Kenneth Colley worked extensively with the British Director Ken Russell from the early 1970s to the early 1990s as part of a repertory of actors who appeared across Russell's television and film work (others included Murray Melvin, Brian Murphy , Oliver Reed, Max Adrian and Georgina Hale). He played the role of Modest Tchaikovsky in the 1971 film The Music Lovers. He went on to play the role of LeGrand in Russell's controversial masterpiece The Devils ; he played the Journalist Krenek in the biopic Mahler in 1974; the Composer Frédéric Chopin in Lisztomania; Mr Brunt in Russell's adaptation of The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence. His last role for Ken Russell was as Captain Dreyfus in the film Prisoner of Honor, which dealt with the Dreyfus affair.
Colley was born in Manchester, Lancashire. He played Jesus 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 1982 Clint Eastwood film 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 Second World War drama War and Remembrance. He directed one film to date, Greetings, a 2007 horror film starring Kirsty Cox, Henry Dunn and Ben Shockley. According to comments which Terry Gilliam (who directed him in Jabberwocky and acted with him in Life of Brian) made in the DVD audio commentaries for both films, Colley is a terrible stammerer 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.
Unlike the other ill-fated officers who appeared alongside him in The Empire Strikes Back, Colley was the only actor to play an Imperial officer in more than one Star Wars film. Colley reprised his role as Piett in the Cartoon Network animated special Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out in September 2012. Coincidently, Colley and David Prowse had a part in the 1977 fantasy film Jabberwocky.
