Ken Colley

Kenneth Colley (born December 7, 1937 in Manchester ), also known under the name Ken Colley , is a British actor .

life and career

For a long time he was a character actor. But through his role as Admiral Piett in the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi , he became known to a wider audience.

Kenneth Colley played Jesus in the provocative comedy The Life of Brian . He also starred in an episode alongside Michael Palin in the earlier Monty Python production Riping Yarns . As a Shakespeare actor, he played the Duke of Vienna in 1979 in the BBC television production of the Shakespeare play Measure for Measure (German: Maß für Maß ).

Ken Colley also received an important role in the Clint Eastwood film Firefox as Soviet Colonel Kontarsky, whose job it is to protect Firefox and its secrets.

Colley played the SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel in the Second World War drama War and Remembrance , whose job it is to cover up the fact of the Holocaust and its many fatalities.

According to a remark by Terry Gilliam (director of Jabberwocky and co-star in The Life of Brian ) that he made during the audio commentary on the DVDs of both films, Ken Colley is a terrible stutterer in real life. If he plays a role, however, he can reproduce his text perfectly.

Colley played in countless television productions in his decades-long career. In the early 1980s, he played Admiral Lord Nelson in the miniseries I Remember Nelson. Most recently, he appeared on the BBC series Holby Blue as a drinking and violent father, grandfather and father-in-law.

Ken Colley currently lives in Hythe in the southeastern county of Kent .