The “Empire Strikes Back” actor was 85 years old

Michael Culver

Richard Keith Wolfe/Avalon/Getty Images

Michael Colfer, the veteran British actor who played the ill-fated Captain Nida The Empire strikes back and a fanatical police inspector in David Lean Passage to India, He died. He was 85 years old.

Culver died on February 27, according to Alliance Agents, which represented him for the past decade. No other details were immediately available.

Colfer has also appeared on a lot of British television over the years, from friends, Secret army And The Adventures of Black Beauty to The return of Sherlock Holmes, Set and match game, Pete Elliot Starring Derek Jacobi Cadfael.

in Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire strikes back (1980), directed by Irvin Kershner, Colfer’s character, as the captain of the Imperial Star Destroyer Avenger, loses track of the Millennium Falcon piloted by Han Solo during the chase.

Nida takes full responsibility and apologizes to Darth Vader, who then kills him (“Apology accepted, Captain Nida”).

Colfer then portrayed Major McBride in the Best Picture Oscar-nominated film Passage to India (1984), starring Academy Award winner Peggy Ashcroft, Judy Davis, James Fox, and Alec Guinness. This will be Lean’s last film.

Colfer was born in North London on 16 June 1938. His father, Roland, was a theater actor and his mother, Daphne, was a theater casting director. (She is said to have discovered Richard Burton.)

He attended the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and as a member of the Old Vic company appeared on Broadway in 1958 Twelve nights, village And King Henry V. In 1962, it arrived in the West End Judith.

He later appeared uncredited in the James Bond films From Russia with love (1963) and Thunder (1965).

Colfer made his breakthrough with a starring role alongside Jacobi and Anthony Bate in the 1977 ITV television film. Philby, Burgess and Macleanabout three real MI5 agents who were working as Russian spies.

Culver largely gave up acting in the early 2000s to focus on political activism, coalition agents said. Last year, he and fellow actor Mark Rylance successfully campaigned for a statue of Brian Howe, an Iraq War protester, to be placed outside the Imperial War Museum in London.

Survivors include his second wife, Amanda; children Roderick, Justin and Susan; and four grandchildren.