Michael Pennington, the acclaimed actor known for his Shakespearean roles and appearance in the original Star Wars trilogy, has died at the age of 82, his agent confirmed.
A Life in Theatre
Pennington was an honorary associate artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company and co-founded the English Shakespeare Company with director Michael Bogdanov. Fellow actor Miriam Margolyes called him an "old friend, from Cambridge days, a very fine actor, brilliant, wise, clear," adding, "I am sad beyond measure."
Over a 60-year career, Pennington portrayed iconic Shakespeare characters including Hamlet, Mercutio, Macbeth, King Lear, Richard II, Henry V, Coriolanus, Timon of Athens, Angelo, Leontes, and Jack Cade. He also directed Twelfth Night in the UK, Tokyo, and Chicago, and the Hamlet Project for the National Theatre Bucharest.
Early Inspiration
In his 2004 British Academy Shakespeare lecture, Pennington recalled his first encounter with Shakespeare at age 11: "Shakespearean verse hit me like a hammer... It was Macbeth, rolling off the stage of the Old Vic: 'My way of life Is fall'n into the sere, the yellow leaf.'" He described the visceral impact of the language, noting that "the yellow leaf" reminded him of autumn leaves on his walk home from school in north London.
Collaborations and Screen Work
Pennington worked extensively with Bogdanov, who cast him in Seán O'Casey's The Shadow of a Gunman (1980) and Tolstoy's Strider: The Story of a Horse (1983). A 2017 Guardian obituary noted that their impetus for founding the English Shakespeare Company stemmed from "frustration and dissatisfaction at both the RSC and the National."
He performed alongside Dame Judi Dench and Michael Williams in King Lear in the 1970s. In a 2015 interview, Pennington said watching Dench play Ophelia in a 1957 Hamlet production inspired his theatre career: "There's no one quite like Judi. For her acting is playing: she's a lass unparalleled."
On screen, Pennington appeared in over 70 productions, including Return of the Jedi as Moff Jerjerrod, commander of the Death Star. He also starred opposite Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, for which she won her third Academy Award.
Final Years
Pennington's agent, Lesley Duff, said: "After a long and wonderful life and career, Michael Pennington died peacefully in the early hours of Thursday 7 May at Denville Hall."
