Telly Savalas He attribute his success to "his complete ability to be himself." Savalas had his first lead role in a film in "Crooks and Coronets" (1969), a British crime comedy. More widely seen was the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), where Savalas played Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Savalas had the lead in a Western shot in Spain, "Land Raiders" (1970), then was second-billed to Clint Eastwood in the war-heist film "Kelly's Heroes" (1970), shot in Yugoslavia, directed by Hutton. He was second-billed to Charles Bronson in an Italian–French crime film, "Violent City" (1970), then went to Hollywood to
Telly Savalas Starbuck" and was in "Faceless" (1987), "" (1988), "The Hollywood Detective" (1989), "" (1989), "" (1989), "" (1990), "" (1990), and "" (1990). He did an Australian miniseries, "Rose Against the Odds" (1991). Savalas's final appearances were in episodes of "The Commish" (his son-in-law was one of the producers) and the films "Mind Twister" (1993) and "Backfire!" (1995). As a singer, Savalas had some chart success. His spoken word version of Bread's "If" produced by Snuff Garrett reached #1 in both the UK and the Republic of Ireland in March 1975, and his sung version of Don Williams's "Some Broken