| Vladek Sheybal | |
|---|---|
Sheybal as Kronsteen in From Russia with Love |
|
| Born | Władysław Sheybal 12 March 1923 Zgierz, Poland |
| Died | 16 October 1992 (aged 69) London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Actor |
Vladek Sheybal (12 March 1923 – 16 October 1992), born Władysław Sheybal, was a Polish character actor, whose career lasted from the 1950s into the 1980s. He was probably best known for his portrayal of the chess grandmaster Kronsteen in the 1963 James Bond film From Russia with Love, a role for which he had been personally recommended by his good friend Sean Connery. He was also well known for playing Russian General Bratchenko in Red Dawn. Sheybal excelled in playing cold, sinister villains.
He starred in the 1957 film Kanał (credited as Władysław Sheybal), directed by Andrzej Wajda, before finding more lasting success in British films and television, usually cast in villainous roles. He also appeared as Holocaust survivor Egon Sobotnik in the landmark TV mini-series QB VII.
Other movie credits include: Casino Royale, Billion Dollar Brain, Deadfall, Mosquito Squadron, The Last Valley, Women in Love, The Boy Friend, The Wind and the Lion, The Lady Vanishes, The Apple and The Jigsaw Man.
TV credits include: Z-Cars, Danger Man, The Troubleshooters, The Saint, The Baron, The Champions, Callan, UFO (in which he had a recurring role as Dr. Jackson), The New Avengers, The Supernatural, Shogun, Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy, and Smiley's People (1982).
In 1977 Sheybal won the Dracula Society's prestigious Hamilton Deane Award for his performance in the BBC play Night Of The Marionettes in which he played a sinister Austrian innkeeper whose life-size puppets were purported to have inspired Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Other recipients have included Guillermo del Toro and Christopher Lee.
Sheybal's final stage appearance was in the Pierre Bourgeade play The Eagle and the Serpent at London's Offstage Downstairs Theatre in 1988; he played Friedrich Nietzsche.
He died in 1992 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm and was buried in Putney Vale Cemetery.[1]