Working on my site extends to me the pleasure of often learning new things about people of films that I didn’t know about before, a few days ago whilst visiting another movie site to read their news I was surprised to find that Donald Pleasance OBE was born in Nottingham. Why should that be so interesting to me, I hear you ask?

Well, let me tell you, even though I now reside in the States I was born and raised in Nottingham, UK. Even though I have been a British expatriate for a few years now, you can never totally take out the feeling of your home roots.

There are a few famous people from Nottingham, Eric Coates (1886-1957)the famous composer ( composed the theme music for the movie The Dam Busters) is from the same mining town that I am from, the famous bare knuckle fighter Ben Caunt (1815-1861) was also a local celebrity from my home town of Hucknall, and let’s not forget Lord Byron whose ancestral home is approximately 2 miles down the road from my family home. If your ever bored Google or Wikipedia -Hucknall, you will find a local church St Mary Magdelene church where I was married, it’s a beautiful building the first portion was built around 1320. For more information and pictures check out this blog

Back to Donald Pleasance, you will mostly remember him as the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond Movie and then as the Dr. Sam Loomis in Halloween.

He was born on October 5th, 1919 and sadly passed away February 2nd, 1995. Donald Pleasence OBE had appeared in over 200 movies, often playing the villain or psychopath. He was born in Worksop, Nottingham, his father was a stationmaster. He began acting in an adaptation of Wuthering Heights, but this was interrupted by World War II. At first he was a conscientious objector but later changed his mind and joined the Royal Air Force. He was shot down in 1944 and taken prisoner and tortured then placed in a prisoner-of-war camp, it was here that he produced and acted in plays. Some of you will remember that he later played a flight Lieutenant in the infamous movie The Great Escape.

After the war and with his bald head, hypnotic eye and intense voice he was often cast as an insane character, anyone who has seen his movies knows just how creepy and cool he played these characters. Surprising though is that Donald Pleasence also did voice over for Talespinners (a UK children’s story series) He played in many other British productions such as the BBC 1982 production of The Barchester Chronicles, he also did the voiceover for a British Public Information film ( The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water) this was intended to warn children against playing near water, apparently though it did give some children nightmares, he also played a murderer in an episode of Columbo, along with many other famous roles.

In Donald Pleasances' personal life, he was married four times and had five daughters; he died aged 75 in France from complication after a heart valve replacement surgery.

Donald Pleasance, you may have come from humble beginnings but you will forever be remembered for your fine acting skills and the ability to scare the crap out of us and making it look so easy.

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October 2008

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