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.
Colley was born in Manchester. He played Jesus (very briefly indeed) 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 movie 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 World War II drama War and Remembrance. His character was charged with hiding the evidence of the Holocaust, and putting dead victims through “Economic Processing”.
According to comments Terry Gilliam (who directed him in Jabberwocky and co-starred with him in Life of Brian) made in the DVD audio commentaries for both films, Colley is a terrible stutterer 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. He has also recently starred in BBC’s HolbyBlue as a drunk and violent father, grandfather and father-in-law.
He currently lives at Hythe in Kent.
Description above from the Wikipedia article Kenneth Colley, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Kenneth Colley Biography / Wiki
| Name | Kenneth Colley |
| Also Know | Kenneth Cooley, Ken Colley |
| Gender | Male |
| Known For | Acting |
| Place of Birth | Manchester, England, UK |
| Date of Birth | 1937-12-07 |
| Age(as in 2022) | 84 |
| Deathday |
Kenneth Colley Acting Movies
| Movie Name | Character | Release Date | Overview |
| Return to Waterloo | The Traveller | 1984-11-01 | A man taking the train to work one morning is overcome by melancholy memories and morbid fantasies…. |
| I Remember Nelson | Vice-Adm. Horatio Viscount Nelson | 1982-04-14 | Vice Adm. Horatio Nelson’s remarkable naval career and troubled personal affairs are brought to life in this miniseries, which tells his famous story … |
| Greetings | Ken | 2007-10-23 | It’s Cathy’s party, but she’s not having a good time. The boys have found an Ouija board and are out for some harmless fun. When strange things start … |
| Measure for Measure | Duke Vincentio | 1979-02-18 | When the Duke of Vienna takes a mysterious leave of absence and leaves the strict Angelo in charge, things couldn’t be worse for Claudio, who is sente… |
| Robert Rylands’ Last Journey | Archdale | 1996-10-18 | Loosely (and controversial) adaptation of the novel “All Souls” by Javier Marias. It tells the story of a Spanish professor at Oxford who witnesses th… |
| Kremlin Farewell | Sergej | 1990-04-01 | A drama of intrigue and betrayal in Stalin’s Russia. Stepan grows up in an orphanage, learning to love Stalin as ‘a father to all children’. He retain… |
| I Hired a Contract Killer | The Killer | 1990-10-12 | After losing his job and realizing that he is alone in the world, a businessman opts to voluntarily end his life. Lacking courage, he hires a contract… |
| Unnatural Causes | Inspector Gerry Reckless | 1993-01-02 | Roy Marsden returns as author P.D. James’s indefatigable gumshoe, Inspector Adam Dalgliesh. This time, he’s investigating the murder of a famous myste… |
| Wallenberg: A Hero’s Story | Adolph Eichmann | 1985-04-07 | The story of Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat responsible for saving thousands of lives from the Nazi Holocaust…. |
| Giro City | Martin | 1982-11-01 | Welsh investigative journalists set out to cover the Troubles in Northern Ireland only to unearth censorship and corruption back home…. |
| Dance of the Seven Veils | 1970-02-15 | Russell’s composer biopics were usually labours of love. This was the opposite: he regarded Strauss’s music as “bombastic, sham and hollow”, and despi… | |
| Solomon & Sheba | Nathan | 1995-02-26 | In the land of Israel, Solomon (Jimmy Smits) is trying to figure out a way to become the world’s supplier of frankincense. He sends an envoy to the … |
| A Summer Story | Jim | 1988-08-11 | A bittersweet tale of lost love, based on a short story (“The Apple Tree”) by John Galsworthy…. |
| The Plot to Kill Hitler | Wilhelm Keitel | 1990-01-30 | A historical recreation of the 1944 attempt by several German High Command Officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and take control of the German governm… |
| Shadow Run | Larcombe | 1998-01-01 | Haskell (Michael Caine) is assigned a job by his boss, the aristocratic Landon-Higgins (James Fox), to highjack a high security van in broad daylight … |
| The Last Island | Nick | 1990-11-16 | In a brilliant, modern version of the classic shipwreck tale, director Marleen Gorris manages to capture both a gay male’s and feminist perspective…. |
| The Secret Life of Arnold Bax | John Ireland | 1992-11-22 | A biopic about the eminent composer Sir Arnold Bax…. |
| The Scarlet and the Black | Capt. Hirsch | 1983-02-02 | Fr. Hugh O’Flaherty is a Vatican official in 1943-45 who has been hiding downed pilots, escaped prisoners of war, and Italian resistance families. His… |
| The Music Lovers | Modeste Tchaikovsky | 1971-02-12 | Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately he chooses a wonky,… |
| One Bummer News Day | Frank Benyon | 1978-12-12 | What happens to provincial journalists when there’s nothing in the news and they have a paper to fill?… |
| Firefox | Colonel Kontarsky | 1982-06-13 | The Soviets have developed a revolutionary new jet fighter, called ‘Firefox’. Worried that the jet will be used as a first-strike weapon—as there ar… |
| Hold Back the Night | Uncle Bob | 1999-06-10 | A young woman joins a group of protesters trying to stop the construction of a highway through a forest with the purpose of having sex with their lead… |
