Donald Pleasence

Donald Henry Pleasence, OBE was an English film, television, and stage actor. His most notable film roles include psychiatrist Dr. Sam Loomis in most of the Halloween series, the villain Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice, RAF Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape and George in Culdesac.

Pleasence was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England, the son of Alice and Thomas Stanley Pleasence, a railway stationmaster. He was brought up as a strict Methodist in the small village of Grimoldby, Lincolnshire. Pleasence attended Ecclesfield Grammar School, in Sheffield, West Riding of Yorkshire, and subsequently dropped out to work as a railway clerk, while looking for a job as an actor. During the Second World War Pleasence was initially a conscientious objector, but later changed his stance and was commissioned into the Royal Air Force, serving with 166 Squadron, RAF Bomber Command. His Lancaster NE112 was shot down onAugust 1944, during a raid on Agenville. He was taken prisoner and placed in the German prisonerofwar camp Stalag Luft I, where he produced and acted in plays. He would later play Flight Lieutenant Colin Blythe in The Great Escape where much of the story takes place inside a German POW camp.

Source: Wikipedia