Donald Pleasence
Donald Pleasence (born October 5, 1919 in Worksop , Nottinghamshire , England , † February 2, 1995 in Saint-Paul-de-Vence , France ) was a British actor . Critics called him the "man with hypnotic eyes".
Life
Pleasence was born the younger of two sons of a station master. A year before graduation, he left school and received a place at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for training as an actor, but could not take it because he did not receive the necessary scholarship to finance a living. After working for the British Railways, he was employed a year and a half later as Assistant Stage Manager at the theater on the island of Jersey . It was there that his acting career began in 1939 by participating in a theatrical version of Emily Brontë's novella Wuthering Heights . He was quickly successful and in 1942, during his first engagement in London, he played the curio in Shakespeare's What You Want .
His acting career was interrupted by World War II. As a pacifist, he initially refused military service and worked as a lumberjack for six months, but then changed his mind and went to the Royal Air Force , where he participated in almost 60 missions as a radio operator and gunner of the 166th Squadron of the RAF Bomber Command . On August 31, 1944, the Lancaster NE112, of which he was a crew member, was shot down in an attack on Agenville . Pleasance was captured and was interned in the Air Force Stalag Luft I POW camp in Barth until the end of the war .
He resumed acting a year after the end of the war. After working in Birmingham , he was hired by the prestigious Bristol Old Vic Company. There Laurence Olivier noticed him. In 1951, Pleasence went on a tour to New York with Olivier and Vivien Leigh , where they appeared in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Antonius and Cleopatra . After further theatrical successes, he began working for film and television in the first half of the 1950s. He celebrated a great theatrical success in 1960 in London and then on Broadway in New York in the role of Davies in the drama The Caretaker by Harold Pinter , which was later also made into a film.
Pleasence had its breakthrough in Hollywood in 1963 with the film Broken Chains , which was followed by other roles in major Hollywood productions. He also played the arch-villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice . From the 1970s he also appeared frequently in B movies ( horror , mystery films ). With the role of the psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis in the movie Halloween by director John Carpenter , which became a huge hit with audiences and followed by five sequels, Pleasence became a cult figure in the horror film genre . His penultimate appearance was in the Italian slasher film Fatal Frames . Within a year, he starred in both 1976 and 1977 productions entitled Jesus of Nazareth ; In 1976 he was still seen as Pontius Pilatus, the following year he played the role of Melchior.
Pleasence was considered to be work-mad, which prompted him to appear in mediocre films that were below his level in terms of performance. He also emerged as an author of children's books.
Pleasence had daughters Angela and Jean with his first wife, Miriam Raymond, with whom he was married from 1941 to 1958. From his marriage to the actress and singer Josephine Martin Crombie from 1959 to 1970, the daughters Lucy and Polly Jo emerged. During her marriage to Meira Shore from 1970 to 1988, his daughter Miranda was born. He was married to his fourth wife, Linda, until his death.
While filming Halloween VI - The Curse of Michael Myers , Pleasence died in his adopted home of Saint-Paul-de-Vence in southern France of complications after a heart valve operation .
German dubbing voices
In its long acting career, Pleasence did not have a permanent German speaker, but since the early 1960s it has been spoken most frequently by Wolfgang Spier (14 times), Friedrich W. Bauschulte (10 times) and Horst Sachtleben (seven times), and on a temporary basis by Friedrich G Beckhaus (5 times, including in The Princes of Darkness ); in the first two parts of the Halloween series it was spoken by Holger Hagen .
Filmography (selection)
- 1954: Banished to Paradise (The Beachcomber)
- 1956: Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)
- 1957: Manuela
- 1958: Heart of a Child
- 1958: Two cities (A Tale of Two Cities)
- 1959: Look Back in Anger (Look Back in Anger)
- 1959: The Flesh and the Fiends
- 1959: The Naked Mirror
- 1960: Hetzjagd (Hell is a City)
- 1960: David and King Saul (A Story of David)
- 1960: The Red Shadow (Circus of Horrors)
- 1960: Sons and Lovers (Sons and Lovers)
- 1960: And tomorrow everything (No Love for Johnny)
- 1960: Temptation on the school desk (Spare the Road)
- 1960: The sinister hands of Dr. Orlak (The Hands of Orlac)
- 1961: Corpse on vacation (What a Carve Up!)
- 1962: The Inspector ( Lisa )
- 1962: Dr. Crippen (Dr Crippen)
- 1963: Broken Chains (The Great Escape)
- 1963: The Caretaker
- 1965: The Greatest Story Ever Told (The Greatest Story Ever Told)
- 1965: Matchless
- 1965: Forty Cars Westward (The Hallelujah Trail)
- 1966: The Night of the Generals (The Night of the Generals)
- 1966: The Fantastic Voyage
- 1966: The Black 13 (Eye of the Devil)
- 1966: When Katelbach comes ... (cul-de-sac)
- 1967: James Bond 007 You Only Live Twice
- 1967: The Daring One (Will Penny)
- 1968: Mr. Freedom (Mister Freedom)
- 1969: The Madwoman of Chaillot (The Madwoman of Chaillot)
- 1970: The Lullaby of Homicide (Soldier Blue)
- 1971: Kidnapped (Kidnapped)
- 1971: The Pied Piper (The Pied Piper)
- 1971: THX 1138
- 1971: Holidays in Hell (Wake in Fright)
- 1971: The Second Command (The Jerusalem File)
- 1972: Henry VIII and His Six Wives
- 1972: He who lives last lives best (Innocent Bystanders)
- 1973: Adventure Gold (The Rainbow Boys)
- 1973: Columbo (TV series, episode 3x02 Wine is thicker than blood)
- 1973: Mally's Bucht ( Malachi's Cove , TV movie)
- 1973: Tunnel of the Living Corpses (Death Line)
- 1974: The Laboratory of Horror - The Freakmaker (The Mutations)
- 1974: The Black Windmill (The Black Windmill)
- 1974: From Beyond the Grave
- 1974: Two like bad luck and brimstone (... altrimenti ci arrabbiamo!)
