larceny (1987) and Immaculate Conception (1992) before his final appearance in the TV movie Unnatural Causes (1993) in 1993. He died in 1997.Colthorpe. Appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He died February 12, 1997. Cause of death "heart disease". - 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.Morzeny/General Gogol. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985) and The Living Daylights (1987). He died May 5, 1997. Cause of death "cancer".
- Peter Cranwell was born on 21 July 1925. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Chicago in the Roaring 20's (1965) and The Rat Catchers (1966). He died on 12 July 1997 in London.Johnny. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died July 12, 1997. Cause of death "heart attack".
- Actor
- Soundtrack
Dignified, aristocratic-looking Richard Vernon was born to English parents in Kenya. He was educated at Reading and Leighton Park Schools and commenced his acting career near the end of his wartime service with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve, producing, directing and starring in a production of George Bernard Shaw's 'Heartbreak House' for the Combined Services Club. At various times he was stationed in Singapore and Hong Kong. After being demobbed, Richard completed his training at the Central School of Speech and Drama. On the professional stage from 1950, he enjoyed a successful theatrical career in West End productions ranging from 'Peter Pan' (as Mr.Darling) to Noël Coward's 'Hay Fever' (as Richard Greatham). During the 60s, he appeared in supporting roles in several prestigious motion pictures, including Village of the Damned (1960), The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964) and Goldfinger (1964).
Considerably better employed on the small screen, Richard evolved into the consummate scene-stealer. Balding, looking rather older than his years and a dignified bearing made him ideal casting for typically British stiff-upper-lip military or aristocratic types or stuffy senior public servants. A noteworthy early starring role was as The Man in Room 17 (1965), a barrister and ex- war correspondent assigned to a secret unit as an infallible criminologist investigating cases deemed too difficult for the local plods and Scotland Yard. A natural propensity for period drama then insured his successful run in several popular series, notably Upstairs, Downstairs (1971) and The Duchess of Duke Street (1976). Above all, Richard excelled in gleeful old rogues and slightly dishevelled or befuddled eccentrics. His great asset was a way of delivering even the funniest of lines totally deadpan and matter-of-fact. He was wonderfully droll as Lord Bartlesham in the Ripping Yarns (1976) episode 'Roger of the Raj'. Arguably his most famous role was that of galactic fjord builder Slartibartfast in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1981), a part to which he had originally lent his voice in a 1978 radio serial.
A truly unique and likeable character actor, Richard Vernon plied his craft until two years prior to his death from Parkinson's Disease. From 1955 until 1990, he had been married to Benedicta Leigh (née Hoskyns).Colonel Smithers. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died December 4, 1997. Cause of death "Parkinson's disease".- Actor
- Writer
- Music Department
John Wells was born on 17 November 1936 in Ashford, Kent, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for Casino Royale (1967), For Your Eyes Only (1981) and Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984). He was married to Teresa Chancellor. He died on 11 January 1998 in Sussex, England, UK.Denis Thatcher. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). He died January 11, 1998. Cause of death "cancer".- Actor
- Soundtrack
Character actor James Villiers was of an aristocratic background - you could half tell, not only from his sardonic looks and precisely modulated voice, but from the roles he played. More often than not, he was typecast as a snobbish, supercilious upper-class twit, effete weakling or comic second-string villain. A graduate of RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Art), his first major appearance on stage was in a 1954 West End production of "Toad of Toad Hall". During the following years, he expanded his repertoire at the Old Vic with performances of William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and "Richard III", also touring on Broadway. During his extensive theatrical career, he acted in plays by Noël Coward (including a critically-acclaimed performance in "Private Lives" in 1972), Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw, and, just prior to his death, played "Mr. Brownlow" in "Oliver!" at the London Palladium.
