LONSDALE, MICHAEL

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

Lonsdale, Michael (May 24, 1931– September 21, 2020): French actor who portrayed billionaire industrialist Hugo Drax with a strong dose of dry wit and sarcasm in Moonraker.

A Parisian by birth, Lonsdale made his motion picture debut as Sinclair in director Michel Boisrond’s comedy It Happened in Aden (1956). His first English-language film was Orson Welles’s thriller The Trial (1962). Lonsdale’s additional feature appearances include Is Paris Burning? (1966); The Day of the Jackal (1973); Chariots of Fire (1981); Enigma (1982); The Holcroft Covenant (1985); The Name of the Rose (1986), working with Sean Connery; The Remains of the Day (1993); Jefferson in Paris (1995), as Louis XVI; Ronin (1998), alongside fellow Bond villains Sean Bean and Jonathan Pryce; and Steven Spielberg’s Munich (2005), with Daniel Craig and Mathieu Amalric.

Keep current! Join Our Email List

Keep up to date with our latest and greatest spy movie finds.

We could use your help!

Follow us on your favorite podcast platform