Donald Pleasance was born on
October 5, 1919 in Worksop,
Nottinghamshire, England, UK as he
started acting on stage in 1939 and
became one of the busiest actors in the
entertainment field ever since.
When he was older,
he served in the RAF, was shot down and
held in a POW camp.
Due to
Donald's looks with his features, balding
and his voice he was often typecast by
playing strange or menacing characters
for British TV shows and movies. He
became a very popular character actor due
to all of this. He played Prince John in
the series The Adventures of
Robin Hood which he got alot of
credit in. His most memorable character
was the role of Ernst Stavro Blofeld in
the 1967 James Bond film You Only
Live Twice which decades later
would influence the Dr. Evil character in
the Austin Powers films
as both character have a large facial
scar.
He was
very much a versatile actor acting in all
sorts of films and TV shows including
family, war, crime, thriller, comedy and
sci-fi, getting credit for each and every
one of them.
He started
acting in the horror film industry while
the 50's were coming to an end along with
many other types of film industries too.
His first horror film was titled The
Flesh and the Fiends which is a
twisted cult flick. Pleasance co-starred
as a demented assistant named William
Hare to a surgeon played by Peter Cushing
requiring cadavers for his research into
the functioning of the human body and
Pleasance's character is his assistant
who find ways to provide him with fresh
specimens.
Then he
won many other roles of similar type
character in numerous other cult horror
films like Circus of Horrors,
The Hands of Orlac, Eye
of the Devil, Creature
of Comfort, Death Line,
From Beyond the Grave, Tales
that Witness Madness, House
of the Damned, The
Mutations, I Don't Want
to Be Born, Land of the
Minotaur, The Uncanny
and Night Creature. Wow
that alot I tell ya!
But then
he started playing a much different
character as a Doctor at a menatal
hospital named Sam Loomis in a film that
everyone would remember him for titled Halloween
in 1978 written and directed by the
legendary John Carpenter, which also
launched the career of Jamie Lee Curtis.
In the film, he plays a shrink of a child
psychopath named Michael Myers who
murdered his sister on Halloween night in
1963 cause it was his inbreed to kill his
family as an evil power that night told
him to do so. The night before Halloween
in 1978, Michael escapes from the
hospital and steals Lommis' car to return
to his hometwon of Haddonfield as he
finds out that he has a biological sister
named Laurie Strode that's played by
Jamie Lee Curtis. Loomis tries to track
him down as he ends up on a killing spree
on Halloween night each year as Pleasance
reprises his role in each of the sequels
until part 6 when he was suffering from
his illness.
He worked
with John Carpenter a number of other
times too and had a similar name from his
Halloween character in the 1987 flick Prince
of Darkness (An awful film)
named Father Loomis of an abandoned
church in Los Angeles that has a sinister
secret which was kept in the basement for
many years. They find a green liquid that
poisons people there turning them into
zombie type demons as the liquid is
contains the essence of Satan himself,
and they also discover that he will
release HIS father - an all-powerful
Anti-God!
He acted
in many lower budgeted horror films
throughout the 80's and 90's due to his
fame in these films. A couple of them
were based on Edgar Allen Poe's books as
he travelled down to South Africa to work
on them. The first one was titled The
House of Usher, a story of a
couple going to visit one of their uncle,
Roderick Usher, at his mansion. They
find, however, that Roderick's brother
Walter (Which Pleasance plays) has gone
insane, and Roderick himself isn't far
behind and finding it difficult for them
to escape. Roderick was played by Oliver
Reed which Donald has worked with many
times before in the UK.
The next
one was titled Buried Alive,
a tale of a bunch of disturbed teenage
girls at a Ravenscroft Institute which
people called a spooky girls' school but
suddenly they are fallin into trap doors
and a masked killer is walling them up
behind brick walls. Pleasance plays the
role of Dr. Schaeffer who helps out at
the institute but has a dark secret
himself. The film also starred Robert
Vaughn as the head of the institute named
Gary, A debut performance by Nia Long as
one of the clients named Fingers and
former porn queen turned scream queen
Ginger Lynn Allen as the nasty client
Debbie who gets what's coming to her in
the end. The film also had a special
appearance by the late horror icon John
Carradine. The film was shot before his
death and then shelved away but went
direct-to-video in 1990.
Donald
also worked in films down in Italy where
the horror industry is really big. His
first horror gig down there was a 1985
one titled Phenomena
written and directed by Dario Argento. In
the film Donald plays a Professor named
John MacGregor who befriends with of a
teenage girl named Jennifer Corvino who
is a daughter of a famous actor arriving
in an expensive boarding school. Jennifer
sleepwalks and is capable of telepathy
telepathically communicate with insects
and has adaptation problem in the new
school. This is where Donald's character
came in as he meets her while
sleepwalking but only to get killed as
they investigate a killer who is killing
the young girls there.
He began
to work steadily there along with the
other countries he worked in but his last
film was shot there titled Fatal
Frames which was an independent
film. He had a supporting role named
Professor Robinson as he meets with other
people about a group of unsolved murders
taking place around the city of Italy
while making a music video for pop
sensation Stefania Stella. Rumour had it
while shooting there he died in the
middle of the run and had a body double
to finish up his work there. There was an
online joke on him about his character as
Dr. Sam Loomis from Halloween.
The film was successfully shown at
numerous festivals in 1996 and also sold
well on DVD. It featured many local
Italian actors but had some supporting
roles by American actors like b-film
scream queen Linnea Quigley.
Donald
Pleasance died on February 2, 1995 in
Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Alpes-Maritimes,
France due to a complications from heart
valve replacement surgery from his
illness.
Both films
Halloween: The Curse of Michael
Myers and Fatal Frames
announce before the closing credits to
the memory of him. Bless his soul. |