Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character from the James Bond universe. He is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond and head of the evil terrorist organization SPECTRE.

Blofeld usually appears with a white Persian cat in the films (but not in the novels). It was also briefly a trademark of the Bond films not to show Blofeld's face, only a closeup of Blofeld stroking his cat. This "trademark" was later broken in the film You Only Live Twice and subsequent films. It was also mimicked in the animated series Inspector Gadget, and spoofed in Austin Powers.

Blofeld appears in six official James Bond movies as well as Never Say Never Again, the 1983 remake of Thunderball, which makes him the most persistent and arguably greatest of James Bond's enemies.

Biography

Fleming details Blofeld's background in the novel Thunderball; none of his background is ever revealed in the Bond films. He was born on May 28, 1908 to a Polish father and a Greek mother in Gdynia, then in Germany, now in Poland. After World War I, he became a Polish national. Blofeld attended the University of Warsaw where he studied economics and political history. He later went to the Warsaw University of Technology to study engineering and radionics. He then took a communication position with the Polish government at the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. He began to use his position for insider trading, buying and selling stocks at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

Foreseeing World War II, Blofeld made copies of top-secret wires and sold them to Nazi Germany. Before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he destroyed all records of his existence, then moved to Turkey, where he worked for Turkish radio and set up an intelligence organization. During the war, he sold information to both sides. After the defeat of Erwin Rommel, he decided to back the Allied war effort; ironically, he was awarded numerous medals by the Allied powers after the war's end. After the war, Blofeld temporarily moved to South America before founding SPECTRE.

Despite his willingness to murder millions to get what he wants, Blofeld has a few professional scruples. For instance, in the novel Thunderball he learned that during a standard fundraising kidnapping mission of a young girl, the responsible agent had sex with her. Although Blofeld says that the relations may have been "voluntary or involuntary on the girl's part," he had the agent killed as punishment and returned the girl and half the ransom to her father as compensation. His reasons had nothing to do with morality, but rather with the importance of SPECTRE being known for keeping their word to those they did their "business" with.

Novels

In the novel series by Ian Fleming, Blofeld makes three appearances in what is considered the 'Blofeld Trilogy,' or, the 'Spectre Trilogy'. Blofeld first appears as the leader of SPECTRE in Thunderball, but his role was relatively minor. The plot, that he formulated, is carried out by his henchman Emilio Largo.

Blofeld is absent from the next book, The Spy Who Loved Me, though its events take place while Bond is searching for Blofeld in North America. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service Bond learns that Blofeld is in hiding in Switzerland under the guise of Comte de Bleuville and defeats his plans to destroy Britain's agricultural economy. In the final sequence of the novel, Blofeld gets revenge by murdering Bond's new wife, Tracy.

In You Only Live Twice, Blofeld returns and is found by Bond (more by accident than by design) to be hiding in Japan under the alias Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. Bond strangles him to death at the end of the novel, making it the villain's last appearance.

Films

In the film series, Ernst Stavro Blofeld first appears in a supporting role in From Russia with Love, as also in Thunderball. Afterwards, Blofeld is the antagonist in You Only Live Twice and in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the latter film virtually identical to the novel. Blofeld returns in Diamonds Are Forever, and his final appearance is the pre-title teaser of For Your Eyes Only 1981, wherein he receives his comeuppance for murdering James Bond's wife when dropped from a helicopter into a smokestack.

For copyright reasons about Kevin McClory and the film rights to Thunderball (c.f. the controversy over Thunderball), Blofeld's name never is mentioned nor is it listed in the end credits of For Your Eyes Only. The only indications that the wheelchair-bound man is Blofeld are his bald head, the Persian cat, and the obscured face.

In the films, Blofeld's appearance and personality vary, because of the different actors portraying him, (i.e. Blofeld's facial scar (You Only Live Twice) appears neither in On Her Majesty's Secret Service nor in Diamonds Are Forever; in On Her Majesty's Secret Service Blofeld has removed his earlobes; in Diamonds Are Forever he has them and a full head of hair). Actually, this follows Fleming's novels, which described Blofeld changing his personality and appearance to hide from the SIS and James Bond.

Blofeld portrayals

Actors who have played Blofeld in the films (order of appearance):

• Anthony Dawson — (From Russia with Love, Thunderball) (uncredited; only hands shown, in the credits of From Russia with Love Blofeld's actor is labeled as a question mark)
• Eric Pohlmann — (From Russia with Love, Thunderball) (uncredited; voice)
• Donald Pleasence — (You Only Live Twice)
• Telly Savalas — (On Her Majesty's Secret Service)
• Charles Gray — (Diamonds Are Forever)
• John Hollis — (For Your Eyes Only) (uncredited)
• Robert Rietty — (For Your Eyes Only) (uncredited, voice)
• Max von Sydow — (Never Say Never Again) (unofficial)

Trivia

• Blofeld's birthdate—May 28, 1908—is also Ian Fleming's.
• Blofeld's birthplace, Gdynia, as a city didn't actually exist until 1920s which is when it became built almost from scratch in less than decade in a grand-scale engineering project already under Polish authority. The little village of Gdynia was in existence there for several centuries, so this detail doesn't make the biography impossible—just less convincing.
• The name Blofeld was inspired by the father of English cricket commentator Henry Blofeld, with whom Fleming went to school.
• Blofeld and SPECTRE were set to be the villains in the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me, but due to the long-standing controversy over Thunderball, the villain was changed to Karl Stromberg.
• Blofeld appears in the 2004 game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, this time with the likeness of Donald Pleasance.
• Philip Jose Farmer's Wold Newton site suggests Blofeld's father is Wolf Larsen, the lead character in Jack London's 1904 novel The Sea Wolf.
• The character of Cobra Commander in G.I. Joe is loosely based on Blofeld.

