According to Dr. Evil, his father was a baker who suffered from the effects of narcolepsy and his mother was a fifteen year old prostitute with the rare condition of having webbed feet. He spent his summers in Rangoon and his winters receiving luge lessons. Sadly, whenever he acted up he would be placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. He later was adopted by the mistress of his father.
Ultimately it is revealed that Dr. Evil is actually the twin brother of Austin Powers; they were born on November 12, 1939. The real name of Dr. Evil is actually Douglas Powers, though he was usually called Dougie. The vital separation of the twins that would lead them on their divergent paths was a car explosion. Dougie Powers was rescued and saved by a group of Belgians and he attributes growing up in Belgium as the cause of both his complexity and his evil.
Dr. Evil attended the same spy school as both Austin Powers and Number Two. He grew angry when Austin received the International Man of Mystery Award instead of him because he felt that he was actually the best student in his class. His rise of anger whenever he is referred to as Mr. Evil instead of Dr. Evil reveals that he also attended some unnamed "evil medical school" at some point in his youth.
The already strained relationship between Austin Powers and Dr. Evil as a result of their school rivalry reaches a freezing point in 1967 when Dr. Evil attempts to assassinate superspy Powers. The attempt goes badly as the fatal arrow shot from a crossbow kills one of his henchman instead. Dr. Evil escapes into a rocket ship shaped like Bob's Big Boy and is cryogenically frozen until 1997.
Dr. Evil is thawed from his cryogenic state in 1997 and immediately sets to blackmail the countries of the world for one million dollars or else unleash a stolen nuclear warhead. Evil's temper of the times is still located in 1967, hence his misunderstanding of how much money one million dollars really is. Evil threatens the world with a variety of other equally outlandish and misguided plans to take over the world.
Dr. Evil has a son Scott with whom he is in constant conflict. Scott enjoys pointing out his father's ignorance due to his time in cryogenic freeze, as well as underlining the flaws in each of his father's villainous plans. The conflict reaches a boiling point when the tables are turned: Scott becomes head of Dr. Evil's organization and Dougie and Austin Powers join forces to put a stop to Scott's plans to take over the world. Mini-Me is Evil's exceedingly diminutive clone who does not seem to have received the full benefit of genetic transference since he seems unable to speak and often acts quite feral.
Dr. Evil is instantly recognizable as the result of his many features. The most obvious is his bald head and the scar on the side of his face. He is usually dressed in a gray Nehru jacket. Dr. Evil also displays the very idiosyncratic gesture of dramatically pausing and raising the little finger of his right hand up to his lips whenever he has something important to say. He prefers the use of the euphemism "frickin" to actual vulgar slang. He is also often accompanied by a white cat named Mr. Bigglesworth.