Telly Savalas Telly Savalas Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas (January 21, 1924 – January 22, 1994) was an American actor and singer whose career spanned four decades of television, noted for his resonant voice and his bald head. He also released the one-hit wonder song, "If?," which he introduced in the UK in 1975. Savalas's career began in films in 1961. His movie credits include "The Young Savages" (1961), "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965), "Battle of the Bulge" (1965), "The Dirty Dozen" (1967), "The Scalphunters" (1968), supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), "Kelly's Heroes"
Telly Savalas è al telefono" (1972), an Italian giallo; "Pancho Villa" (1972), playing the title role in a Spanish spaghetti Western; "A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die" (1972), another Western, this time with James Coburn; and "Senza ragione" (1973), an Italian thriller. "I had worked my way up to star billing," he later said, "when the bottom dropped out of the movie business. I could have stayed in Europe and made Italian, movies but I discovered the big difference between an Italian and American movie is that in the American movie you get paid." Savalas first played Detective Kojak in