In the 1960's, James Villiers was featured in several films by Joseph Losey, most notably The Damned (1962). One of his most convincing roles was as one of the parents of a 10-year old boy threatened by a homicidal Bette Davis in The Nanny (1965). He was also featured in several horror movies, such as Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971) and the Amicus production of Asylum (1972), reverting to his best plummy-voiced form. On television, he was perfectly cast as "Professor Higgins" in Pygmalion (1973); a 1973 adaptation which co-starred Lynn Redgrave as "Eliza Doolittle". One of his earlier successes was in the 1969 BBC period drama, The First Churchills (1969), in the part of "King Charles II" (whom he was said to have resembled). One of the most British of actors, Villiers died of cancer in West Sussex in January 1998.Tanner. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). He died January 18, 1998. Cause of death "cancer".- Actor
- Producer
- Director
Jack Lord will probably be best remembered as Steve McGarrett in the long running television series Hawaii Five-O (1968), but he was much more than that however. He starred in several movies, directed several episodes of his show, was in several Broadway productions, and was an accomplished artist. Two of his paintings were acquired by New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art and the British Museum of Modern Art by the time he was twenty. Lord was also known for being a very cultured man who loved reading poetry out loud on the set of his TV show and as being somewhat reclusive at his Honolulu home. He met his son from his first marriage, who was killed in an accident when he was thirteen, only once as a baby.Felix Leiter. Appeared in Dr. No (1962). He died January 21, 1998. Cause of death "congestive heart failure".- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Jean Rougerie was born on 9 March 1929 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, France. He was an actor and writer, known for A View to a Kill (1985), Les enquêtes Caméléon (1987) and The Perils of Gwendoline in the Land of the Yik Yak (1984). He died on 25 January 1998 in Ivry-sur-Seine, Val-de-Marne, France.Aubergine. Appeared in A View to a Kill (1985). He died January 25, 1998. Cause of death "cancer".- Bill Ackridge was born on 9 January 1926. He was an actor, known for A View to a Kill (1985), The Enforcer (1976) and Voyage of the Heart (1989). He died on 14 March 1998 in San Francisco, California, USA.O'Rourke. Appeared in A View to a Kill (1985). He died March 14, 1998. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- 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. Appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). He died 1999. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Billy J. Mitchell was born in 1942. He was an actor, known for Top Secret! (1984), GoldenEye (1995) and Never Say Never Again (1983). He died in 1999 in England, UK.Admiral Chuck Farrel. Appeared in Goldeneye (1995). He died 1999. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Noel Johnson was born on 28 December 1916 in West Bromwich, West Midlands, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Frenzy (1972), Withnail & I (1987) and For Your Eyes Only (1981). He was married to Leonora Johnson. He died on 2 October 1999 in Glamorgan, Wales, UK.Vice Admiral. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). He died October 2, 1999. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- 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."Boothroyd/Q. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983) and A View to a Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1987), Licence to Kill (1989), Goldeneye (1995), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) and The World Is Not Enough (1999). He died December 19, 1999. Cause of death "road accident". - Victor Brooks was born on 11 November 1918 in Woolwich, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Department S (1969) and The Day of the Triffids (1963). He died on 19 January 2000 in Dorset, England, UK.Blacking. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died January 19, 2000. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actor
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
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.Henderson/Blofeld. Appeared in You Only Live Twice (1967) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died March 7, 2000. Cause of death "throat cancer".- Actor
- Stunts
- Director
Bill Cummings was born on 15 October 1920 in England, UK. He was an actor and director, known for The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976), The Avengers (1961) and The Cockleshell Heroes (1955). He died on 6 February 2002 in Weybridge, Surrey, England, UK.Quist. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died February 6, 2002. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Fred Haggerty was born on 26 September 1921 in London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for From Russia with Love (1963), Lifeforce (1985) and Willow (1988). He died on 26 July 2002 in Derby, Derbyshire, England, UK.Krilencu. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died July 26, 2002. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Peter Bayliss was born on 27 June 1922 in Kingston upon Thames, England, UK. He was an actor, known for From Russia with Love (1963), Please Sir! (1971) and Merlin (1998). He died on 29 July 2002 in London, England, UK.Benz. Appeared in From Russia with Love (1963). He died July 29, 2002. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- The son of a tailor, Cyril studied at the London School of Broadcasting aged 12 years. His first professional appearance, at 12, came on Radio Lyons and Radio Luxembourg in such commercials as O.K. Sauce and Quaker Oats. After demob from the Army, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art which was followed by Guildford rep and the West End. He worked in Hollywood for two years with Radio Netherland as English announcer,scriptwriter and producer of programmes. Then came BBC Radio Drama Rep. for two years (1952 - 54). Cyril, whose forebearers were Polish, was the father of three children, Michael, Simon and Sarah.Bechmann. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He died January 1, 2003. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Robert Brown was born on 23 July 1921 in Swanage, Dorset, England, UK. He was an actor, known for A View to a Kill (1985), Octopussy (1983) and Licence to Kill (1989). He was married to Rita Becker. He died on 11 November 2003 in Swanage, Dorset, England, UK.Admiral Hargreaves/M. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985), The Living Daylights (1987) and Licence to Kill (1989). He died November 11, 2003. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Norman Burton graduated from The Actor's Studio in New York. He appeared in NY onstage in professional stage productions of "Sound of Hunting", "Anna Christie", and José Quintero's production of Brendan Behan's "The Quare Fellow". He appeared in such notable films as Towering Inferno, Save the Tiger (1973), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), Bloodsport (1988), Planet of the Apes (1968), and Planet of the Apes (1974).
