Personal info
Known for
Actor
Gender
Male
Birthday
28 September
Location
England, United Kingdom
Edit pageRonald Lacey
Biography
Ronald William Lacey (28 September 1935 – 15 May 1991) was an English actor. He made numerous television and film appearances over 30 years. 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).
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.
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 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 in 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983.
