Admiral Piett Actor Kenneth Colley Passed Away Aged 87
Kenneth Colley, best known for his role as Admiral Piett in ‘Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back’ and ‘Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi’ has passed away aged 87.
The BBC reported that he died peacefully on Monday, June 30, at his Kent home in the UK, after contracting Covid and developing pneumonia.
His agent Julian Owen said in a statement: “Ken Colley was one of our finest character actors with a career spanning 60 years. Ken continually worked on stage, film and television playing a vast array of characters, from Jesus in Monty Python’s Life of Brian to evil and eccentric characters in Ken Russell films, and the Duke of Vienna in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure for the BBC.”
Owen further explained Colley had been in hospital with an injured arm after a fall, but soon after contracted Covid which developed into pneumonia.
Colley reprised the voice of Piett in the 2012 LEGO animated film ‘LEGO Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out’.
The Daily Mail reported that Colley initially wasn’t supposed to be included in ‘Return of the Jedi’, but ‘Star Wars’ creator George Lucas changed his mind as Lucasfilm had received “a lot of fan mail” about the character.
While Colley is most known as Piett to fans of sci-fi, he has had other roles as Jesus in ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’, Clint Eastwood’s ‘Firefox’ and the Second World War series ‘War and Remembrance’.
He also had plenty of on-stage theatre credits, with Owen’s statement saying “Ken’s favourite part was playing Estragon in the stage production of Beckett’s classic Waiting for Godot at the Cockpit Theatre in London in 2014.”
