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Prolific Manchester-born character actor Kenneth Colley gained something of a cult following for his role as Admiral Piett, commander of Darth Vader's flagship Executor, in the films Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Colley came to acting the hard way, starting out as a general dogsbody, gopher and assistant in repertory theatre. In his own words: "...they threw you on stage in small parts so they didn't have to pay an actor. It's the traditional way, before drama schools came into being, so it's a long tradition. Well my drama school was the street.
Prolific Manchester-born character actor Kenneth Colley gained something of a cult following for his role as Admiral Piett, commander of Darth Vader's flagship Executor, in the films Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983). Colley came to acting the hard way, starting out as a general dogsbody, gopher and assistant in repertory theatre. In his own words: "...they threw you on stage in small parts so they didn't have to pay an actor. It's the traditional way, before drama schools came into being, so it's a long tradition. Well my drama school was the street. I have been with some of the best anyway. You know, Tony Hopkins, John Gielgud, Colin Blakely, Glenda Jackson. They don't come any better than those people."
Colley's professional theatrical acting career began in Leicester in 1961 and was followed by later spells with London's Old Vic, The Royal Court Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company. His Shakespearean repertoire has included the histrionic Benedick of Much Ado about Nothing on stage and the softly spoken Duke Vincentio in The BBC Television Shakespeare (1978) instalment of Measure for Measure. Actually, his first screen outing was as a corpse in an episode of the science fiction series A for Andromeda (1961). For much of the sixties, Colley featured in popular TV shows, often in small roles as working class men or army privates. Between 1971 and 1991, Colley became part of Ken Russell's unofficial stock company of actors, regularly employed in the director's idiosyncratic films: most notably as dramatist Modest Tchaikovsky, younger brother of the famous composer, in The Music Lovers (1971); as Frédéric Chopin in Lisztomania (1975) and as Captain Alfred Dreyfus in Prisoner of Honor (1991), scapegoat at the centre of an infamous treason trial in 1890's France. Colley had smaller roles in Russell's The Devils (1971) (Legrand), Mahler (1974) (journalist Siegfried Krenek) and The Rainbow (1989) (Mr. Brunt).
The actor has also been associated with the Monty Python crew, beginning with the off-beat medieval fantasy Jabberwocky (1977) in which he was directed by Terry Gilliam. Gilliam later revealed that the actor had a stutter in real life which disappeared whenever he was in front of the camera or on stage. Colley subsequently went on to appear in a brief scene as Jesus in the iconoclastic Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979). Arguably, one of his most memorable roles was as Michael Palin's bank robber pal in the Ripping Yarns (1976) episode The Testing of Eric Olthwaite. One of the funniest scenes had two of the world's most boring people enthuse endlessly about rain gauges, shovels and black puddings ("...some days even the white bits were black").
In addition to many performances in prime-time detective shows (The Baron (1966), Z Cars (1962), Foyle's War (2002)) and soaps (Coronation Street (1960), EastEnders (1985)), Colley has played numerous historical personae, including Charles I, Italy's King Vittorio Emmanuele, Dickens illustrator Robert Seymour, Admiral Horatio Nelson (a rare starring role in the miniseries I Remember Nelson (1982), focusing on the admiral's relationship with Emma Hamilton prior to the Battle of Trafalgar) and Napoleon Bonaparte. He has also frequently portrayed senior Nazi figures, both real and fictional. The former include Adolf Hitler, Wilhelm Keitel and Adolf Eichmann, the latter in Wallenberg: A Hero's Story (1985). The New York Times reviewer in April 1985 praised Colley's performance, saying "Mr. Colley's Eichmann is almost too good, reaching that not uncommon level where the villain threatens to become almost as fascinating as the hero." Moreover, Colley has been noted for his role as the fictional SS Standartenführer Paul Blobel in the miniseries War and Remembrance (1988).
A few other Colley screen personae are briefly worth mentioning: the veteran pirate Ben Gunn in Return to Treasure Island (1986), Soviet Air Force Colonel Kontarsky, charged with protecting the top secret fighter jet, code-named Firefox (1982) and crime family boss Vicente Changretta, who came to a rather sticky end after messing with Tommy Shelby and the Peaky Blinders (2013). Colley has worked as writer/director and star on the ultra low budget horror film Greetings (2007), in which a group of youngsters using an Ouija board get more than they bargain for.
Kenneth Colley was married since 1962 and resided in the market town of Hythe in the county of Kent. He passed away on June 30 2025 in Kent at the age of 87.
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