He’s bald, he loves his cat, and he lives in a volcano. Yes, you don’t need to be a James Bond aficionado to know we’re talking about Ernst Stavro Blofeld, 007’s greatest adversary (although technically, only one screen version of the character ticks off all three of those points). Bond has faced many megalomaniacs and masterminds over the past 60 years, and some of them are just as memorable: Auric Goldfinger, Scaramanga, and Le Chiffre to name just three. Yet Blofeld remains the greatest Bond villain ever, playing Professor Moriarty to the suave spy’s Sherlock Holmes, the Joker to his Batman. Much like the Dark Knight and his arch-enemy, they represent flip sides of the same coin and are likely to face off as long as people make Bond movies (who really thinks that “No Time to Die” will be the last we see of both characters?).

Advertisement

Since his intriguing first appearance in “From Russia With Love,” Blofeld has appeared in eight films if you include one unofficial remake and a cheeky unnamed cameo (which we most certainly do). Donald Pleasence’s iconic look in “You Only Live Twice” is the standard by which all others are measured, but Blofeld’s appearance has changed significantly depending on the actor playing him. This is consistent with how Ian Fleming wrote the character; Blofeld was described as a tall and heavy-set man in “Thunderball,” but he had altered his appearance in “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” to lean and silver-haired with no earlobes. On screen, the supervillain’s beloved cat has been the most consistent factor, only absent in “No Time to Die.” Let’s take a look at all the actors who have played SPECTRE’s Number One and rank them from worst to best.

Advertisement

“For Your Eyes Only” is a middling entry in the Roger Moore era, a period that represents the Bond franchise at its most irreverent. That’s on full display in a cold open which apparently ignores the events of “Diamonds Are Forever” (007’s previous clash with Blofeld) and turns Bond’s greatest enemy into a mockery. It begins seriously enough: Calling back to the tragic conclusion of “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” we find Bond laying flowers on his wife’s grave before a helicopter arrives to whisk him back to HQ. 

Advertisement

Little does he know that it’s a trap set by Blofeld, now wheelchair-bound and sporting a neck brace that possibly references Telly Savalas’s painful accident at the end of “OHMSS.” Electrocuting the pilot, Blofeld operates the chopper wirelessly from a factory rooftop, intent on tormenting Bond before sending him to a fiery death. Naturally, Bond manages to flip the script on his nemesis by seizing the controls, scooping him up, and dumping him down a smokestack.

This version of the character was not officially named Blofeld, although absolutely no one will be fooled otherwise by his appearance. Actor John Hollis was the Savalas-looking stand-in, while Robert Rietty laid it on thick with the accent. The jokey cameo was a workaround solution to a legal dispute regarding the rights to the character, a big “up yours” from the Eon studio by killing him off in a pretty disrespectful manner. The final kiss-off is the seemingly nonsensical plea from Blofeld: “I’ll buy you a delicatessen — in stainless steel!” According to Albert Broccoli’s autobiography, it was a line he inserted as a Mafia reference intended to show that the producers were now dismissing the master criminal as little more than a common mob boss.

Advertisement

The legal wrangling regarding Blofeld and his origins in the James Bond series also resulted in his second-worst screen appearance in “Never Say Never Again.” The dispute began after Ian Fleming recruited screenwriter and producer Kevin McClory to work with him on a script for a movie called “Longitude 78 West.” Fleming incorporated elements of that into his 1961 novel “Thunderball,” including the introduction of Blofeld and his global crime syndicate SPECTRE. The author neglected to credit McClory and his other collaborators, resulting in a court case that gave McClory the rights to make his own adaptation once 10 years had passed after the Eon version starring Sean Connery in 1965. McClory’s take on the story eventually became “Never Say Never Again” with an aging Connery reprising the role of James Bond once again.

Advertisement

A “Thunderball” remake needed its own Blofeld, and Max von Sydow seems like a great pick on paper. The formidable Swedish actor was adept at commanding any scene he was in and had an innate quality of keen intelligence and erudition, not to mention making a memorable impression as Ming the Merciless in “Flash Gordon” a few years earlier. In practice, however, von Sydow contributed perhaps the least-threatening of all the on-screen Blofelds. Although he got to keep the cat (an Eon addition to the character) his look and manner was totally off. Dressed in a natty suit with a dickie bow and sporting a grey beard, he came across more like an avuncular college professor than an evil genius.

“Spectre” had a lot to live up to after the spectacular success of “Skyfall,” but hopes were high when rumors emerged that two-time Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz would play Blofeld in the 24th film of the franchise. Early details revealed that he was lined up for an unknown character called Franz Oberhauser, but it didn’t take much for people to quickly (and correctly) speculate that the name was an alias and Waltz would indeed play Bond’s eternal foe. 

Advertisement

Much like Max von Sydow, the Austrian actor made great sense for the part after wowing audiences in his breakthrough role as Hans Landa in “Inglourious Basterds.” Waltz played the charming and ruthless S.S. man with tremendous relish, but not much of that flair found its way into his performance in “Spectre.” He plays Blofeld so casually that it’s almost like he dropped by the studio on his day off, going through the motions as he flatly delivers the mandatory monologues and his peculiar new “cuckoo” catchphrase. 

With Waltz so horizontally laid-back, he and Daniel Craig don’t generate much heat in their exposition-heavy scenes together. Worse still, the big twist that Blofeld is actually Bond’s long-lost foster brother had unfortunate “Austin Powers” vibes since Dr. Evil revealed a very similar bombshell in “Goldmember” years earlier. It might not have felt like such a cop-out if Waltz’s Blofeld wasn’t so lackadaisical, and insult was added to injury by his unceremonious death as the secondary villain in “No Time to Die.” All in all, Waltz’s portrayal was a disappointing return for the character after such a long wait for Bond fans.