Burton moved from Prescott, Arizona to Ajijic, Mexico. He was killed in a car crash on the California/Arizona border while returning to his home in Mexico in late 2003, six days before what would have been his 80th birthday. A widower, Burton was survived by his daughter, two grandsons, a niece and a nephew.Leiter. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died November 29, 2003. Cause of death "automobile accident". - Jeff Nuttall was born on 8 July 1933 in Clitheroe, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The World Is Not Enough (1999), Robin Hood (1991) and Beaumarchais the Scoundrel (1996). He was married to Jane Louch. He died on 4 January 2004 in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales, UK.Dr. Arkov. Appeared in The World Is Not Enough (1999). He died January 4, 2004. Cause of death "heart attack".
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Michael Mellinger was born on 30 May 1929 in Kochel, Bavaria. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Gladiator (2000) and Eye of the Needle (1981). He was married to Renee Goddard. He died on 17 March 2004 in London, England, UK.Kisch. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died March 17, 2004. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Robert MacLeod was born in 1915 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Superman (1978) and The Omen (1976). He died in April 2004.Atomic Specialist. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died April 2004. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Austin Willis was born on 30 September 1917 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Firefox (1982) and The Boston Strangler (1968). He was married to Gwen Laforty and Kate Reid. He died on 4 April 2004 in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada.Simmons. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died April 4, 2004. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Bruce Boa was born on 10 July 1930 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. He was an actor, known for Full Metal Jacket (1987), Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Octopussy (1983). He was married to Cherry. He died on 17 April 2004 in Surrey, England, UK.U.S. General. Appeared in Octopussy (1983). He died April 17, 2004. Cause of death "cancer".
- 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. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died April 19, 2004. Cause of death "undisclosed".- The daughter of an American Army Officer and a British mother, Virginia Anne Northrop spent her childhood travelling and growing up in whatever country her father happened to be posted. By the age of twenty, she settled in London and became a fashion model with Europe's leading agency, Models 1. Despite having little or no acting experience, her exquisite looks caught the ever-roving eye of scouts at the Rank Organisation. For the first three years, her career remained static. This changed when she was cast as a Bond girl in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), playing Olympe, the chess-playing companion of crime boss Draco (Gabriele Ferzetti). Her most fondly remembered -- and, sadly, final -- role was that of the ethereal silent assassin Vulnavia, devotedly serving The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) (Vincent Price). By 1974, Virginia had left the film world behind and wed the industrialist Gordon White (1923-1996), a former governor of the British Film Institute and chairman of the noted corporate raider Hanson plc. She became 'Lady Virginia' upon her husband's elevation to knighthood in 1979. The marriage lasted until 1991, White subsequently marrying a younger model (literally), forty years his junior. Virginia died prematurely of cancer in 2004 at the age of just 58.Olympe. Appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). She died June 5, 2004. Cause of death "cancer".
