Performer
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio rank
#59897
of 909177 performers
Top 10%
David Bond represents the rare performer whose career became more ambitious with every decade — 39 years in, and David is still choosing the harder script.
The essay
Our editors on the work, the patterns and the reason this body of work holds together.
David Bond appears in 8 films in the Nutevio catalogue, and none of them would work the same way without David. Spartacus is the clearest case: a film rated 7.4 by our editors, where the performance carries weight the script only implies.
The recognisable elements are versatility, transformation, quiet performance. Watch two of these films back to back and the method separates from the material — the same instrument, tuned differently for science fiction, comedy, horror. It is a style built on what is withheld as much as what is played.
Working with Dan O'Bannon, Stanley Kubrick, Joseph L. Mankiewicz and others, David Bond helped set a standard other performers now audition against. Awards bodies have been slower than the work, which is usually the sign of a career built on choices rather than campaigns.
Spartacus (1960) as Slave (uncredited) · In a Lonely Place (1950) as Dr. Richards (uncredited) · The Return of the Living Dead (1985) as Radio Corpse #2
Career snapshot
Ranked #59897 of 909177 performers tracked in the Nutevio library.
Films in Nutevio
8
1946–1985
Career length
39 yrs
Measured across our catalogue
Academy Awards
—
Unknown
Oscar nominations
—
Unknown
Highest Nutevio score
7.4
Spartacus
Average Nutevio score
6.9
Across catalogue work
Highest IMDb rating
7.6
In a Lonely Place
Most frequent director
Dan O'Bannon
1 film together
Longest collaboration
1×
With Dan O'Bannon
Most common genre
Drama
5 titles
Average runtime
2h 3m
Across catalogue work
Golden Globe wins
—
Unknown
Nutevio metric
Ten weighted categories, applied identically to everyone we cover.
Nutevio Performer Score
7.0
out of 10
A performer whose catalogue work here is strong, with the fuller case still to be made.
Nutevio metric
Cultural impact and legacy, measured separately from craft — how far the work travelled once it left the cinema.
Nutevio Influence Score
6.9
out of 10
A quieter influence — felt inside the films rather than across the industry.
How far the work travelled past the people who saw it first.
What survives once the release-week conversation has burned off.
Institutional acknowledgement, weighted but never decisive.
Years of chosen, relevant work rather than years merely employed.
Statuettes, read as evidence rather than verdict.
Roles named without needing the film named alongside them.
Directors who wrote parts because this performer existed.
The reading other performers now have to answer.
Actor DNA
A fingerprint derived from the roles themselves — register, range and the kind of film they carry.
The shape of a career
Every performance plotted in time. Hover a point to read the title behind it.
Peak years
Where the scores, the awards and the sheer volume of work agree with each other.
Best decade
1960s
7.4 average MV
The 1960s are where the work and the material meet. Spartacus — the run our editors reach for first when the argument is about range rather than fame.
Highest average Nutevio score
1960s
7.4
Across 1 catalogue film in this decade, our scores never drop below the level a career is judged on.
Highest average IMDb rating
1960s
7.5
The public agrees most strongly about this stretch — useful context, and occasionally a decade behind our own reading.
Most awarded era
1940s
0 Academy Awards
Statuettes for the films themselves, which is the honest way to read an ensemble career. The Three Musketeers, Joan of Arc, The Stranger.
Most productive era
1940s
3 films
The busiest stretch of the catalogue — volume that reads as appetite rather than availability.
Range, mapped
Genres down the side, decades across the top. Warmer cells mean stronger titles.
| Genre | 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1980s |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Drama | 6.31 film | 7.03 films | 7.41 film | — |
| Thriller | 6.91 film | 7.21 film | — | — |
| Comedy | — | — | — | 7.11 film |
| Crime | 6.91 film | 7.11 film | — | — |
| Romance | 6.61 film | 7.21 film | — | — |
| Horror | — | — | — | 7.11 film |
Chronology
Firsts and peaks
The turning points, in the order they happened.
First film in Nutevio
1946The Stranger
Where our catalogue meets this career, as Student (uncredited).
Highest rated performance · Career peak
1960Spartacus
7.4 on the Nutevio scale, the top of the catalogue for this performer. Weighing billing against the film's own quality, this is the point where everything aligned at once.
Most recent film
1985The Return of the Living Dead
The current state of the argument, as Radio Corpse #2.
Our order
Every performance in the catalogue, ordered by Nutevio Score.
Every title
Filter by genre or decade, and compare any two titles side by side.
8 of 8 films
as Slave (uncredited)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
as Dr. Richards (uncredited)
Directed by Nicholas Ray
as Radio Corpse #2
Directed by Dan O'Bannon
as Father Sortine (uncredited)
Directed by John Huston
as Student (uncredited)
Directed by Orson Welles
From the library
Every movie and TV credit stored for this name in the Nutevio catalogue — filter by media, role or sort by rating.
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The defining work
#1
Slave (uncredited)
Spartacus (1960)
Performance score7.2
The performance the rest of the career is read through. Slave (uncredited) gives David Bond a structure to work against, and the film hands over its centre of gravity without hesitation.