Advertisement

“Diamonds Are Forever” is often regarded as the worst of Sean Connery’s official Eon outings as James Bond, and Charles Gray’s performance as the new-look Blofeld is also very divisive. But let’s give him some credit: He might not be everybody’s idea of a master villain, but Gray certainly injects a little fun into an odd entry that feels more third-rate Roger Moore than classic Connery. Things start out well enough, carrying on directly from “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” with Bond on a rampage to track down and kill his arch-enemy after the murder of his wife. After seemingly accomplishing his goal, Connery sleepwalks through the next hour as he goes undercover to investigate a diamond smuggling ring.

Advertisement

But Blofeld isn’t really dead. He’s been using plastic surgery and a voice box to create duplicates of himself, and those diamonds have an important role in his latest attempt to hold the world ransom. Gray, perhaps best known as the Narrator in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show,” gave us another very different Blofeld after appearing briefly as a totally different character in “You Only Live Twice.” Chomping on a very long cigarette holder, his supercilious diction and stiff body language gives Blofeld a prissy aristocratic air that contrasts nicely with Connery’s nonchalant red-bloodedness. Gray’s camp factor cannot be overstated, not least in a scene when he drags up for no apparent reason — a moment that seems inspired by British comedian Dick Emery’s character Mandy (“Ooh, you are awful!”). Combined with the presence of the gay henchmen Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd, it’s not hard to see why “Diamonds Are Forever” has become a popular entry in queer reads on the Bond franchise.

Advertisement

“James Bond … allow me to introduce myself.” After the supervillain was teased so brilliantly in “From Russia With Love” and “Thunderball,” audiences and 007 finally got to meet Blofeld face-to-face in “You Only Live Twice.” Yet it still takes a while to reach that moment — Donald Pleasence made such a memorable impression that it’s easy to forget we spend a long time watching his hands stroke a cat and hearing him issuing sinister instructions to his underlings.

Advertisement

But then comes the moment we’re waiting for as we finally get a look at the head of SPECTRE. Pleasence was such a versatile actor and he goes big here, giving Blofeld such a sense of otherness with that maniacal blank stare, twitch of a sick smile, and oddly non-specific European accent. The vivid scar down one side of his face was Pleasence’s own addition after experimenting with various deformities to make the character more unsettling. It certainly worked and, combined with the greatest Bond villain lair and the quintessential Bond villain plan, all these factors made Pleasence’s Blofeld the most iconic baddie in the whole series.

So why is he only ranked third? Well, here’s the thing: Mike Myers did such a grand job of lampooning ’60s-era Bond in the “Austin Powers” movies that it is impossible not to think of Dr. Evil when we look at Pleasence’s Blofeld. I mean, who can watch him dump an unfortunate employee into a pond of hungry piranhas without thinking about ill-tempered sea bass or sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads? 

Advertisement

The Bond franchise was already starting to show signs of repetitiveness and gadget-fatigue when Sean Connery hung up the tux after “You Only Live Twice.” As a result, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service” was a course-correction exercise intended to return the series to more plot-driven spy thrillers like “From Russia With Love.” Its effectiveness was unbalanced somewhat by George Lazenby’s tentative introduction, but Telly Savalas picked up the slack with a far more believable Blofeld after Donald Pleasence’s comic book-style megalomaniac.

Advertisement

He has larger-than-life moments, such as his plan to deploy a squad of Fembot-like brainwashed beauties to spread a virus around the world, but even his swanky mountaintop lair feels more down-to-earth — indeed, you can still visit the Piz Gloria location in Switzerland. His believability makes him one of the few Bond masterminds who feels like he can pose a real physical threat to James Bond. Lazenby was a strapping fellow, but there are times when he seems in genuine peril, not least in the thrilling climactic bobsled chase.

Peril is something often lacking from Bond movies but Savalas provided it in a major way, and his Blofeld also gave us the single most devastating moment in the entire series. Just when we think Bond has found true love and marital bliss with Countess Tracy di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), Blofeld arranges a drive-by shooting that misses his arch-enemy but kills her instead. The callousness of the murder really lingers and it wouldn’t have worked so well without Savalas’s grittier take on the character — I can’t imagine Donald Pleasence or Charles Gray’s version stooping that low.

Advertisement

Many of the tropes we associate with Ernst Stavro Blofeld were established before we even got a proper look at him: The cat stroking, the calm but menacing voice, the big world map for plotting evil schemes, the board room table surrounded by cowering SPECTRE members, Blofeld’s method of dispatching with underperforming underlings. All of this was in “From Russia With Love” and “Thunderball,” contributing to one of the greatest prolonged reveals of a villain in movie history, and what sold it was the old adage that less is more. Like the great white shark in “Jaws,” Blofeld is far scarier when he (or his face, at least) is kept off-screen.

Advertisement

Blofeld made his first appearance in “From Russia With Love,” conducting operations from his yacht. His face remains out of sight and all we see is his finely tailored sleeves and his hands caressing his white cat. We know this guy is bad news, however: The reactions and body language of Rosa Klebb (Lotte Lenya), SPECTRE’s number three, make it clear that she is in mortal fear of him. 

We got to see slightly more of him in “Thunderball.” Aside from more cat-stroking, we also see him silhouetted behind shutters as he addresses his lieutenants from a glass booth. Significantly, he is positioned at a higher level than the other SPECTRE agents, a power play that makes it clear that he is the undisputed boss. In both cases, the physical presence was provided by Anthony Dawson, who played Professor Dent in “Dr. No,” while the voice was dubbed by Austrian actor Eric Pohlmann. Despite the fact we never see either man’s face, this composite performance remains the finest screen version of Blofeld.

Advertisement