Ronald Lacey

British actor

Mela White

(m. 1962; div. 1969)

Joanna Baker

(m. 1972; div. 1989)

Children3, including Rebecca

Ronald William Lacey (28 September 1935 – 15 May 1991) was an English actor.^[1] He made numerous television and film appearances over a 30-year period. His roles included Harris in Porridge (1977), Frankie in the Bud Spencer comedy Charleston (1978), SD agent Sturmbannführer Arnold Ernst Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and the Bishop of Bath and Wells in Blackadder II (1986).^[1]

Early life

Lacey was born and grew up in Harrow, Middlesex. He received his formal education at Harrow Weald Grammar School. After a brief period of national service in the British Armed Forces, he enrolled at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art to train as an actor.

Career

Lacey began his acting career in 1959 in a television play, The Secret Agent. His first significant performance was at the Royal Court Theatre in 1962's Chips with Everything. Lacey had an unusual 'pug' look, with beady eyes, an upturned nose, liver lips, an overbite, receding chin and no brows. He could scream at a very high pitch. This unique combination of features landed him repeatedly in bizarre roles on both stage and screen, often as seedy, creepy villains. Together with his Welsh background, it helped qualify him for the role of Dylan Thomas, which he played on BBC2 in what critic Clive James described as a "bravura performance".^[2]

Lacey performed on British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with roles spanning from a part in Kenneth Clark's Civilisation television series, as the gravedigger, in a re-enactment of the gravedigger scene from Hamlet, with Ian Richardson as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart as Horatio, to a guest shot as the "Strange Young Man" in The Avengers episode "The Joker", and as Harris in the sitcom Porridge, with the latter finally landing him in the role for which his unusual physical characteristics could be repeatedly used to full advantage.^[3] Disappointed with his acting career by the late 1970s, he began to consider starting a talent agency. Spielberg then cast him as the Nazi agent Arnold Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He followed this with a series of various villain roles for the next five to six years: Sahara (1983) with Brooke Shields, Flesh and Blood (1985) with Rutger Hauer and Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Red Sonja (1985) with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Brigitte Nielsen. In 1982's Firefox with Clint Eastwood, Lacey played a Russian scientist helping the West behind the Iron Curtain. He then made two movies for Ice International Films: Assassinator starring alongside John Ryan and George Murcell, and Into the Darkness, starring with Donald Pleasence, John Ryan, and Brett Paul. He performed comic monologues on The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog, which was recorded 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.^[4]

Lacey played a number of villainous roles and was known for his trademark smile, which would turn into a gleaming malicious leer. He also had a rather large mole on his left cheek, which he chose not to have removed, as well as a highly distinctive voice. In 1983's Trenchcoat, he used the mole as a beauty mark in his role as Princess Aida, a mysterious and sleazy drag queen on the island of Malta. His other drag role was in Invitation to the Wedding from 1985, in which he played a husband/wife couple.

Personal life

Lacey married twice, first to the actress Mela White in 1962 (she married him under the name Brompton as this was her second marriage). They had two children, actors Rebecca Lacey^[5] and Jonathan Lacey. Following their divorce, he married Joanna Baker in 1972, with whom he had a son.

Death

Lacey was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer on 25 April 1991. He died less than one month later, on 15 May 1991, at the age of 55.

Filmography

Films

1962 The Boys as Billy Herne
1963 Doctor in Distress as Café Customer (uncredited)
1964 Of Human Bondage as "Matty" Mathews
1964 The Comedy Man as First Assistant Director (uncredited)
1965 Catch Us If You Can as Yeano, Beatnik
1967 The White Bus
1967 The Fearless Vampire Killers as Village Idiot
1967 How I Won the War as Spool
1969 Take a Girl Like You as Graham
1969 Otley as Curtis
1971 Say Hello to Yesterday as Car Park Attendant (uncredited)
1971 Macbeth as Macbeth’s Man, Killed Banquo (uncredited)
1971 Crucible of Terror as Michael Clare
1972 Disciple of Death as Parson
1973 Gawain and the Green Knight as Oswald
1973 The Final Programme as "Shades"
1975 Mister Quilp as Harris
1976 The Likely Lads as Ernie
1977 Charleston as Frankie
1979 Zulu Dawn as Norris Newman
1980 Nijinsky as Léon Bakst
1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark as Major Arnold Ernst Toht
1982 Firefox as Dr. Maxim Ilyich Semelovsky
1982 Tangiers as Wedderburn
1983 Invitation to the Wedding as Clara / Charles Eatwell
1983 Trenchcoat as Princess Aida
1983 Yellowbeard as Man With Parrot
1983 Sahara as "Beg"
1984 Making the Grade as Nicky
1984 Sword of the Valiant as Oswald
1984 The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension as President Widmark
1984 The Bengal Lancers!
1985 Flesh + Blood as Cardinal
1985 Red Sonja as Ikol
1985 Minder on the Orient Express as Harry Ridler
1986 Aces Go Places 4 as Leader of the villains
1986 Sky Bandits as Fritz
1986 Lone Runner as Misha
1986 Into the Darkness as Stewart Andrew Golding
1988 Jailbird Rock as Warden Bauman
1988 Manifesto as The Conductor
1988 Dawn of an Evil Millennium
1989 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as Heinrich Himmler (uncredited)
1989 Valmont as José
1989 Stalingrad as Winston Churchill
1992 The Assassinator as Stewart
1992 Landslide as Fred Donner
1993 Angely smerti (final film role)