- Geoffrey Cheshire was born on 26 March 1927 in Lambeth, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966) and Doctor Who (1963). He died on 5 October 2004 in Teddington, Middlesex, England, UK.Toussaint. Appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969). He died October 5, 2004. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Prior to breaking into films, Philadelphia native Julius Harris worked as a bouncer in New York City. It was due to his many associations with struggling actors, that on a dare, Harris auditioned for his first role, in the well-received picture Nothing But a Man (1964), in which he played a father in the South, alongside Ivan Dixon and Abbey Lincoln. After, this, Harris' impressive physique and deep voice helped enable him to rack up numerous appearances in the then popular blaxploitation genre.
His strong appearance in supporting roles in such low-budget films as Shaft's Big Score! (1972), Super Fly (1972), and Black Caesar (1973), which helped springboard him into better quality productions. Harris scored a co-starring role in the first Roger Moore James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973), in which his portrayal of the bald-headed, grinning villain "Tee Hee", with the menacing artificial arm, was one of the more iconic heavies of the entire franchise.
More work quickly followed for Harris, including NYPD "Inspector Daniels" in the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974), King Kong (1976), and Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). In addition to his film work, he was guest-starring in numerous TV shows, including Harry O (1973), Sanford and Son (1972), Cannon (1971), Good Times (1974), and Kojak (1973). Harris continued working throughout the 1980s in a mixture of different character roles, although the 1990s proved to be a leaner period for him.
Julius Harris passed away on October 17, 2004 from heart failure, at the age of 81. He was cremated and then interred in his hometown, and is survived by his daughter (Kimberly) and his son (Gideon).Tee Hee. Appeared in Live and Let Die (1973). He died October 17, 2004. Cause of death "heart failure". - Actor
- Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Mike Marshall was born on 13 September 1944 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He was an actor and assistant director, known for Moonraker (1979), Don't Look Now... We're Being Shot At! (1966) and The Phantom Planet (1961). He was married to Catherine Prou and Sylvie Elias. He died on 2 June 2005 in Caen, Calvados, France.Col. Scott. Appeared in Moonraker (1979). He died June 1, 2005. Cause of death "lung disease".- Actor
- Writer
- Additional Crew
Michael Billington was born on 24 December 1941 in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, UK. He was an actor and writer, known for UFO (1970), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and UFO... annientare S.H.A.D.O. stop. Uccidete Straker... (1974). He was married to Katherine Kristoff. He died on 3 June 2005 in Margate, Kent, England, UK.Sergei. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). He died June 3, 2005. Cause of death "cancer".- Stunts
- Actor
- Additional Crew
Alf Joint was born on 22 September 1927 in Hertfordshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Goldfinger (1964), Lifeforce (1985) and Superman (1978). He was married to Daphne M M Chai-tsai. He died on 25 July 2005 in Hertfordshire, England, UK.Capungo. Appeared in Goldfinger (1964). He died July 25, 2005. Cause of death "undisclosed".- Peter Porteous trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama which, when he was there in the 1950s, occupied premises in the Royal Albert Hall. He made his London theatre debut in 1960 at the Aldwich Theatre in Brouhaha, playing opposite Peter Sellers, Lionel Jeffries and Leo McKern. He played a pygmy, blacked up and wearing a kilt! He played numerous Shakespearian roles and major roles in plays by Tennessee Williams, Arthur Millar, Albert Camus,Harold Pinter and Tom Murphy. His professional film life started when he worked for the great German film director, Otto Preminger, in the film St Joan with Jean Seburg. Sadly, Peter died on 12th August 2005 at Denville Hall, Northwood, Middlesex, the Retirement /Nursing Home for actors run by the Actors' Benevolent Fund.Lenkin/Gasworks Supervisor. Appeared in Octopussy (1983) and The Living Daylights (1987). He died August 12, 2005. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actor
- Writer
Rick Van Nutter was born in Pomona, California and entered film work as a location manager/assistant director while living in the Hawaian Islands. Later he traveled to Africa as a production manager and stopped off in Rome on his way home and decided to stay for awhile. The following year while working as a location manager for a film company he was asked to take a part in the film and caught the acting bug and from then on spent the rest of his life in front of the camerasFelix Leiter. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). He died October 15, 2005. Cause of death "heart attack".- John Hollis was born on 12 November 1927 in Fulham, London, England, UK. He was an actor, known for Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Flash Gordon (1980) and Superman II (1980). He was married to Sheila Forrester and Gabrielle Hamilton. He died on 18 October 2005 in Richmond upon Thames, London, England, UK.Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Appeared in For Your Eyes Only (1981). He died October 18, 2005. Cause of death "natural causes".
