Eric Pohlmann

Eric Pohlmann (; born Erich Pollak; 18 July 1913 – 25 July 1979) was an Austrian theatre, film and television character actor who worked mostly in the United Kingdom. He is known for voicing Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the primary antagonist of the James Bond series, in the films From Russia with Love and Thunderball. Early life Pohlmann was born in Vienna, Austria-Hungary, and received classical actor training under the renowned director Max Reinhardt. He appeared at the Raimund Theater, and supplemented his income by working as an entertainer in a bar. In 1939, he followed his fiancée and later wife, actress Lieselotte Goettinger (best known in the UK for playing the concentration camp guard in the war films, Odette and Carve Her Name With Pride), into exile in London. Until mid-1941, both were kept in an internment camp. After their release, Eric took part in propaganda broadcasts against the Nazis on the BBC World Service. In order to earn a living, the Pohlmanns temporarily took positions in the household of the Duke of Bedford, Lieselotte as a cook and Eric, as he then became known, as butler. Career After the war, he began a career on the London stage. Among other roles he played "Peachum" in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera. From the end of the 1940s, Pohlmann was often present in film and television productions, taking supporting roles in various adventure and crime films, and appearing occasionally in comedies. His large frame and massive features typecast him in roles as master criminals and spies, or conversely as police officers or detectives, as well as other figures of authority. He was frequently cast in "foreign" roles, portraying Turks, Italians, Arabs, Greeks or Asians; he also played King George I, King George II in Disney's Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue and King George III twice.