TV

1960 Deadline Midnight as Jensen
1961 A Chance of Thunder as Johnny Travers
1964 The Likely Lads as Ernie
1965 Day Out for Lucy
1965 Barnaby Spoot and the Exploding Whoopee Cushion as Justin Fribble
1965 Fable as Len
1965 Gideon's Way as Jerry Blake
1966 Who's a Good Boy Then? as Billy Oates
1966 Sergeant Cork (episode "The Case of Albert Watson V.C.") as Albert Watson
1967 Boa Constrictor as Frankie "Three"
1967 Great Expectations as Orlick
1967 The Avengers (episode "The Joker") as Strange Young Man
1968 The Avengers (episode "Legacy of Death") as Humbert - a parody of Peter Lorre
1965-68 Theatre 625 – "Mille Miglia", "The Burning Bush", "Firebrand", "The Nutter"
1968 Game, Set and Match
1968 Civilisation (episode "Protest and Communication" as Grave Digger from Shakespeare's Hamlet
1969 It Wasn't Me as George
1969 Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased)
1969 Target Generation as Joe Manx
1969 These Men Are Dangerous
1970 The Adventures of Don Quick as Sergeant Sam Czopanser
1970 The Vessel of Wrath (1970) as Controleur
1970 Catweazle as Ted "Tearful Ted"
1971-1972 Jason King as Ryland
1972 The Protectors (episode King Con) as Cribbe
1973 Colditz (episode "Murder?") as Major Zibnek
1973 Last of the Summer Wine as Walter (episode "The New Mobile Trio")
1973 The Adventures of Don Quixote as Monk
1973 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? as Ernie
1975 The Fight Against Slavery as Charles James Fox
1975 The Sweeney (episode "Thou Shalt Not Kill!") as Barry Monk
1976 Thriller (episode "The Next Victim") as Bartlett
1976 Our Mutual Friend as Mr. Venus
1976 The New Avengers (episode "Hong Kong Harry") as Harry
1976 A Story to Frighten the Children as Lang
1976 The Duchess of Duke Street (Episode 9) as art dealer Mr. Shephard
1977 Porridge as Harris
1978 All Creatures Great and Small (episode "The Last Furlong") as Stewie Brannon
1978 Dylan (TV play) as Dylan Thomas
1978 The Mayor of Casterbridge (mini-series) as Jopp
1979 Blakes 7 (episode "Killer") as Tynus
1979 Tropic (TV series) as Geoffrey Turvey
1981 Tiny Revolutions
1982 P.O.S.H. as Mr. Vicarage
1983 Scarecrow and Mrs. King as Bobby Bouchard
1983 Hart to Hart (episode "Hostage Harts")
1983 The Hound of the Baskervilles as Inspector Lestrade
1983 The Rothko Conspiracy
1984 Magnum, P.I. as Archer Hayes
1985 Connie as Crawder
1985 Minder on the Orient Express as Harry Ridler
1985 Blackadder II (episode "Money") as The Bishop of Bath and Wells
1987 The Sign of Four as Thaddeus Sholto / Bartholomew Sholto
1988 The Great Escape II: The Untold Story as Winston Churchill
1989 The Nightmare Years as Emil Luger
1990 Face to Face as Dr. Brinkman
1991 The Strauss Dynasty as Bauer
1990 Haggard

References

^ ^a ^b Rose of Sharon Winter (2014). "Ronald Lacey". Movies & TV Dept. The New York Times. Archived from the original on 11 March 2014.
^ Clive James (6 April 2017). Clive James On Television. Pan Macmillan. p. 236. ISBN 978-1-5098-3243-9.
^ Kenneth Clark (1969). Civilisation (Television production). London, UK: BBC.
^ [1] The Green Tie on the Little Yellow Dog production website
^ Lynda Bellingham (28 October 2014). Lost and Found: My Story. Ebury Publishing. p. 256. ISBN 978-1-4464-0795-0.