03 Ernst Stavro Blofeld
On the page: Thunderball (1961), with substantially altered appearances in the next two SPECTRE novels.
The Thunderball incarnation is enormous: roughly 6 ft 3 in and twenty stone, with black hair, a massive head and a body whose former strength has softened. His hands and feet are long and pointed. This is a specific version of Blofeld, not a permanent model for every appearance. [6, 7]
On screen: Anthony Dawson, voiced by Eric Pohlmann, establishes the concealed figure; Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray and Christoph Waltz provide the principal revealed EON incarnations. [8]
Pleasence’s bald, scarred image became so influential that it can seem older than the novel. It is not the Thunderball description. Nor does the white cat belong to that literary portrait. Cinema introduces the animal while keeping Blofeld’s face hidden, creating a recognisable image out of partial visibility. [8]
The Paris SPECTRE meeting offers a telling literary setting: danger expressed through respectable rooms and administrative order. The contrast with a spectacular film hideout is about the manner in which power presents itself, as much as about hair or girth. [6]
One unusually precise anecdote survives any change of face: Fleming gave Blofeld his own birthday, 28 May 1908. [7] The author’s personal detail sits inside a character who repeatedly reconstructs his identity. For this portrait, however, the label must remain Thunderball Blofeld, rather than an imaginary composite of all three novels.
