Kenneth Colley
| Kenneth Colley | |
|---|---|
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| Born |
7 December 1937 Manchester, Lancashire, England |
| Occupation | Actor |
| Years active | 1961–present |
Kenneth Colley (born 7 December 1937) is an English actor. A long-time character actor, he came to wider prominence through his role as Admiral Piett in Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
Unlike the other ill-fated officers who appeared alongside him in The Empire Strikes Back, Colley was the only actor to play an Imperial officer in more than one Star Wars film. Colley reprised his role as Piett in the Cartoon Network animated special Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out in September 2012. Coincidently, Colley and David Prowse had a part in the 1977 fantasy film Jabberwocky.
Colley was born in Manchester, Lancashire. He played Jesus in The Life of Brian, having also appeared in the earlier Monty Python-related production Ripping Yarns episode "The Testing of Eric Olthwaite" alongside Michael Palin. As a Shakespearean actor he played the Duke of Vienna in the BBC Television Shakespeare production of Measure for Measure in 1979.
Colley also held an important role in the Clint Eastwood film Firefox, where he played a Soviet Colonel tasked with the protection of the Firefox and its secrets.
Colley went on to play SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel in the Second World War drama War and Remembrance. He directed one film to date, Greetings, a 2007 horror film starring Kirsty Cox, Henry Dunn and Ben Shockley. According to comments which Terry Gilliam (who directed him in Jabberwocky and acted with him in Life of Brian) made in the DVD audio commentaries for both films, Colley is a terrible stammerer in real life. When he had a role in a film, however, he could recite the lines perfectly. Stuttering is a character trait, however, in his role as the "Accordion Man" in the 1978 BBC television drama, Pennies from Heaven.
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