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 a radio show called The Coffeehouse in New York City. Savalas began as an executive director and then senior director of the news special events at ABC. He then became an executive producer for the "Gillette Cavalcade of Sports," where he gave Howard Cosell his first job in television. In the fall of 1959 Savalas directed Scott Vincent and Howard Cosell in "Report to New York," WABC-TV's first local TV news program. Savalas did not consider acting as a career until asked if he could recommend an actor who could do a European accent. He did but the friend could