Biography
Donald Pleasence was an English actor. Born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, he began his career on the stage in the late 1930s before serving in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, during which he was shot down and held as a prisoner of war.
He appeared in more than 200 screen roles over four decades. Pleasence played Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe, the forger, in The Great Escape (1963). He is also known for portraying Ernst Stavro Blofeld in You Only Live Twice (1967) and Dr Sam Loomis in the Halloween series, beginning with the 1978 original. He received an OBE for services to drama in 1994 and died in France in 1995.