- Geoffrey Keen was born on 21 August 1916 in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, England, UK. He was an actor, known for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979) and For Your Eyes Only (1981). He was married to Doris Groves, Madeline Howell and Hazel Terry. He died on 3 November 2005 in Denville Hall, Northwood, Hillingdon, London, England, UK.Minister of Defence/Sir Frederick Gray. Appeared in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), A View to a Kill (1985) and The Living Daylights (1987). He died November 3, 2005. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Actor
- Director
- Writer
American character actor who specialized in underworld types, despite a far greater range. A native of the Bronx, he participated in plays in school, then attended City College of New York. In 1930, he was accepted into Eva Le Gallienne's company, where he became friendly with another young actor, one day to be known as John Garfield. The two appeared in a number of plays, both with Le Gallienne's company and with the highly-politicized Group Theatre, before Lawrence was given a film contract with Columbia Pictures. His scarred complexion and brooding appearance made him a natural for heavies, and he played scores of gangsters and mob bosses over the next six decades. Nevertheless, he could turn in fine performances in very different kinds of roles as well, such as his bewildered mountain boy in The Shepherd of the Hills (1941).
Following the Second World War, as anti-Communist fervor gripped America, Lawrence found himself under scrutiny for his political leanings. When called before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), he admitted he had once been a member of the Communist Party. The Committee broke down his resolve and he "named names" (including Sterling Hayden, Lionel Stander, Anne Revere, Larry Parks, Karen Morley and Jeff Corey). Nonetheless, he was blacklisted and departed for Europe, where he continued to make films, often in leading roles. Following the demise of the blacklist, he returned to America and resumed his position as a familiar and talented purveyor of gangland types. He was also a writer and director.Slumber Inc. Attendant/Rodney. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He died November 27, 2005. Cause of death "natural causes".- Lean, distinguished-looking Viennese character actor, latterly white-haired and with distinctive dark eyebrows. Though he initially studied law in Vienna, Fürst became interested in acting and was given his first opportunities on stage in Canada. He then moved to England in search of better job prospects, eventually finding his niche in British films and on television. Fürst is best remembered on screen for playing suave, villainous scientists, invariably of Eastern European, Germanic or Italian ethnicity. Arguably, as to the most prominent among those, look no further than his maniacal, power-mad Professor Hermann Zaroff in the Doctor Who (1963) episode 'The Underwater Menace' (1967); or his laser refraction specialist, Professor Dr. Metz, in the James Bond classic Diamonds Are Forever (1971). Fürst occasionally returned to his native Austria for theatrical appearances in Vienna and Salzburg. He ultimately retired to Bateau Bay, New South Wales, and made a few more appearances on Australian TV soaps and in films.Dr Metz. Appeared in Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He died November 29, 2005. Cause of death "undisclosed".
- Rose Alba was born on 5 February 1918 in Cairo, Egypt. She was an actress, known for Thunderball (1965), BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950) and Lord Tramp (1977). She died in December 2005 in Covent Garden, London, England, UK.Madame Boitier. Appeared in Thunderball (1965). She died December 2005. Cause of death "natural causes".
- Vincent Schiavelli, selected in 1997 by Vanity Fair as one of the best character actors in America, had made over 120 film and television appearances. He studied acting at NYU's Theatre Program. Aside from his acting career, Vincent was the author of three cookbooks, and has written numerous articles on food for magazines and newspapers. In 2001, he received the James Beard Journalism Award.Dr. Kaufman. Appeared in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). He died December 26, 2005. Cause of death "lung cancer".
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Gerald James was born on 26 November 1917 in Brecon, Powys, Wales, UK. He was an actor, known for The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Sapphire & Steel (1979) and Hope and Glory (1987). He died on 10 June 2006 in Oxfordshire, England, UK.Frazier. Appeared in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974). He died June 10, 2006. Cause of death "undisclosed".