Career
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.
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 British Broadcasting Corporation Shakespeare production of Measure for Measure in 1979.
Colley also held an important role in the 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 Steamship-Standartenführer Paul Blobel in the World World War II 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 Digital Video Disc 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 Manitoba" in the 1978 British Broadcasting Corporation television drama, Pennies from Heaven.
Colley lives in Hythe, Kent.