Kenneth Colley, 87, ‘Star Wars' actor with a commanding presence, dies

Boston Globe

6 days ago

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In a 2014 interview, he recalled that when he walked into an office to meet Irvin Kershner, the director of 'The Empire Strikes Back,' Kershner told him he was looking for 'someone that would frighten Adolf Hitler.' Colley, with his gaunt face and steely eyes, fit the bill.
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Admiral Piett is appointed top commander of the Imperial fleet after his superior is killed by Darth Vader (whose physical presence is played by David Prowse) for his poor judgment. Mr. Colley often said that he saw Admiral Piett as a shrewd operator who followed orders for the sake of survival in Darth Vader's world. In his interpretation of the character, he reinforced the severity and tension felt in the camp as the Rebel alliance evades capture.
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The film grossed more than $200 million in its original release, according to the site Box Office Mojo, with Admiral Piett emerging as an unexpected crowd pleaser.
As Mr. Colley liked to recall, the creator of Star Wars, George Lucas, asked him to come back for 'Return of the Jedi' (1983) after he received a flood of fan letters curious about Admiral Piett's backstory. Although the character wasn't included in the original script, Lucas wrote him into new scenes while on set. In the finished film, Admiral Piett leads the Imperial fleet until he is shot down by a Rebel fighter at the Battle of Endor.
Mr. Colley relished the popularity of his role and appeared at conventions and fan events in the subsequent decades.
He continued to interpret a wide assortment of roles, including an impudent left-wing journalist in a 1987 stage adaptation of John Hale's spy novel 'The Whistle Blower' (1984), but he mostly played villains, which, he told the magazine Star Wars Insider in 1987, was 'fine by me.'
'If you can burrow in deep and find some life there,' he said, 'that makes it interesting — you want to know more about this uniform.'
Kenneth Colley was born Dec. 7, 1937, in Manchester, England. He began acting at the Bromley Repertory Company, where he worked as an assistant stage manager, according to The Guardian, and joined The Living Theater in Leicester in the early 1960s. He also trained with the Royal Shakespeare Company and with Laurence Olivier's National Theater Company.
In the 1960s, he played bit roles in various TV series and televised theater productions, including 'ITV Play of the Week'; the anthology drama series 'Thirty-Minute Theater,' taking on the parts of Charles I and Hitler; and 'BBC Play of the Month.' He played a stammering accordion player in 'Pennies from Heaven' (1978), a major in 'The Danedyke Mystery' (1979) and Jesus in the film 'Monty Python's Life of Brian' (1979).
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Mr. Colley married Mary Dunne in 1962. She died in 2018. Information on his survivors was not immediately available.
His other notable performances include the Duke of Vienna in 'Measure for Measure,' a 1979 BBC Shakespeare production; Adolf Eichmann in 'Wallenberg' (1985); and a cranky recluse in a Nancy Meckler 2000 revival of Brecht's 1939 play 'Mother Courage and Her Children,' a role he 'brilliantly played for one scene only,' as Sheridan Morley wrote in The International Herald Tribune.
In a hot streak during the 1980s, he acted in Clint Eastwood's 'Firefox' (1982); 'Giro City' (1982), as the titular vice admiral in the British miniseries 'I Remember Nelson' (1982); and alongside Gregory Peck in the TV movie 'The Scarlet and the Black' (1983).
'In one year, I worked with Clint Eastwood, Gregory Peck, and David Prowse,' he recalled in 1987. 'I got a crick in my neck from always looking up toward the stars!'
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