JEREMY BULLOCH

(16 February 1945 - 17 December 2020)

Although he was never a star player, the British actor Jeremy Bulloch, who has died aged 75 from Parkinson’s disease, worked consistently in films, TV and theatre for nearly sixty years. His professional debut was in a TV cereal commercial followed by appearances on children’s TV. He had uncredited roles in films and television from 1958 until 1962 when he was cast in Michael Winner’s Play It Cool with Billy Fury. Then came Peter Yates’s first feature, the Cliff Richard musical Summer Holiday. The Idol (1966) was Daniel Petrie’s drama with Jennifer Jones and then Bulloch made Las Leandras, a Spanish comedy that was only shown in Spain and South America. The 1970s began for him with The Virgin and the Gypsy, based on D.H. Lawrence’s novel, Mary, Queen of Scots with Vanessa Redgrave, Lindsay Anderson’s O Lucky Man! and episodes of Doctor Who and other TV series. Bulloch was the star of Can You Keep It Up For a Week?, a mild sex comedy about hanging on to a job for seven days. Escape From the Dark was for Disney while The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only and Octopussy put him on the Bond movie map. In Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, Bulloch created the role of Boba Fett, a role that guaranteed him celebrity for ever. Agony was the first TV sitcom to have a gay couple, here played by Bulloch and Peter Denyer and starring Maureen Lipman. Then it was more TV until Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith with Bulloch as Captain Colton. He played a spectator in The Mandelorian Legacy, while Terry Fujii assumed the role of Boba Fett, Bulloch ended his film career with a couple of shorts featuring Boba Fett in 2015/16. Jeremy Bulloch and his wife Maureen Bulloch have three sons.

MICHAEL DARVELL