- 1975: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ( Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde , Movie made for TV)
- 1975: Escape to Witch Mountain (Escape to Witch Mountain)
- 1975: Der Graf von Monte Cristo (The Count of Monte Cristo, TV movie)
- 1975: Hearts of the West
- 1976: Jesus of Nazareth (The Passover Plot)
- 1975: The Devil In Her (I Don't Want to Be Born)
- 1976: The Eagle Has Landed (The Eagle Has Landed)
- 1976: The Last Tycoon (The Last Tycoon)
- 1976: Journey into Fear (TV movie)
- 1976: Vigilante Justice (Trial by Combat)
- 1977: Jesus of Nazareth (Jesus of Nazareth, TV movie)
- 1977: Night Creature (Night Creature)
- 1977: Oh God ... (Oh God!)
- 1977: phone
- 1977: The Uncanny (The Uncanny)
- 1978: Halloween - The Night of Horror (John Carpenter's Halloween)
- 1978: Blood relatives (Les Liens de sang)
- 1978–1979: Colorado Saga (Centennial, TV series, 12 episodes)
- 1978: A man in anger (L'Homme à Colère)
- 1978: Tomorrow Never Comes
- 1978: Power Play
- 1978: Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band)
- 1979: Dracula
- 1979: on the Western Front (All Quiet on the Western Front, TV movie)
- 1979: Jaguar is alive! (Jaguar Lives!)
- 1979: Victor Charlie calls Lima Sierra (The French Atlantic Affair)
- 1979: White Slave of the Green Hell (Gold of the Amazon Women)
- 1979: Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff
- 1980: Blätter bowwärts ( Blade on the Feather , TV movie)
- 1980: The Puma Man (L'uomo puma)
- 1981: The Rattlesnake (Escape from New York)
- 1981: Halloween II - The horror returns (Halloween II)
- 1981: Monster Club (The Monster Club)
- 1981: A hotshot (Race for the Yankee Zephyr)
- 1982: Witness for the Prosecution ( TV film)
- 1982: Two hours to midnight (Alone in the Dark)
- 1983: Better Late Then Never
- 1983: The Heavens Machine - Invitation of a madman (Where is Parsifal?)
- 1983: The Last Warrior - fighters of a sunken world (Il guerriero del mondo perduto)
- 1983: Dance of the Witches (The Devonsville Terror)
- 1984: The Ambassador (The Ambassador)
- 1984: Black Arrow - War of the Roses (Black Arrow)
- 1984: The Brood of the Eagle (A Breed Apart)
- 1985: Phenomena
- 1985: In the Shadow of the Triumphal Arch (Arch of Triumph , TV movie)
- 1985: The Secret of the Blue Diamond (The Treasure of the Amazon)
- 1985: The Last Shot (Sotto il vestito niente)
- 1985: The return of the wild geese
- 1986: Scoop - sensational news (Scoop)
- 1986: Specters - Forces of Evil (Spettri)
- 1986: Warrior Queen
- 1987: Basements
- 1987: The Prince of Darkness
- 1987: Django's return (Django 2: il grande ritorno)
- 1987: Circle of Fear (Ground Zero)
- 1987: The fighting giant (double wears)
- 1987: Missing and Killed (To Kill a Stranger)
- 1987: Nosferatu in Venice (Nosferatu a Venezia)
- 1988: American rickshaw (American riscio)
- 1988: Bye Bye Vietnam (Angel Hill)
- 1988: The Commander (The Commander)
- 1988: The Great Escape - Revenge of the prisoners (The Great Escape II: The Untold Story)
- 1988: Halloween IV - Michael Myers Returns (Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers)
- 1988: Hanna's War
- 1988: The House of Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher)
- 1988: Off Balance - Death is waiting in Venice (Un delitto poco commune)
- 1989: Death on Safari (Ten Little Indians)
- 1989: Halloween V - The Revenge of Michael Myers (Halloween 5)
- 1989: Lost Girls (Buried Alive)
- 1989: River of Death - River of horror (River of Death)
- 1990: Dangerous Encounters (Donne armate)
- 1991: The vultures are already waiting (L'avvoltoio sa attendere, TV film)
- 1992: Diên Biên Phú - Symphony of Doom (Diên Biên Phú)
- 1992: Shadows and Fog (Shadows and Fog)
- 1993: The Hour of the Pig
- 1995: Halloween VI - The Curse of Michael Myers (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers)
- 1996: Fatal Frames (Fotogrammi mortali)
Web links
- Donald Pleasence in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Biography
Individual evidence
- ↑ Record for Lancaster NE112 on lostaircraft.com
- ^ Chorley, WR (1997), Royal Air Force Bomber Command Losses of the Second World War, Volume 5: 1944; p 407 . Midland Counties Publications, UK. ISBN 0-904597-91-1 .
- ↑ Donald Pleasence in the German dubbing index
personal data | |
---|---|
SURNAME | Pleasence, Donald |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English actor |
DATE OF BIRTH | October 5, 1919 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Worksop , Nottinghamshire , England |
DATE OF DEATH | February 2, 1995 |
Place of death | Saint-Paul-de-Vence , France |