Donald Henry Pleasence OBE (5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career. He played RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape and Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. He starred as psychiatrist Dr Samuel Loomis in Halloween and four of its sequels.
About Donald Pleasence in brief
Donald Henry Pleasence OBE (5 October 1919 – 2 February 1995) was an English actor. He began his career on stage in the West End before transitioning into a screen career. He played RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape and Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. He starred as psychiatrist Dr Samuel Loomis in Halloween and four of its sequels, a role for which he was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Actor. He collaborated with Halloween director, John Carpenter, twice more, as the President of the United States in Escape from New York and as the Priest in Prince of Darkness. He received positive critical attention for his role as Syme in the BBC version of Nineteen Eighty-Four from the novel by George Orwell. He appeared twice with Patrick McGoohan in the British spy series, Danger Man, in episodes \”Position of Trust\” and \”Find and Return\”. PleasENCE played Prince John in several episodes of the ITV series The Adventures of Robin Hood. In 1963 he appeared in an episode of The Outer Limits titled “The Man With Power” In 1973, he played a sympathetic murderer in Attached Columbo.
In 1978, he starred in an adaptation of James A. Michener’s The Centennial Centennial. He also portrayed a murderer captured by Mrs Columbo in a musical adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Jekyl. He was awarded an OBE for his services to acting in 1995. He died in a car crash in his native Nottinghamshire in February 1995, at the age of 83. He is survived by his wife, two children and a step-daughter. His funeral was held at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, where he had previously played the lead role in The Man in the Glass Booth, a production of The Caretaker by Harold Pinter, in the 1960s. He had also appeared in a number of television series, including I Want to Be a Doctor, The Twilight Zone, and The Man With The Power, in which he played an aging teacher at a boys’ school in the episode “The Changing of the School” He was also a guest star in The Fugitive in 1966, and appeared in the TV adaptation of The Man with the Power in the 1970s and 1980s, as a scout, Sam Purchas Purchas. His final role was in a TV series adaptation of Mr Jyll and Mr Hyde in the 1990s, in a role played by David Winters.
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