Imitation and parody

Many of the characteristics of Blofeld have become clichés of supervillains in popular fiction, representing the stock character of the evil genius.

• The look of Donald Pleasence's Blofeld in You Only Live Twice inspired the look of Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers films, down to the Nehru jacket, penchant for referring to henchmen by number designations, facial scar, and the Persian cat (which in this version loses all its fur after being cryogenically frozen). This is arguably the 'ultimate' take on the Blofeld character as it parodies the way his persona has become short-hand for 'evil genius' in popular culture.
• The look of Blofeld was also imitated by Jim Backus in Gilligan's Island episode 79 enitled "The Invasion", in which Backus plays a character named Mr. Evil in Gilligan's dream.
• In the first season of the Pokémon TV series, Giovanni, the boss of the Team Rocket, is depicted like Blofeld, hiding in the shadow with a Persian on his lap.
• In Donkey Kong 64, K. Rool was shown stroking a pet Klaptrap.
• The filming style of not revealing Blofeld's face and his stroking of his cat has inspired a number of imitators, most notably the main villain of Inspector Gadget, Dr. Claw, and his evil organisation, M.A.D.
• In the Police Squad! episode Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood) the boss of the mobster gang is shown from his neck down, stroking a cat. His face, much like with Blofeld in the movies, is not seen until he bends low - right below the camera's upper rim - to have his face seen while emphasizing his orders to his underlings; an obvious parody to the James Bond movies, in which Blofeld's face is initially never shown.
• The arch-villain of the cartoon hero Dangermouse, Baron Greenback, is always seen with a fluffy white caterpillar pet, 'Nero', which is a parody stand-in for the Persian cat.
• In the game Fur Fighters, the main villain is a parody of Blofeld's cat, named General Viggo who acts much like Ernst. Viggo's pet is a small mutant wearing Blofeld's jacket and having a scar beneath its eye.
• Savalas's portrayal of Blofeld was Clancy Brown's inspiration for his characterization of Lex Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series. He got the role because he reminded series creator Bruce Timm of Savalas's Blofeld, whom Timm saw as a "cultured thug."
• In an interview with TV Guide, Julian Sands mentions Pleasance's portrayal of Blofeld as one the inspirations for his portrayal of Russian terrorist Vladimir Bierko on the fifth season of 24.
• Vivendi Universal's PC game Evil Genius features a title character with a strong resemblance to Blofeld. In the game, the player must build a secret lair on a remote island and fend off the attacks of superagents while pulling off complex international capers in an ultimate bid for world domination.
• The Animaniacs episode From Burbank With Love features a villain named Blowfinger, a cross between Blofeld and Auric Goldfinger.
• The Powerpuff Girls episode Cat Man Do features a faceless villain stroking a white Persian cat. The girls thwart the villain's plan and rescue the cat and bring it back to their home. However, it turns out that the cat is the real mastermind who can hypnotize any man to do his evil bidding — creating a machine that hypnotizes townspeople to obey their cats.
• The 2001 film Cats & Dogs features a Persian cat, voiced by Sean Hayes as its "Evil Genius" villain.
• In the anime series Dragon Ball, "Red Leader", the commander of the Red Ribbon Army's face is hidden in his first appearances. He has a strange cat-like animal on his lap in reference to Blofeld, and conducts operations from a hidden base sequestered in the Alps, similar to On Her Majesty's Secret Service. He orders the murder of a henchman that fails a mission, and he wears an eyepatch, like Largo.
• The second season of the TV series Martial Law featured an evil organization known as Scorpio, which bore more than a passing resemblance to SPECTRE. It was headed by a mysterious recurring villain known only as "The One" (a possible reference to Blofeld's "Number One" SPECTRE codename) who, like Blofeld, was only seen in shadow (when he was seen at all) until the final episode.
• The Season 7 episode "The Simpsons 138th Episode Spectacular" introduces a cut scene where Homer is a blackjack dealer in a game between Mr. Bont (a parody of Sean Connery's James Bond character) and Bont's enemies Oddjob, Blofeld, and Jaws. Because of Homer's ineptitude (he deals Bont a joker, and then a card explaining the rules for draw and stud poker), Bont loses, is dragged off by the henchmen while yelling he always wins. Mr. Bont reappears in "You Only Move Twice". In that episode, Homer rugby tackles Bont and walks away while guards surround him and shoot him with machine guns.

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