Kenneth Colley

Biography

Kenneth Colley (Manchester, 1937 – Ashford, Kent, 2025) was a British actor whose career in film and television spanned more than six decades. Wider audiences knew him as Admiral Piett in the Star Wars saga, but he had already built a solid body of work in British cinema and television during the 1970s and 1980s.

He began appearing on British television in the 1970s, with parts such as Noah Riley in the police drama The Sweeney. He was also a trained Shakespearean actor: in 1979 he played the Duke of Vienna in the BBC's Measure for Measure, and in 1982 he took the lead in the period drama I Remember Nelson as Horatio Nelson.

His most recognisable film work came through Ken Russell, with whom he worked regularly from the early 1970s to the early 1990s as part of a group of recurring performers. For the director he played Modest Tchaikovsky in The Music Lovers (1971), LeGrand in The Devils (1971), the journalist Krenek in Mahler (1974) and Chopin in Lisztomania (1975). His last role for Russell was Captain Dreyfus in Prisoner of Honor (1991).

He also took part in Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979), where he played Jesus, and worked with Terry Gilliam on Jabberwocky (1977). He later appeared in Clint Eastwood's Firefox (1982) as a Soviet colonel.

His role in the Star Wars saga was unusual: he was the only actor to play an Imperial officer in a second film of the series, returning as Piett in Return of the Jedi (1983) after The Empire Strikes Back (1980). He revisited the character in the Cartoon Network special Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out (2012).

Away from the big screen, he directed the horror film Greetings (2007), and in 2017 he recorded spoken narrations for an album by the Folkestone band Phenomenal Cat. He died in Ashford on 30 June 2025, aged 87, after complications in hospital.

Key films

• The Empire Strikes Back (1980): Admiral Piett, one of the Imperial officers serving under Darth Vader.
• Life of Brian (1979): Jesus in Monty Python's satire.
• Firefox (1982): a Soviet colonel tasked with protecting the aircraft and its secrets.
• The Devils (1971): LeGrand, in one of Ken Russell's most controversial films.