boardrooms were defi nitely passé; the modern
megalomaniac deserved nothing less than a lair
carved from the guts of a volcano, with built-in
rocket launchpad and piranha-infested water
feature. The only survivor of Blofeld’s previous
incarnation was the cat. But there was still
something missing.
It was Pleasence himself who came up with
the idea of the facial scar. The eff ect was achieved
with glue that pinched the actor’s skin into a
savage welt and left his face bruised for days. But
it was worth it, because Pleasence’s Blofeld is the
one everyone remembers. Without him, there’d
be no Dr Evil in Austin Powers (a bald, Nehru-
jacketed Mike Myers stroking an equally hairless
Mr Bigglesworth), no Baron Greenback in
Danger Mouse (an anthropomorphised frog
stroking a fl uff y white caterpillar) and no Chief
in Spiceworld: The Movie (Roger Moore stroking
a fl uff y white cat and, for some reason, a piglet).
Imagine that.•••
THE END OF the decade brought a new Bond
fi lm (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service), a new
Bond (George Lazenby) and a new Blofeld. Telly
Savalas’ take on the SPECTRE boss ticks the
bald, cat-friendly and Nehru-jacketed boxes, but
is otherwise worlds apart from his predecessors.
He smokes, and he’s certainly not asexual
— some of his scenes with Diana Rigg clearly
suggest an amorous attraction. The anti-Bond
of Fleming is nowhere to be seen: Savalas
himself saw Blofeld as “a man with fl air,
a cosmopolitan man...he knows the right
wine and the right girl”.
The plot saw him claiming the title of
Count de Bleuchamp, which required surgery
to remove his earlobes (the de Bleuchamps
being famously lobeless), so an entirely new
appearance could just about be justifi ed for his
fourth life. Improbably, this physical renovation
also included removing the scar, growing a few
inches and adopting an American accent.
Despite meeting Bond in the previous
fi lm, Blofeld fails to see through his cunning
disguise (a pair of specs and a plummy accent),
and SPECTRE’s plot to render the world’s
crops infertile is foiled. His revenge on Bond
is brutal, murdering his new bride at the fi lm’s
climax, and it’s perhaps this event that seals
Blofeld’s rep as Bond’s deadliest foe. The secret
agent may be invincible, but no other villain
caused him as much pain.
The ’70s saw the Bond fi lms’ pendulum
of tone swing dramatically towards the sillier
end of the scale, and Blofeld was no exception.
For one scene in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever,
the cold-blooded widow-maker donned fullLeft: A more
hirsute Blofeld
(well, several,
thanks to a
plastic surgery
twist) in
Diamonds Are
Forever (1971),
as Charles
Gray takes
the role.
Below: Not
the original,
probably
the best —
Pleasence
in You Only
Live Twice.
❯