Michael Lonsdale, former Bond villain and 'The Day of the Jackal' star, dies at 89

Michael Lonsdale, the actor who played an iconic villain in the 1979 James Bond movie “Moonraker” and starred in 1973’s “The Day of the Jackal,” has died, according to the AFP via Lonsdale’s agent. The British-French actor was 89 at the time of his passing.

In “Moonraker,” Lonsdale had the role of bad guy Hugo Drax - an industrialist with plans to poison all of humanity and then repopulate Earth from his space station.

For “Day of the Jackal,” the British-French political thriller directed by Fred Zinnemann, Lonsdale played Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel, starring opposite Edward Fox as “the Jackal.”

Lonsdale is also remembered for his role as the ill-fated René Morane in François Truffaut's “The Bride Wore Black” (1968), the Abbot in “The Name of the Rose” (1986), and French Nazi sympathizer Dupont D'Ivry in “The Remains of the Day” (1993).

At: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/michael-lonsdale-former-bond-villain-151516286.html

British-French actor Michael Lonsdale, 1931-2020, with Sean Connery in The Name of the Rose.