ERNST STAVRO BLOFELD

'Ernst Stavro Blofeld' is a fictional character from the James Bond universe. An evil genius, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond and head of the global terrorist organization SPECTRE with aspirations of world domination.
Blofeld usually appears with a white Persian cat in the films (but not in the novels). It was also briefly a convention of the Bond films not to show Blofeld's face, only a closeup of Blofeld stroking his cat. This convention was later broken in the film ''You Only Live Twice'' and subsequent films.
Blofeld, with his trademark cat, was also mimicked in the animated series ''Inspector Gadget'' and ''DangerMouse'' (Baron Greenback, with white caterpillar), and spoofed in '' (as Dr Evil) and ''Zoolander'' (Mugatu, with poodle).
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.

Contents

Biography

Novels

Films

Film portrayals

Other appearances

Imitations and parodies

Notes

Biography

Fleming details Blofeld's background in the novel ''Thunderball'', though none of his past is ever revealed in the Bond films. According to the novel, Blofeld was born on May 28, 1908 to a German father and a Greek mother in Gdynia. After World War I, he became a Polish national. Blofeld attended the University of Warsaw where he studied economics and political history, and then the Warsaw University of Technology to study engineering and radionics. He then took a communication position at the Polish Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs, and used his position for buying and selling stocks at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.^[1]
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.

Novels

In the novel series by Ian Fleming, Blofeld makes three appearances. He first appears as the leader of SPECTRE in the 1961 novel ''Thunderball'', but his role was relatively minor. The plot, that he formulates, 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'' (1963) 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'' published in 1964, 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, Blofeld first appears in ''From Russia with Love'' and ''Thunderball''. Afterwards, he is the main villain in ''You Only Live Twice'', ''On Her Majesty's Secret Service'' and ''Diamonds Are Forever'', and his final appearance is the pre-title teaser of ''For Your Eyes Only'' 1981, in which he attempts to kill Bond by using a device to take remote control of a helicopter that Bond is in. Bond disables the device, takes manual control of the helicopter, and descends upon Blofeld, picking him up and dropping him into a factory smokestack. Due to a legal dispute between Kevin McClory and the film rights to ''Thunderball'', Blofeld's name is neither mentioned nor 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.^[2]
In the films, Blofeld's appearance and personality vary, because of the different actors portraying him. His facial scar in ''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 along with hair. This follows Fleming's novels, which described Blofeld changing his appearance so as to remain unnoticed by Bond.

Film portrayals

Film series	Year	Actor	Notes
''From Russia with Love''	1963	Anthony Dawson Eric Pohlmann (voice)	Both were uncredited - only hands and back of the head are shown in this appearance; in the credits, the actor is labeled as a question mark. This appearance, and the subsequent one, have since become stereotypes of the unseen lead villain.
''Thunderball''	1965	Anthony Dawson Eric Pohlmann (voice)	Still both were uncredited - only hands are shown in this appearance; in the credits, Blofeld does not appear
''You Only Live Twice''	1967	Donald Pleasence
''On Her Majesty's Secret Service''	1969	Telly Savalas
''Diamonds Are Forever''	1971	Charles Gray
''For Your Eyes Only'' (implied)	1981	John Hollis Robert Rietty	Both were uncredited as it is implied. Although Blofeld's bald hair and body in a wheelchair appear his face is not seen and his voice was dubbed by Rietty who had dubbed other characters such as Emilio Largo and Tiger Tanaka earlier in the series
''Never Say Never Again'' (unofficial)	1983	Max von Sydow

Other appearances

★ Blofeld appears in the 2004 game '', this time with the likeness of Donald Pleasence.

Imitations and parodies

Many of the characteristics of Blofeld have become clichés of supervillains in popular fiction, representing the stock character of Blofeld.
'', a parody of Ernst Stavro Blofeld]]
The appearance of Donald Pleasence as Blofeld in ''You Only Live Twice'' inspired that of Dr. Evil in the ''Austin Powers'' films down to his penchant for referring to henchmen by number designations, facial scar, and the Persian cat called "Mr. Bigglesworth". Blofeld himself in two films (''You Only Live Twice'' and ''Diamonds are Forever'') wears a similar Mao jacket. 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 Super Mario Bros. Super Show episode "On Her Majesty's Sewer Service," the villain "Koopfinger" (himself a spoof of another Bond villain Goldfinger) strokes a porcupo in imitation of Blofeld.^[3]
In the first season of the ''Pokémon'' TV series, Giovanni, the leader of the Team Rocket, is depicted like Blofeld, hiding in the shadow with a Persian on his lap.^[3][3] In Donkey Kong 64, K. Rool was shown stroking a pet Klaptrap.
In the ''Police Squad!'' episode ''Rendezvous at Big Gulch'', the leader of the mobsters is shown stroking a cat. His face, much like Blofeld, is not seen until he bends low, an obvious parody of the James Bond movies, in which Blofeld's face is initially never shown.
The enemy of the cartoon hero Dangermouse, Baron Greenback, is always seen with a fluffy white caterpillar pet, 'Nero', a parody of the Persian cat.
In the game ''Fur Fighters'', the main villain is a parody of Blofeld's cat.
Savalas's portrayal of Blofeld was Clancy Brown's inspiration for his characterization of Lex Luthor in ''. 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 named Maximilian 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.^[3]

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 crime syndicate, M.A.D.
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.^[3]
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 Spice Girl's movie, Spice World features a character called "the Chief" clearly fashioned after Blofeld. He is sometimes only heard, sometimes only shown holding a different kind of animal (a rabbit, a pit, a cat, etc.), until finally it is shown that he is being played by Roger Moore. He is usually giving Richard E. Grant's character odd advice in the form of cryptic philosophical babble.
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 cutscene where Homer is a blackjack dealer in a game between Mr. Bont and his enemies Oddjob, Blofeld and Jaws.
In the Scrubs episode "My White Whale" Dr. Cox is petting a doll white cat to intimidate the pediatrician that he wants to take care of his son Jack.
The TV comedy show The Mary Whitehouse Experience did a sketch on life at school. It was mentioned in the sketch towards the audience that at school there was always one teacher you were scared of, but did not know why. The sketch then showed someone dressed as Blofeld telling a school boy off for not doing his homework. He presses a button on his chair and the boy explodes.
The videogame series Timesplitters feature a villain by the name of Khallos, whose appearance and manner of speech resemble Blofeld. He is also shown stroking a mechanical cat, whom the player can eventually operate in .
In the webcomic Kung Fu Rabbit, the antagonist is a shadowy rabbit figure known only as the Director who sits in a high backed chair in the shadows and strokes his pet tortoise while directing the global domination efforts of his crime syndicate H.A.R.E.
In the film Cats and Dogs the villain is a cat called Mr Tinkles who is an imitation of Blofeld's cat.

Notes

1. http://www.mjnewton.demon.co.uk/bond/blofeld.htm
2. http://www.moviedeaths.com/for_your_eyes_only/ernst_stavro_blofeld/
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