Early Television and Movie Career
Savalas began as an executive director and then senior director of the news special events at ABC. He then became an executive producer for the Gillette Cavalcade of Sports where he gave Howard Cosell his first job in television.
Savalas was a character actor on TV shows during 1959 and the 1960s. His first acting role was on "And Bring Home a Baby", an episode of Armstrong Circle Theater in January 1959. He appeared on two more episodes of this series, in 1959 and 1960. Between 1959 and 1967, he made more than fifty guest appearances in various television programs, including Naked City, Arrest & Trial, The Eleventh Hour, King of Diamonds, The Aquanauts, The Untouchables, Diagnosis: Unknown, Burke's Law, Combat!, The Fugitive, Breaking Point, Bonanza, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The F.B.I. and the The Twilight Zone classic episode "Living Doll". He had a recurring role as Brother Hendricksen on the popular crime drama series, 77 Sunset Strip and was a regular on the short-lived NBC television series Acapulco. In 1980, he starred in the TV film Alcatraz: The Whole Shocking Story.
While playing Lucky Luciano on the TV series The Witness, he was "discovered" by actor Burt Lancaster. He appeared with Lancaster in three movies—the first of these was the crime drama The Young Savages (1961). After playing a police officer in this movie, he moved on to play a string of heavies. Once again opposite Lancaster, he won acclaim and an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as the sadistic Feto Gomez in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). In the same year he appeared alongside Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear (1962) as private detective Charles Sievers.
Savalas shaved his head for his role as Pontius Pilate in The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), and decided to remain shaved for the remainder of his life.
Savalas was memorable as the weirdly religious and very sadistic convict Archer Maggott in The Dirty Dozen (1967), the seminal ensemble action film by director Robert Aldrich. He later returned to play a different character in two of the movie's TV sequels—The Dirty Dozen: The Deadly Mission (1987) and The Dirty Dozen: The Fatal Mission (1988). He co-starred with Burt Lancaster for the third time in The Scalphunters (1968), a comedy western that looked at racism during the Civil Rights movement. Two more appearances in comedies for Savalas were as Herbie Haseler in Crooks and Coronets (1969) and opposite Clint Eastwood in Kelly's Heroes (1970) where he played the no nonsense hard as nails company sergeant "Big Joe".
His career was transformed with the lead role in the TV-movie The Marcus Nelson Murders (CBS, 1973), which was based on the real-life Career Girls Murder case, and pop culture icon Theo Kojak was born. In that TV-movie, the pilot for the series, and only in that TV-movie, his name was spelled as "Kojack". That spelling was replaced with the more familiar 'Kojak" for the rest of the run.
In addition, Savalas, always known as the tough guy with a big heart, did a voice over for a 70s nature series on Yosemite National Park.
Read more about this topic: Telly Savalas
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