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Kenneth Colley

Kenneth Colley

Birthday: 1937-12-07 | Place of Birth: Manchester, England, UK

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.

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Known For

Acting

Year
Title

Role

2013
Scar Tissue

as    Weaver

2012
LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out

as    Admiral Piett (voice)

2007
Greetings

as    Ken

2005
Like Father Like Son

as    Rawsthorne

1998
Shadow Run

as    Larcombe

1990
I Hired a Contract Killer

as    The Killer

1990
The Plot to Kill Hitler

as    Wilhelm Keitel

1988
A Summer Story

as    Jim

1987
The Whistle Blower

as    Bill Pickett

1986
1985
Wallenberg: A Hero's Story

as    Adolph Eichmann

1983
The Scarlet and the Black

as    Capt. Hirsch

1982
Firefox

as    Colonel Kontarsky

1979
Measure for Measure

as    Duke Vincentio

1979
Life of Brian

as    Jesus

1973
Hitler: The Last Ten Days

as    Boldt

1971
The Music Lovers

as    Modeste Tchaikovsky

1970
Performance

as    Tony Farrell (as Ken Colley)

1963
Seventy Deadly Pills

as    Covent Garden porter