Ernst Stavro Blofeld
Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and villain from the James Bond series of novels and films, created by Ian Fleming. A criminal mastermind with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond.[2] Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE and is commonly referred to by the codename Number 1 within this organisation. The character was originally written by Fleming as a physically massive and powerfully built man, standing around 6'3" (1.90 m) and weighing 20 st (280 lbs, 127 kg), who had become flabby with a huge belly.[3]
| Ernst Stavro Blofeld | |
|---|---|
| James Bond character | |
 Donald Pleasence as Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967) | |
| First appearance | Thunderball (1961) |
| Last appearance | No Time to Die (2020) |
| Created by | Ian Fleming |
| Portrayed by |
|
| Voiced by |
|
| In-universe information | |
| Alias |
|
| Affiliation | SPECTRE |
| Family |
|
| Children | Nena Blofeld |
| Nationality | Polish of Greek descent[1] |
| Classification | Criminal mastermind |
| Henchmen |
|
| Allies | Dr. Julius No |
Blofeld appears or is heard in three novels: Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service; and You Only Live Twice; as well as eight films from Eon Productions: From Russia with Love (1963); Thunderball (1965); You Only Live Twice (1967); On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969); Diamonds Are Forever (1971); For Your Eyes Only (1981; the pre-title sequence of which shows an unnamed character resembling him fall to his death); Spectre (2015); and No Time to Die (2020). The latter two films are set in a rebooted continuity, which started with Casino Royale (2006). He also appears in Never Say Never Again (1983), a remake of Thunderball that was not produced by Eon.
Blofeld has been played on screen by Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray, Max von Sydow, and Christoph Waltz, among others. It was initially a convention of the films not to show Blofeld's face, only a close-up of him stroking his white, blue-eyed Persian cat. His face's first appearance is in You Only Live Twice as he introduces himself to Bond (whom he is meeting face-to-face for the first time) after previously appearing in the "traditional" way in earlier parts of the film.
Many of Blofeld's characteristics have become tropes in popular fiction, representing the stock character of the criminal mastermind, with the stroking of his white cat often retained as a parodic allusion to Blofeld's character. This can be seen in the Austin Powers film series with the character of Dr. Evil and his cat Mr. Bigglesworth, or in the cartoons Inspector Gadget, with the character of Dr. Claw, and Danger Mouse, with the character of Baron Silas Greenback.
Character
Ian Fleming includes information about Blofeld's background in his novel Thunderball. According to the novel, Blofeld was born on 28 May 1908 (which is also Fleming's birthday) in Gdingen, Imperial Germany (now Gdynia, Poland); his father Ernst George Blofeld was Polish, and his mother Maria Stavro Michelopoulos was Greek, hence his Greek name Stavro.[1] After World War I, Blofeld became a Polish national. As a young man, he was well-versed in the social science disciplines, but also in the natural science and technology disciplines. He first graduated from the University of Warsaw with a degree in Political History and Economics, and then from the Warsaw University of Technology with a degree in Engineering and Radionics. He was then hired by the Polish Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs and appointed to a sensitive communication position, which he used for buying and selling stocks at the Warsaw Stock Exchange.[4]
Foreseeing World War II, Blofeld made copies of top-secret wires and sold them for cash to Nazi Germany. Before the German invasion of Poland in 1939, he destroyed all records of his existence, then moved first to Sweden, then to Turkey, where he worked for Turkish Radio and began to set up his own private intelligence organisation. During the war, he sold information to both sides. After the defeat of Erwin Rommel, he decided to back the Allied war effort, and was awarded numerous medals by the Allied powers after the war's end. Blofeld then moved temporarily to South America before founding SPECTRE.
In the John Gardner novel For Special Services, Blofeld is depicted as having had a daughter, Nena, with a French prostitute.
Although Fleming himself never confirmed it, it is generally thought that the character of Blofeld was based on real-life Greek arms dealer Basil Zaharoff.[5] It is commonly believed that the name Blofeld was inspired by the English cricket commentator Henry Blofeld's father, with whom Fleming went to school.[6] Henry Blofeld offered on the BBC Radio 4 series Just a Minute that "Ian took my father's name as the name of the baddie."[7]
In novels
Blofeld has three appearances in Ian Fleming's novels. He first appears in a minor role as the leader of SPECTRE in the 1961 novel Thunderball. The plot that he formulates is carried out by his second-in-command Emilio Largo. Blofeld is described physically as a massive man, weighing roughly 20 st (280 lbs, 140 kg), who had previously been a champion amateur weightlifter in his youth before becoming obese in middle age; he has black crew-cut hair, black eyes (similar to those of Benito Mussolini), heavy eyelashes, a thin mouth, and long pointed hands and feet. He has violet-scented breath from chewing flavored cachous (breath mints), a habit he adopts whenever he must deliver bad news. A meticulous planner of formidable intellect, he seems to be without conscience but not necessarily insane, and is motivated solely by financial gain. Blofeld's lifestyle is described in one chapter in Thunderball: "For the rest, he didn't smoke or drink and he had never been known to sleep with a member of either sex. He didn't even eat very much."
