Michael Pennington, the British actor best known to film audiences for playing Death Star commander Moff Jerjerrod in Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the JediHe has died at the age of 82.
The telegraph reported his death on Sunday.
Pennington appeared in the 1983 film in one of its most memorable scenes, taking orders from Darth Vader as the Empire’s sinister military commander.
Although the role always proved popular with star wars fans, Pennington was characteristically self-deprecating in recalling it.
“I look at it now and I think I overact horribly and I can’t even remember the plot,” he said in a 2012 interview.
“We all did it for a song, but I guess it’s given me a kind of calling card for film.”
He noted that for years after the film, audiences waiting at the stage door after his stage performances asked almost exclusively about star warsalthough in 2012 he discovered that The iron lady It was generating so much conversation.
His career extended far beyond that galaxy far, far away.
He played Laertes in a 1969 production of Village and played politician Michael Foot in the 2011 film. The iron ladywith Meryl Streep.
In 1986, Pennington co-founded the English Shakespeare Company with theater director Michael Bogdanov, an organization dedicated to promoting the work of William Shakespeare that forms an important part of his legacy.
Pennington married actress Katharine Barker in 1964 and the couple had a son, Mark, before divorcing in 1967.
His partner, arts administrator Prue Skene, died last year.
The telegraph She remembered him warmly as “a warm, pleasant man” who “enjoyed the company of other actors and took turns cooking a meal for everyone”, and who at one point was known for handing out jars of his homemade quince butter.
