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
Max von Sydow in Ingmar Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" (1957), the first of his eleven films with Bergman and the film that includes the iconic scenes in which he plays chess with Death; Martin in "Through a Glass Darkly" (1961); Jesus in "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965); Oktober in "The Quiller Memorandum" (1966); Karl Oskar Nilsson in "The Emigrants" (1971); Roy Lindberg in "The Apple War" (1971); Father Lankester Merrin in "The Exorcist" (1973); Joubert the assassin in "Three Days of the Condor" (1975); Ming the Merciless in "Flash Gordon" (1980); the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film "Never