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
James Bond uncollected and other miscellaneous short stories bridge-related short stories entitled "Your Deal, Mr. Bond" was published by B. T. Batsford (). The title piece is a short story featuring James Bond, who is assigned by M to defeat a villain named Saladin who is threatening to explode nuclear bombs in several major cities. Bond impersonates real-life bridge expert Zia Mahmood in order to combat Saladin at the bridge table. The short story includes bridge game charts in a similar fashion to that used by Ian Fleming in "Moonraker", in which Bond similarly plays a high-stakes game of bridge against that novel's villain. The book, despite being