The novel Thunderball indicates Blofeld wants to be a man of honor (or at least to appear so). The book describes Blofeld promising that a girl he's holding hostage will be returned unharmed if her father pays the ransom. An agent called "Number 9" is in charge of the hostage and, after the money is paid, he rapes her before returning her home. After learning this, Blofeld kills Number 9 for disobeying orders and returns half the ransom money. In the movie Thunderball, Number 9 is killed for embezzlement rather than rape.
Blofeld is absent from the next novel, The Spy Who Loved Me, though its events take place while Bond is battling SPECTRE in North America. In On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1963), Bond learns that Blofeld has altered his appearance radically —he is now tall and thin; has reduced his weight to 12 stone (170 lb; 76 kg); sports long silver hair, a syphilitic infection on his nose, and no earlobes; he wears dark green tinted contact lenses to hide his distinctive eyes. Perhaps less calculating than previously, he is notably saddled with the exploitable weakness of snobbery about his assumed nobility, indicating that he is losing his sanity. He is hiding in Switzerland in the guise of the Comte Balthazar de Bleuchamp and Bond defeats his vindictive 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 Bond finds him hiding in Japan under the alias Dr. Guntram Shatterhand. He has once again changed his appearance. He has put on some muscle, and has a gold-capped tooth, a fully healed nose, and a drooping grey mustache. Bond describes Blofeld on their confrontation as being "a big man, perhaps six foot three (190 cm), and powerfully built." It is indicated that Blofeld has by now gone completely insane, as he all but admits himself when Bond levels the accusation. Bond strangles him to death in a fit of rage at the end of the novel (something that he had done only once before, to Auric Goldfinger). In both On Her Majesty's Secret Service and You Only Live Twice, Blofeld is aided in his schemes by Irma Bunt, who is clearly his lover in the latter, and posing as Shatterhand's wife. Bond incapacitates her in their Japanese castle base before it blows up, killing Bunt. The final mention of Blofeld is in the beginning of the next novel, The Man with the Golden Gun, published in 1965.
In films
Blofeld's depiction in film influenced with great effect the depiction of supervillains and (together with that of Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather) that of Mafia bosses both in films and printed media, as, since his first appearance on the big screen in 1963, he established some "standards" imitated for decades, such as mysterious identities, being portrayed stroking a pet and with the face unseen by the spectator or the viewpoint character, and the concept of spectacularly executing underlings who fail to defeat the main protagonist.
Original timeline
In the film series, Blofeld first appears in From Russia with Love (credited as "Ernst Blofeld", though the name is never heard), then in Thunderball (uncredited). In these two appearances, his name is never spoken, his face is not seen, and only his lower body is visible as he strokes his trademark white cat.
Czech actor Jan Werich was originally cast by producer Harry Saltzman to play Blofeld in You Only Live Twice. Upon his arrival at the Pinewood set, both producer Albert R. Broccoli and director Lewis Gilbert felt that he was a bad choice, resembling a "poor, benevolent Santa Claus." Nonetheless, in an attempt to make the casting work, Gilbert continued filming. After five days, both Gilbert and Broccoli determined that Werich was not menacing enough, and recast Donald Pleasence in the role – the official excuse being that Werich was ill.[8]
In the third, fourth, and fifth appearances – You Only Live Twice, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever – he is the primary antagonist, meeting Bond face-to-face. During the opening sequence of Diamonds Are Forever, he reveals to Bond that some of his men have undergone plastic surgery to become his decoy duplicates.
In the film version of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, he is not Tracy Bond's (Diana Rigg) actual killer. He drives the car from which Irma Bunt (Ilse Steppat) fires the fatal shots at Tracy, minutes after she marries Bond.
In a sixth appearance – in the pre-credit sequence of For Your Eyes Only – he is an anonymous, bald, wheelchair-bound villain trying to kill Bond once again. Blofeld remains unnamed and unlisted in the film's end credits. The only clues to his identity are the trademark white cat,[9] similar clothes to his previous onscreen appearances, the dialogue indicating he and Bond have met before, and the fact that the scene begins with Bond paying his respects at Tracy's grave, often considered by the producers as a means of providing an "immediate continuity link" in the event of a new actor taking the part of Bond (although this was Roger Moore's fifth appearance as Bond).[10] The anonymity of the villain was due to the legal dispute between Kevin McClory and Eon Productions over the Thunderball copyrights.[11]
Blofeld's appearance changes according to the personifying actor and the production.[12] He has a full head of black hair in From Russia With Love and Thunderball; a bald head and a facial dueling scar in You Only Live Twice; a bald head with no scar or earlobes in On Her Majesty's Secret Service; and silver-grey hair in Diamonds Are Forever. This metamorphosing matches Fleming's literary portrayal of a master criminal who will go to great lengths to preserve his anonymity, including the use of plastic surgery.[12] He often wears a jacket without lapels, based loosely either on the Nehru jacket or on the Mao suit, a feature which is used in spoofs like the Austin Powers series, though in his early two appearances on film he wears a black business suit.
