They are the cold-blooded contract killers who murder to order.
Now Eddie Redmayne is taking on the role of a professional assassin in The Day of the Jackal, a new Sky TV adaptation of Frederick Forsyth’s famous thriller where he plays the infamous Carlos the Jackal.
In a modern twist on the original 1971 book – about an attempt to bump off French President Charles de Gaulle – Eddie’s Jackal will go up against MI6 agent Bianca, played by Bond star Lashana Lynch.
Here JAMES MOORE looks at some of history’s most notorious real-life hitmen and what made them so infamous…
The Iceman
(Image: Bettmann Archive)
Ruthless Richard Kuklinski is reckoned to have killed 200 people over 30 years during his career as a hitman for US mob clans.
The 6ft 5in monster got his ‘Iceman’ nickname because he would freeze victims to disguise their time of death.
His murder weapons included everything from crossbows and chainsaws to cyanide nasal sprays.
He was caught in an undercover operation in 1986 and convicted of five murders. He later claimed to also have killed union boss Jimmy Hoffa, who disappeared in 1975, and dumped his body in a junkyard.
Kuklinski died behind bars, aged 70, in 2006.
The animal
(Image: Bettmann Archive)
Ex-boxer Joseph ‘The Animal’ Barboza got his nickname after he bit off a man’s cheek during an argument in a nightclub.
The vicious killer worked for Boston’s Patriarca crime family, notching up at least 26 hits during his career. He used guns fitted with a silencer and car bombs too.
Barboza later became an FBI informant, turning on his former employers, and was put into a witness protection programme.
It didn’t save him. He was himself killed – blasted four times with a shotgun – while walking to his car in 1976, aged 43.
The ‘Superkiller’
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A hitman working in the Russian underworld, Alexander Solonik has been dubbed the Superkiller after chalking up over 40 victims.
An ex-Soviet soldier, cop and gravedigger, Solonik was known for his skills in martial arts and an ability to shoot with both hands. He specialized in assassinating mob bosses in the 1990s.
Captured by police during a shoot-out in Moscow in 1994, he would escape from a maximum-security prison a year later.
Solonik apparently died in 1997, when he was strangled by a fellow hitman while living in Greece. But some believe he faked his own death to live in hiding under an assumed name.
Harry the Henchman
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Murder Inc was a 1930s gang in the US that carried out hundreds of contract killings for the Mafia.
Among its ranks was snappily-dressed killing machine Harry Strauss, known as Pittsburgh Phil.
Believed to have carried out up to 500 hits, his weapons of choice included everything from ice picks to drowning victims and burying them alive.
Despite being arrested multiple times, he was only convicted of the murder of mobster Irving Feinstein after another hitman turned informant. Strauss went to the electric chair in 1941, aged 31.
Brutal Brit
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Ex-sapper John Childs, dismissed from the army for burglary, soon became a hitman, killing six people between 1974 and 1978.
Among his victims was 10-year-old Terry Brett, apparently killed because he was a witness to the death of his father George. Others slain were Terence Eve, Robert Brown, Frederick Sherwood and Ronald Andrews.
It’s said he shot and strangled his targets then burnt the evidence – but no murder weapons or bodies were ever found. Childs was convicted in 1979 and is currently serving a whole life tariff.
World’s Deadliest?
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Described as the ‘world’s deadliest hitman,’ brutal Julio Santana stopped counting the number of his victims… at 492!
The Brazilian, who grew up in the Amazon rainforest, perpetrated his first killing aged 17 in the 1970s. He has since taken out everyone from politicians to cheating lovers – but claims to have only earned a few dollars for each target.
His 35-career was described in a book called The Name of Death, by Klester Cavalcanti. Now in his 60s, Santana is said to have given up his life of crime and turned to God.
The Day of the Jackal begins at 9pm on Sky Atlantic tonight.