Walter Gotell

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Walter Gotell 15 March 1926 5 May 1997 was a German actor known for his role as General Gogol head of the KGB in the James Bond film series Gotell was born in Bonn Germany his family emigrated to the United Kingdom after the Nazis came to power A fluent English speaker he started in films as early as 1943 usually playing German henchmen such as in We Dive at Dawn 1943 He began to have more established roles by the early fifties starring in The African Queen 1951 IceCold in Alex 1958 The Guns of Navarone 1961 55 Days At Peking 1963 Lancelot and Guinevere 1963 The Spy Who Came In From The Cold 1965 Lord Jim 1965 Black Sunday 1977 The Boys From Brazil 1978 and Cuba 1979 Gotell won the role of KGB General Anatol Gogol in The Spy Who Loved Me for being a lookalike of the former head of Soviet secret police Lavrentiy Pavlovitch Beria His first role in the James Bond films came in 1963 when he played the henchman Morzeny in From Russia with Love Starting in the late 1970s he played the recurring role of General Gogol in the James Bond series beginning with The Spy Who Loved Me in 1977 The character returned in Moonraker 1979 For Your Eyes Only 1981 Octopussy 1983 A View to a Kill 1985 and The Living Daylights 1987 As the Cold War developed the role of leader of the KGB was seen to change attitudes to the West from direct competitor to collaborator His final appearance as the Cold War began to become less imminent sees him transferred to a different more diplomatic role Gotell is one of a few actors to have played a villain and a Bond ally in the film series others being Joe Don Baker Charles Gray and Richard Kiel Throughout his career Gotell also made numerous guest appearances in a wide array of television series He played Chief Constable Cullen in Softly Softly Taskforce between 1969 and 1975 He guested in many series including Danger Man Knight Rider The ATeam Airwolf The XFiles Scarecrow and Mrs King MacGyver Star Trek The Next Generation Miami Vice Cagney and Lacey The Saint and many others Description above from the Wikipedia article Walter Gotell licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia