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
All the President's Men (film) Fonda, Richard Widmark, Christopher Plummer, Anthony Quinn, Gene Hackman, Burt Lancaster, Robert Stack, Robert Mitchum and Telly Savalas were also considered for the role. Character actor Martin Balsam played managing editor Howard Simons. According to Bradlee, Simons felt that he and his role were fatally shortchanged in the script and that he never got over his resentment. Bradlee teased "The Post" publisher Katharine Graham about who would play her in the film. “Names like Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Patricia Neal were tossed out—by us—to make her feel good,” Bradlee said. “And names like Edna May Oliver or Marie Dressler,