Rebooted continuity
By November 2013, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and the McClory estate had formally settled the issue with Danjaq and MGM and acquired the full copyright to the characters and concepts of Blofeld and SPECTRE.[13] Blofeld consequently reappeared in Spectre, played by Christoph Waltz, and with a new background. In this continuity, he was born Franz Oberhauser, the son of Hannes Oberhauser, James Bond's (Daniel Craig) legal guardian after being orphaned at the age of 11, making him and Bond adoptive brothers. As a young man, he murdered his father, staged his own death, and took on the alias of "Ernst Stavro Blofeld", using his mother's maiden name. He then assembled the global criminal organisation known as Spectre.
He is revealed to have been trying for years to destroy Bond, whom he resents for having been his father's favourite; he is thus revealed to have been the power behind the villains of the previous three films - Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), and Raoul Silva (Javier Bardem) - who were all Spectre agents. At the end of the film, Bond has him at gunpoint, but spares his life. M (Ralph Fiennes) takes Blofeld into custody after helping Bond foil his plan to take control of the world's national security intelligence data. This incarnation again wears a jacket without lapels, has a full head of hair, and is disfigured in the course of the film, echoing the duelling scar of Donald Pleasence's version. He is also briefly shown with a white Persian cat.
Blofeld, again portrayed by Waltz, will appear in the upcoming Bond film No Time to Die.[14]
Table of film appearances
| Year | Film | Actor and notes | Status after the film concludes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1963 | From Russia with Love | Anthony Dawson as actor (only hands and back of head are seen), Eric Pohlmann as voice actor; the end credits list a question mark instead of an actor's name in the "Ernst Blofeld" field (however, he is only referred to as "Number One" in the film). | Active/indirect involvement in the field. Never has any contact with Bond. |
| 1965 | Thunderball | Anthony Dawson as actor (only hands and back of head are seen), Eric Pohlmann as voice actor,[10] both uncredited; the end credits do not list Blofeld (maybe due to the fact that he is only referred to as "Number One" in the film). | Active/indirect involvement in the field. Never has any contact with Bond. |
| 1967 | You Only Live Twice | Donald Pleasence. Actor Jan Werich was originally cast; some clips show his hands petting the cat, and a tuft of hair can be seen just above the back of his chair. Pleasence, with a fake white eye and scar on his face, replaced Werich during filming when the latter was deemed unsuited for the role. | Injured in his right hand by a shuriken; escapes. |
| 1969 | On Her Majesty’s Secret Service | Telly Savalas; appears with earlobes removed to back up claim to a noble title. | Escapes; he was the driver in the drive-by murder of Tracy Bond. |
| 1971 | Diamonds Are Forever | Charles Gray; appears also as doubles, all created via plastic surgery. | He attempts to escape in his mini-sub, but Bond gains control of it and crashes it into the control room. |
| 1981 | For Your Eyes Only | John Hollis as actor, Robert Rietty as voice actor;[15] Blofeld's face is not seen close-up and his name is not used, due to the legal battle with Kevin McClory revealed in the film's DVD commentary. | Dropped down an industrial chimney from a helicopter. |
| 1983 | Never Say Never Again (non-Eon) | Max von Sydow. Appears in a small number of scenes. | Active/indirect involvement in the field. Never has any direct contact with Bond. |
| 2015 | Spectre | Christoph Waltz; he, identified as being of Austrian ancestry, is initially known by his birth name as "Franz Oberhauser", but reveals that he began using his mother's maiden name, "Blofeld", after faking his own death. Later on in the film, Bond disfigures him in an explosion, leaving him with a milky eye and a facial scar reminiscent of Donald Pleasence's portrayal of the character. | Captured by Bond and arrested by M. Currently in MI6 custody. |
| 2020 | No Time to Die | Christoph Waltz | |
Video games
Blofeld appears in the end of the 2004 video game GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, with the likeness of Donald Pleasence, voiced by Gideon Emery.
Blofeld is a playable multiplayer character in the 2010 video game GoldenEye 007 for the Wii, with the likeness of Charles Gray.[16]
Blofeld is one of the main characters in the 2012 Craig-era video game 007 Legends, featured in the mission based on On Her Majesty's Secret Service (set between Quantum of Solace and Skyfall), in which the character is an amalgamation of the first three actors appearing in the official film series. Throughout the game, he is voiced by Glenn Wrage. Legends, released prior to Blofeld's appearance in Spectre, portrays a feud with 007 that is not related to the film, thus rendering the video game non-canonical to the cinematic timeline.
