Ernst Stavro Blofeld was the most enduring villain in the Bond universe. As the head of SPECTRE (Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion) he was required to be a true evil genius. The cat stroking maniac bent on world domination was well spoken and smartly dressed and he appeared in three of Fleming’s original novels. When it came to the Bond films they couldn’t resist using him a bit more and he was seen or at least heard in six of them. Blofeld has become a caricature of villainy and he is widely referenced in popular culture.

According to the books Blofeld was originally Polish and worked in Turkey for both the Nazis and the Allies during the Second World War. After the war ended he disappeared to South America and founded SPECTRE. He first appeared in the novel Thunderball, he was responsible for the death of Bond’s wife in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and he was eventually strangled to death by Bond in You Only Live Twice. His adventures in the films are completely different.

Blofeld was the original evil mastermind and he changed his appearance and took on disguises to evade capture. In the films he was played by multiple actors, perhaps most memorably by Donald Pleasance. However Max von Sydow, Telly Savalas and Charles Gray all tackled the role and he was also voiced by a range of uncredited actors in the outings where he was never seen or we only caught glimpses of his lower half stroking the cat.

He first appeared in From Russia With Love and then Thunderball but we never saw his face in either and his mystique was cleverly built up. He finally appeared in You Only Life Twice played by Donald Pleasance and it is this bald, scarred man in his Mao style suit that we usually remember. The film was set in Japan and Blofeld was found sitting in his trademark leather chair swinging round to face us with his white Persian cat in his lap; the iconic image of villainy. They actually started the film with the Czech actor Jan Werich in the role but it was felt he looked too much like Father Christmas and was far from menacing enough so Pleasance was drafted in to replace him.

You Only Live Twice was one of the most memorable Bond films ever made with a number of iconic villain moments. In one classic scene Blofeld explains his evil scheme to Bond in his control centre absolutely assured of his victory. There are a number of evil henchmen to defeat and Blofeld himself sets off the self destruct mechanism for his base which is hidden within a volcano before escaping down a secret tunnel.

On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was the next film to feature Blofeld and this time Telly Savalas was cast in the role. Savalas always seemed a strange choice to me and apparently he was suggested by producer Albert Broccoli. In this film Blofeld was in hiding in Switzerland but Bond tracked him down and ruined his evil scheme. In the aftermath Bond was married but Blofeld killed his new bride in a drive by shooting. This was actually one of the most faithful adaptations of Fleming’s work and it marked George Lazenby’s only appearance as Bond.

Diamonds are Forever marked the return of Sean Connery to the role of Bond and this time around Charles Gray was secured to play Blofeld. Weirdly Gray played a British contact by the name of Henderson in You Only Live Twice. In Diamonds are Forever Bond encounters a number of fake Blofelds before coming face to face with the real deal on his oil rig base and foiling the evil plot as usual. Charles Gray made a decent Blofeld with his self satisfied sneer although he lacked the presence and air of evil that Pleasance evinced so effortlessly.

For Your Eyes Only saw the peculiar death of Blofeld in the opening sequence although he could not be explicitly named for legal reasons. This is because Thunderball was owned by Kevin McClory and included the rights to the character. EON Productions decided to kill off Blofeld to send a message that the series didn’t need him and they ended up with a daft sequence in which Bond, played by Roger Moore, drops Blofeld in his motorised wheelchair down a chimney.

As it turned out this ignominious end was not to be the last screen appearance of Blofeld because the dispute led to the non-EON remake of Thunderball entitled Never Say Never Again. The producers were able to entice Connery back to the role that had made him famous and this time Blofeld was played by the talented Max von Sydow. The real villain of the film was Largo and sadly many of von Sydow’s scenes ended up on the cutting room floor.

No one ever really captured Ernst Stavro Blofeld the way Donald Pleasance did. He was truly a memorable villain and he has been so parodied over the years that his original menace has been reduced to cliché. The very idea of a super villain seems increasingly ridiculous nowadays. Baddies with secret hideouts, technological gadgets, multiple secret escape routes, armies of loyal but idiotic henchmen and white cats are a thing of the past but I for one miss them and their uncomplicated desire to do evil for the sake of it.