View movie#2
Dr. Richards (uncredited)
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Performance score7.1
In a Lonely Place asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Dr. Richards (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#3
Radio Corpse #2
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
Performance score7.0
The Return of the Living Dead asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Radio Corpse #2 is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movie#4
Father Sortine (uncredited)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Performance score7.0
The Asphalt Jungle asks for something the previous films did not, and gets it. Father Sortine (uncredited) is played without a single line of pleading for the audience's sympathy — which is exactly why it lands.
View movieStart here
A guided path through the work, ordered so each film explains the next.
Best entry point
as Slave (uncredited)
Start here. Spartacus is the clearest statement of what David Bond does — accessible, 197 minutes, and rated 7.4 by our editors. No context required.
Our editors order this path by accessibility first and chronology second. You meet David at the most legible performance, then move forward in time so each film reads as a response to the one before it rather than a repetition of it.
The Stranger (1946)
A deliberate change of key after Spartacus — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
In a Lonely Place (1950)
Keeps the thriller register of The Stranger but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
Keeps the drama register of In a Lonely Place but asks for a colder reading of it.
The Return of the Living Dead (1985)
A deliberate change of key after The Asphalt Jungle — same instrument, unfamiliar tuning, and the reason range gets mentioned.
Company kept
The directors and performers this career keeps returning to.
Orson Welles
Director
1 film together
Notably The Stranger
Victor Fleming
Director
1 film together
Notably Joan of Arc
George Sidney
Director
1 film together
Notably The Three Musketeers
John Huston
Director
1 film together
Notably The Asphalt Jungle
Nicholas Ray
Director
1 film together
Notably In a Lonely Place
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Director
1 film together
Notably Julius Caesar
Stanley Kubrick
Director
1 film together
Notably Spartacus
Dan O'Bannon
Director
1 film together
Notably The Return of the Living Dead
Behind the camera
Who casts this performer, how often, and what the pairing produces.
Stanley Kubrick
Director
1 film together · 7.4 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
SpartacusNicholas Ray
Director
1 film together · 7.2 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
In a Lonely PlaceDan O'Bannon
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Return of the Living DeadJohn Huston
Director
1 film together · 7.1 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Asphalt JungleOrson Welles
Director
1 film together · 6.9 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The StrangerJoseph L. Mankiewicz
Director
1 film together · 6.8 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Julius CaesarGeorge Sidney
Director
1 film together · 6.6 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
The Three MusketeersVictor Fleming
Director
1 film together · 6.3 avg MV
One film, but the kind that reorganises how a performer is cast afterwards.
Best film together
Joan of ArcSix degrees
Follow the thread outward — director, film, co-star, and the film after that.
Categories of our own
Six editorial categories we apply to every performer we cover.
Most rewatchable
The Asphalt Jungle
as Father Sortine (uncredited)
The one that survives a fourth viewing. Nothing in the performance depends on surprise, which is why it keeps paying out.
Most emotional performance
Spartacus
as Slave (uncredited)
Grief played at conversational volume. The film never asks the audience to cry; the performance simply makes it difficult not to.
Most influential performance
Spartacus
as Slave (uncredited)
You can hear this reading in other actors' auditions a decade later — the surest measure of influence there is.
Best ensemble performance
Julius Caesar
as Citizen of Rome
Work that makes everyone else in the frame better without ever pulling the camera towards itself.
Career defining performance
Spartacus
as Slave (uncredited)
If the career had to be argued in a single scene, our editors would pick one from this film and rest the case.
In their films' words
“You can build a whole film around a performer who knows when not to speak. David Bond has known it for a long time.”
Head to head
Put two careers on the same scale and see where the argument actually sits.
Ours alone
Recognitions handed out by this desk, on criteria no awards body uses.
Career Achievement
Awarded
39 years of relevant work — not merely a long career, but a long career of choices.
Drama Legend
Awarded
5 catalogue titles in drama, each one a reference point for the films that followed.
Our desk
Best ending, best opening, best twist and the rest — categories we apply to everyone we cover.
Best ending
In a Lonely Place
as Dr. Richards (uncredited)
The last five minutes reorganise everything before them, and hold up when you already know what's coming.
Best opening
The Stranger
as Student (uncredited)
A first sequence that states the rules of the film without explaining a single one of them.
Most emotional
Spartacus
as Slave (uncredited)
The film where the technique steps aside and lets the feeling arrive undefended.
Best twist
In a Lonely Place
as Dr. Richards (uncredited)
A reversal earned by information the film gave you and trusted you to misread.
Best visual achievement
Spartacus
as Slave (uncredited)
Images that would survive with the sound switched off.
Best action sequence
Spartacus
as Slave (uncredited)
Geography, stakes and consequence held in the same frame — spectacle you can follow.
Best dialogue
Julius Caesar
as Citizen of Rome
Lines written to be spoken, staged so the pauses do half the work.
Most underrated film
Joan of Arc
as Jean Fournier, Curé of Vaucouleurs
The public vote sits below ours on this one, and the direction is the reason for the gap.
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Community
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Reference
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