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Kenneth Colley
Acting
Biography
Kenneth Colley (7 December 1937 — 30 June 2025) was 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 Life of Brian (1979), having also appeared in the earlier 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 (also 1979).
Colley also held an important role in the Clint Eastwood film Firefox, a…
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Kenneth Colley (7 December 1937 — 30 June 2025) was 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 Life of Brian (1979), having also appeared in the earlier 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 (also 1979). Colley also held an important role in the Clint Eastwood film Firefox, as a Soviet Colonel tasked with the protection of the Firefox and its secrets. Colley portrayed 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 BBC television drama Pennies from Heaven (1978). He has also recently starred in BBC's HolbyBlue as a drunk and violent father, grandfather and father-in-law. Description above from the Wikipedia article Kenneth Colley, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
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BODY OF WORK
Kenneth Colley's Filmography
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Dan Hawk Psychic Detective
as Thaddeus Moncrief
Scar Tissue
as Weaver
LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out
as Admiral Piett (voice)
Greetings
as Ken
Like Father Like Son
as Rawsthorne
No Poster
Hold Back the Night
as Uncle Bob
Shadow Run
as Larcombe
Brassed Off
as Greasley
Robert Rylands' Last Journey
as Archdale
Solomon & Sheba
as Nathan
Unnatural Causes
as Inspector Gerry Reckless
The Secret Life of Arnold Bax
as John Ireland
La Vie de Bohème
as Street Sweeper
Prisoner of Honor
as Capt. Dreyfus
The Last Island
as Nick
I Hired a Contract Killer
as The Killer
Kremlin Farewell
as Sergej
The Plot to Kill Hitler
as Wilhelm Keitel
The Rainbow
as Mr. Brunt
A Master of the Marionettes
as Inspector Tennyson
A Summer Story
as Jim
Casanova
as Le Duc
The Whistle Blower
as Bill Pickett
Return to Waterloo
as The Traveller
Return of the Jedi
as Admiral Piett
The Scarlet and the Black
as Capt. Hirsch
Giro City
as Martin
Firefox
as Colonel Kontarsky
The Empire Strikes Back
as Admiral Piett
Life of Brian
as Jesus
The Danedyke Mystery
as The Major
Measure for Measure
as Duke Vincentio
Les Misérables
as Police Prefect
One Bummer News Day
as Frank Benyon
Come the Revolution
as Bruce Tetley
The Testing of Eric Olthwaite
as Robber
Jabberwocky
as 1st Fanatic
No Poster
Three Days in Szczecin
as Edmund Bałuka
The Chester Mystery Plays
Lisztomania
as Frederic Chopin
Flame
as Tony Devlin
Juggernaut
as Detective Brown
Mahler
as Krenek
Hitler: The Last Ten Days
as Boldt
The Triple Echo
as Provo Corporal
The Boy Friend
as King in fantasy sequence (uncredited)
The Devils
as Legrand
The Music Lovers
as Modeste Tchaikovsky
Performance.
as Tony Farrell
Dance of the Seven Veils
No Poster
Cause of Death
as Dr. Emil Justin
The Blood Beast Terror
as James
No Poster
Who Pays?
as Corbett
How I Won the War
as 2nd Replacement
The Jokers
as De Winter
No Poster
Macbeth
as Macbeth's servant
Three Clear Sundays
as Nick
Seventy Deadly Pills
as Covent Garden porter