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
Christoph Waltz film "The Zero Theorem" (2013), American plagiarist Walter Keane in the biographical film "Big Eyes" (2014), and James Bond's nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofeld in "Spectre" (2015), the twenty-fourth Bond film. Waltz was born in Vienna, the son of Johannes Waltz and Elisabeth Urbancic, set and costume designers, from Germany and Austria respectively. His maternal grandfather, Rudolf von Urban, was a psychiatrist and psychologist who wrote the book "Sex Perfection and Marital Happiness". His maternal grandmother was Burgtheater actress Maria Mayen, and his step-grandfather was actor Emmerich Reimers. His great-grandparents also worked in theatre. Waltz studied acting at the Max Reinhardt