| Scar Tissue | Weaver | 2013-09-12 | When Luke wakes up and finds a mutilated corpse in his bathroom, his life changes for ever. Stalked by a terrifying psychopathic serial killer, he has… |
| Like Father Like Son | Rawsthorne | 2005-01-24 | Life for Dee Stanton is improving at every turn. Her legal career is blossoming and her boyfriend Dominic unexpectedly proposes to her. Things were ve… |
| The Triple Echo | Provo Corporal | 1972-01-01 | After her husband is captured during WWII, homesteader Alice is forced to maintain their land herself. One day, a wandering soldier named Barton stops… |
| Seventy Deadly Pills | Covent Garden porter | 1963-01-01 | A small boy, Dickie Goodwin, finds some strychnine pills mixed with sweets in a stolen car left in a deserted garage. With them he buys his way into t… |
| Prisoner of Honor | Capt. Dreyfus | 1991-11-02 | France, 1897. Colonel Georges Picquart challenges the French government when he discovers the obscure political maneuvers that led to the imprisonment… |
| Flame | Tony Devlin | 1975-02-13 | Light the Rock ‘n Roll spark with a Flame in the guise of Dave, Noddy, Jim and Don and their showcase of the rise and demise of rock band Flame. Set i… |
| The Whistle Blower | Bill Pickett | 1986-11-21 | A war veteran tries to investigate the murder of his son who was working as a Russian translator for the British intelligence service during the Cold … |
| Life of Brian | Jesus | 1979-08-17 | Brian Cohen is an average young Jewish man, but through a series of ridiculous events, he gains a reputation as the Messiah. When he’s not dodging his… |
| Casanova | Le Duc | 1987-03-01 | TV Movie version of the story of Giacomo Casanova, the famous eighteenth century womanizer…. |
| Performance | Tony Farrell | 1970-08-03 | Young gangster Chas Devlin seeks refuge from the mob in a basement belonging to a reclusive, fading rock star Turner…. |
| Hitler: The Last Ten Days | Boldt | 1973-04-19 | Hitler: The Last Ten Days takes us into the depths of der Furher’s Berlin bunker during his final days. Based on the book by Gerhard Boldt, it provi… |
| Come the Revolution | Bruce Tetley | 1977-10-25 | Flashpoint for the Revolution is at Bellevue, Manchester. Will the plumber’s mates be part of that revolution?… |
| The Rainbow | Mr. Brunt | 1989-05-05 | Ken Russell’s rather loose adaptation of the last part of D.H. Lawrence’s “The Rainbow” sees impulsive young Ursula coming of age in pastoral England … |
| LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out | Admiral Piett (voice) | 2012-09-24 | Luke Skywalker embarks on a mission to destroy an Imperial base, but is relentlessly chased by a group of fanatic girls who think of him as a celebrit… |
| Jabberwocky | 1st Fanatic | 1977-03-28 | A medieval tale with Pythonesque humour: After the death of his father the young Dennis Cooper goes to town where he has to pass several adventures. T… |
| Mahler | Krenek | 1974-04-04 | Famed composer Gustav Mahler reflects on the tragedies of his life and failing marriage while traveling by train…. |
| Brassed Off | Greasley | 1996-11-01 | A Yorkshire coal mine is threatened with closure and the only hope is for the men to enter their Grimley Colliery Brass Band into a national competiti… |
| The Devils | Legrand | 1971-07-01 | In 17th-century France, Father Urbain Grandier seeks to protect the city of Loudun from the corrupt establishment of Cardinal Richelieu. Hysteria occu… |
| Return of the Jedi | Admiral Piett | 1983-05-25 | Luke Skywalker leads a mission to rescue his friend Han Solo from the clutches of Jabba the Hutt, while the Emperor seeks to destroy the Rebellion onc… |
| Juggernaut | Detective Brown | 1974-09-25 | A terrorist demands a huge ransom in exchange for information on how to disarm the seven bombs he has planted aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship…. |
| How I Won the War | 2nd Replacement | 1967-10-18 | An inept British WWII commander leads his troops to a series of misadventures in North Africa and Europe…. |
| The Blood Beast Terror | James | 1968-02-01 | A Scotland Yard Detective (Peter Cushing) must investigate a series of murders perpetrated by a giant blood-sucking moth that can take human form…. |
| Lisztomania | Frederic Chopin | 1975-10-10 | Roger Daltrey of The Who stars as 19th century genius pianist Franz Liszt in this brash, loud and free-wheeling rock ‘n’ roll fantasia centered around… |
| The Empire Strikes Back | Admiral Piett | 1980-05-20 | The epic saga continues as Luke Skywalker, in hopes of defeating the evil Galactic Empire, learns the ways of the Jedi from aging master Yoda. But Dar… |
| La Vie de Bohème | Street Sweeper | 1992-02-27 | Three penniless artists become friends in modern-day Paris: Rodolfo, an Albanian painter with no visa, Marcel, a playwright and magazine editor with n… |
| The Jokers | De Winter | 1967-05-15 | Brothers Michael and David Tremayne decide to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London, not for criminal purposes, but to make themselves famou… |
| Three Clear Sundays | Nick | 1965-04-07 | Ken Loach production for The Wednesday Play, reflecting contemporary debates surrounding the abolishment of capital punishment…. |
Credit: TMDB
Checkout The More Celebrities Profiles in Biography World