Donald Pleasence (October 5, 1919 - February 2, 1995) was a British actor. He was born in Worksop, England. His acting career began in a 1939 production of Wuthering Heights, but was soon interrupted by his service in the Royal Air Force and a year in a German prisoner-of-war camp. He returned to acting after the war, and critics began to call him the "Man with the Hypnotic Eye". Perhaps because of this, and his bald head and quiet-but-intense voice, he specialised in insane and evil characters.
His many movie roles included
- SEN 5241 in George Lucas's first film, THX 1138
- the U.S. President in Escape from New York
- Dr. Samuel Loomis in five of the Halloween movies, and
- Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the Bond movie You Only Live Twice
- the forger in The Great Escape
