Pat Roach
| Pat Roach | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Francis Patrick Roach 19 May 1937 Birmingham, Warwickshire, England |
| Died | 17 July 2004 (aged 67) Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England |
| Cause of death | Throat cancer |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Actor, wrestler, businessman, fitness club owner, author, scrap dealer |
| Years active | 1960–2004 |
| Notable work | See below |
| Height | 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) |
| Television | Auf Wiedersehen, Pet |
| Spouse(s) | Doreen Harris (m. 1957–2004) (his death) |
| Children | 2 |
Francis Patrick "Pat" Roach (19 May 1937 – 17 July 2004) was an English actor, professional wrestler and author. He was known for his roles as West Country bricklayer Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, General Kael in Willow, and his supporting roles of henchmen in the Indiana Jones films.
Francis Patrick "Pat" Roach was born and brought up in Birmingham, West Midlands, the son of Frank Roach (born 1905).
Before Roach broke into acting, he was a well-known wrestler who attracted unwarranted abuse from the crowds who wrongly assumed him to be a typical wrestling heel in a similar mould to the likes of Mick McManus. After his acting career had taken off, he continued to wrestle under the name of "Bomber" Pat Roach, having previously been billed as "Big" Pat Roach, but now receiving affectionate cheering from the spectators. He was trained by Alf Kent and his first official wrestling match was against George Selko in 1960. Roach held both the British and European Heavyweight Wrestling Championships.
He made his acting debut as the red-bearded bouncer in the Korova Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in 1971. Roach and Kubrick reunited for Barry Lyndon; Pat portrayed a hand-to-hand brawler named Toole, who engages Ryan O'Neal (as the title character) in bare-knuckle combat. Roach enjoyed considerable success via being typecast as muscle-bound supporting characters; these included the non-speaking role of Hephaestus in Clash of the Titans alongside Laurence Olivier (coincidentally, he later appeared as Atlas on "Jim Henson's The Storyteller: Greek Myths" in the story of Perseus and the Gorgon, on which Clash of the Titans was based), a SPECTRE-backed assassin in Never Say Never Again, and as bandit-warlord Lord Brytag in the sword-and-sorcery yarn Red Sonja. (The last two films pitted him against Sean Connery and Brigitte Nielsen, respectively, in mortal combat; Roach's character was defeated in both encounters). Perhaps most notable were his roles as the skull-helmeted General Kael in Willow,the evil wizard Thoth-Amon and Man Ape in Conan the Destroyer and as the Celtic chieftain in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves alongside Alan Rickman. More sympathetically, in 1985 he played Petty Officer Edgar Evans in the Central TV mini-series The Last Place on Earth about Captain Scott's expedition to the South Pole.
...
Wikipedia