Le Chiffre
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Le Chiffre is a fictional character and the main villain in the Ian Fleming James Bond novel and film Casino Royale. On screen Le Chiffre has been portrayed by Peter Lorre in the 1954 television adaptation of the novel for CBS's Climax! television series, by Orson Welles in the unofficial 1967 spoof of the novel and Bond film series, and by Mads Mikkelsen in the upcoming 2006 cinematic version of Fleming's novel.
Ian Fleming is said to have based the character on the British occultist Aleister Crowley. Le Chiffre translates as "The Cypher".
Novel bio
Le Chiffre, alias "Herr Nummer", "The Number", "Herr Ziffer", and other translations of "The Number" or "The Cypher" in various languages; was the paymaster of the "Syndicat des Ouvriers d'Alsace", a SMERSH controlled trade union.He was first encountered as an inmate of Dachau DP camp in the U.S. zone of Germany in June 1945 and transferred to Alsace-Lorraine and Strasbourg in September 1945 on a stateless passport. There he adopted the name Le Chiffre because as he claimed, he was 'only a number on a passport'. Not much else is really known about Le Chiffre's background or where he comes from, except for educated guesses based on his description.
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In the novel he made a major investment in a string of brothels with money belonging to SMERSH. Later the investment went bad after a bill was signed into law banning prostitution. Le Chiffre then went to the casino Royale-les-Eaux in an attempt to recover all of his lost funds. There, however, he was prevented from obtaining this goal by James Bond who beat and bankrupted him in a series of games in Chemin de Fer. Due to his inability to pay back the money he had lost, he was subsequently killed by SMERSH.
Le Chiffre's death would later be seen by the Soviet government as an embarrassment, which in addition to the death and defeat of Mr. Big in Live and Let Die, led to the events of From Russia with Love. In the novel SMERSH attempts to get revenge by killing James Bond in an elaborate plot that would embarrass the British Secret Service within the intelligence community.
2006 film bio
Le Chiffre will also be the main villain of the official 2006 James Bond film, Casino Royale. According to insider reports [link], he is a banker for various terrorists and uses Alex Dimitrios, a government contractor, as a middle-man for many of his jobs. Believed by MI6 to be born in Albania, Le Chiffre is a mathematical genius and a chess prodigy. This enables him to earn large sums of money on games of chance and he likes to show off by playing cards.Saddam Hussein apparently took a disliking to Le Chiffre and supposedly beheaded him after the Gulf War. Although it's now evident that he was not beheaded, some believe that Hussein had a grudge against Le Chiffre over an investment gone wrong, and this may be the cause of Le Chiffre's eye injury.
When the stocks were analysed after the events of 9/11, it was clear that someone had prior knowledge of the attacks. Someone had been shorting the stocks, and on September 12, 2001, when the stocks went down, that person made a fortune.
Le Chiffre works with a man known as Mr. White, who may be his boss. Rumours have circulated that Mr. White may be a reoccurring threat in future Bond films; the "new" Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Le Chiffre banks USD 101,260,000 for Steven Obanno, a feared leader of the Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda.
However, Le Chiffre invests the money in an Airline company's stock and plans to short the stock by apparently destroying the company's new prototype airliner, set to make its first flight out of Miami International Airport. But the plan goes south due to Bond's intervention, and Le Chiffre loses the money.
In order to win the money back for Obanno, Le Chiffre sponsors a poker tournament in Montenegro at the Casino Royale in an attempt to recoup the loss before Obanno learns that his money has gone missing.
Bond is sent to make sure that Le Chiffre doesn't win back the money, an estimated 150 million total for the single tournament.
At a February 15, 2006 press conference in Prague, Director Martin Campbell announced Le Chiffre will be portrayed by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen [link]
Henchmen
- Kratt
- Alexander Dimitrios
- Valenka
See also
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