WhatsOnStage
Alex Wood, 11th May 2026
The Actor was an RSC regular and a presence across the world
Michael Pennington, the British actor, has died aged 82.
He was born onn the 7th June 1943, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company on graduation, where he remained in a junior capacity from 1964-1966.
He returned to the RSC in 1974 to play Angelo in Measure for Measure, going on to play Berowne in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Edgar in King Lear, and the title role in Hamlet in 1980 to 81.
The RSC published a statement today, saying “we are incredibly sad to hear that RSC Honorary Associate Artist Michael Pennington passed away at the age of 82 yesterday. A Shakespearean to his very bones, Michael’s long and distinguished career with us spanned an astonishing 50 years.”
“Our thoughts go to all those who knew him. He first joined the RSC after graduating from Cambridge University in John Barton’s 1964/5 Wars of the Roses cycle. Best known fo his Hamlet in 1980, his final appearance here was in 2012, playing John of Gaunt alongside David Tennant in Greg Doran’s staging of Richard II.”
In 1986 Pennington co-founded the English Shakespeare Company with director Michael Bogdanov and served as its joint artistic director until 1992. The company mounted a 7-play history cycle. The Wars of the Roses, which toured worldwide and was televised. Pennington played Richard II, Prince Hal/Henry V and Jack Cade, and received Olivier Award nominations for that cycle and for his subsequent title roles in Macbeth and Coriolanus.
At the National Theatre he appeared in Tolstoy’s Strider, for which he received a further Olivier nomination, and in Otway’s Venice Preserv’d. He also played Raskolinikov in Yuri Lyubimov’s adaptation of Crime and Punishment and Henry in Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing in the West End.
Later work included Archie Rice in The Entertainer, Anthony Blunt in Alan Bennett’s Single Spies, and the title role in King Lear for the Theatre for a New Audience in New York in 2014, as well as The Tempest at Jermyn Street Theatre. He also developed solo shows on Chekhov and Shakespeare which he toured internationally for many years.
In 2004 he became only the second actor, after Harley Granville-Barker in 1925, to deliver the British Academy’s annual Shakespeare Lecture. He also wrote ten books, including guides to several Shakespeare plays and a memoir. He is survived by his son, Mark
Forbes
Michael Pennington, a screen and stage actor whose roles included Death Star Commander Moff Jerjerrod in Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, has died
Pennington died Sunday, according to The Telegraph in the U.K. He was 82. His cause of death was not given.
Born Michael Vivian Fyfe Pennington on June 7, 1943, in Cambridge, England, Pennington’s screen career kicked off in 1965 in a supporting role in the BBC miniseries The War of the Roses. A year before, he joined England’s Royal Shakespeare Company as a bit player, according to The Telegraph.
In 1983’s Return of the Jedi, Pennington’s Moff Jerjerrod is confronted by Darth Vader (David Prowse/voice of James Earl Jones) with concerns from Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) over the lagging construction of Death Star II. At the end of the scene, a visibly rattled Moff Jerjerrod assures Darth Vader that his team will double their efforts in completing the new version of the planet-killing weapon, to which the Sith lord menacingly replies, “I hope so, commander, for your sake. The emperor is not as forgiving as I am.”
Pennington, who was also a longtime member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, compiled more than 70 screen roles during his career. In addition to Return of the Jedi, Pennington starred opposite Meryl Streep’s U.K. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 2011 biopic The Iron Lady, a role that earned Streep her third overall Oscar and second statuette for Best Actress.
Michael Pennington Was Okay With His ‘Star Wars’ Association
While Michael Pennington appeared in well over 100 roles on stage and screen throughout his career, the one appearance that followed him throughout was his turn as Moff Jerjerrod in Star Wars: Episode VI: Return of the Jedi.
According to The Telegraph, Pennington once told an interviewer of his role in the beloved Star Wars classic, “Let’s not make too much of it, but I’ve done 20 years of plays since, and people still write for autographs, saying, ‘If you ever do any more acting, please let us know.’”
Apart from his Shakespeare work, Pennington starred in several other stage productions, including The Madness of George III and Anton Chekhov, a one-man play where he starred in the title role. In addition to his stage work, Pennington authored nearly a dozen books, largely dedicated to the acting craft.
On screen, Pennington largely appeared in British film and television productions, although some of the movies and shows made their way across the pond to the U.S. As such, Pennington appeared in guest roles in the crime drama Waking the Dead, which aired on BBC America and the historical drama The Tudors, which aired on Showtime.
Pennington’s last credited role was in 2022, when he voiced The Trust — a sentient quantum computer — in five episodes of Season 2 of executive producer and director Ridley Scott’s HBO Max sci-fi series Raised by Wolves.