Homages
Some of Blofeld's characteristics have become supervillain tropes in popular fiction and media, including the parodies Dr. Claw (and his pet cat, M.A.D. Cat) from the Inspector Gadget animated series (1983–86), Team Rocket leader Giovanni and his Persian cat from the Pokémon television series, and Dr. Evil (and his cat Mr. Bigglesworth) from the Austin Powers film series (1997–2002).[17] The 1999 The Powerpuff Girls episode "Cat Man Do" also features a supervillain with a cat, though it is the feline that turns out to be the criminal mastermind.[18] In The Penguins of Madagascar, the recurring villain Dr. Blowhole is a parody and homage to Blofeld. The rendition for Lex Luthor in Superman: The Animated Series, and to a certain extent, various entries of the DC Animated Universe, were derived in part from Telly Savalas' portrayal of Blofeld in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.[19]
Similar to The Powerpuff Girls example, General Viggo (a white Persian cat) is the villain of the video game Fur Fighters, whilst his pet is a small mutant human named Fifi.
In Hindi Film Shaan (1980), the main antagonist was inspired by Blofeld.
References
- Griswold, John (2006). Ian Fleming's James Bond: Annotations and Chronologies for Ian Fleming's Bond Stories. Bloomington, Indiana: AuthorHouse. p. 34. ISBN 978-1425931001.
- Rovin, Jeff (1987). The Encyclopedia of Supervillains. New York: Facts on File. pp. 122–123. ISBN 0-8160-1356-X.
- Buckton, Oliver (8 October 2015). Espionage in British Fiction and Film since 1900: The Changing Enemy. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. p. 244. ISBN 978-1-4985-0484-3.
Yet this suggestion of femininity in Blofeld's face is belied by his massive girth, his body "weighed about twenty stone. It had once been all muscle ... but in the past ten years it had softened and he had a vast belly that he concealed behind roomy trousers.
- "The Bond Film Informant: Ernst Stavro Blofeld". Mjnewton.demon.co.uk. 28 May 2008. Archived from the original on 8 November 2016. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- Spence, Richard B. (2010). "Aleister Crowley, Sidney Reilly, Basil Zaharoff: Their Influence on the Creation of James Bond and His World". In Becker, Jack; Paschall, Freedonia; Weiner, Robert (eds.). James Bond and Popular Culture: The Films Are Not Enough. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Scholars Press. ISBN 978-0786477937.
- "BBC Radio 4 – Desert Island Discs, Henry Blofeld". Bbc.co.uk. 5 December 2003. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- "BBC Radio 4 – Just a Minute, Series 67, Episode 3". Bbc.co.uk. 2 September 2013. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
- Production Staff (2000). Inside You Only Live Twice: An Original Documentary (Television). MGM Home Entertainment Inc.
- Williams, Max (24 July 2016). "For Your Eyes Only: The Last Good Roger Moore James Bond Movie". Den of Geek. London, England: Dennis Publishing. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
- Lane, Andy; Simpson, Paul (1999). The Bond Files: An Unofficial Guide to the World's Greatest Secret Agent. London, England: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-0753507124.
- Smith, Jim; Lavington, Stephen (2002). Bond Films. London, England: Virgin Books. p. 178. ISBN 9780753507094.
- Unger, Melissa (9 November 2015). "What James Bond Mythology Tells Us About Spectre". Screen Rant. Retrieved 22 May 2017.
- Vejvoda, Jim (15 November 2013). "MGM, Danjaq Settle James Bond Rights Dispute With McClory Estate". IGN. San Francisco, California: j2 Global. Retrieved 16 November 2013.
- "One Last Thing..." MI6-HQ.com. 3 September 2019. Retrieved 4 December 2019.
- Cork, John; Stutz, Collin (2007). James Bond Encyclopedia. New York: DK Pub. p. 40. ISBN 9780756631673.
- Franich, Darren (25 August 2017). "What the James Bond movies can learn from the GoldenEye video game". Entertainment Weekly. New York City: Meredith Corporation. Retrieved 26 June 2018.
- Martens, Todd (28 March 2015). "Spectre trailer reinvents a famous Bond rival". Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, California: Tronc. Retrieved 7 November 2015.
- "Cat Man Do". The Powerpuff Girls. Season 1. Episode 10. 27 January 1999. Cartoon Network.
- Bader, Hilary J. (writer) and Tomonaga, Kazuhide (director) (14 September 1996). "A Little Piece of Home". Superman: The Animated Series. Season 1. Episode 5 (airdate). Episode 5 (production). Kids WB!. DVD Pop-Up Trivia