Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Ernst Stavro Blofeld is a fictional character and a supervillain from the James Bond series of novels and films, who was created by Ian Fleming and Kevin McClory. An evil genius with aspirations of world domination, he is the archenemy of the British Secret Service agent James Bond. Blofeld is head of the global criminal organisation SPECTRE and is commonly referred to as Number 1, an official numerical position given to members of SPECTRE.

Blofeld appears or is heard in three novels: Thunderball, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and You Only Live Twice; and six James Bond films from Eon Productions: From Russia with Love (1963), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and For Your Eyes Only (1981) (the pre-title sequence of which marks his final appearance and apparent death). He also appears in Never Say Never Again, the 1983 remake of Thunderball.

He was played on screen by Donald Pleasence, Telly Savalas, Charles Gray and Max von Sydow, among others. It was initially a convention of the films not to show Blofeld's face, only a closeup of him stroking his white blue-eyed Turkish Angora.

Many of Blofeld's characteristics have become clichés of supervillains in popular fiction, representing the stock character of the evil genius. In many versions, even the stroking of his white cat has been retained as a parodic allusion to Blofeld's character, as seen in the Austin Powers film series with the character of Dr. Evil and his cat Mr. Bigglesworth.