Ronald Lacey was a prolific and versatile English actor who made a lasting impression on audiences with his memorable roles in movies and television. He was best known for playing the sadistic Nazi agent Arnold Toht in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Bishop of Bath and Wells in Blackadder II, and Harris in Porridge. But what was Ronald Lacey’s cause of death that cut short his brilliant career?
Early Life and Education
Ronald William Lacey was born on 28 September 1935 in Harrow, Middlesex, England. He received his formal education at Harrow Weald Grammar School. After a brief period of national service in the British Armed Forces, he enrolled at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art to train as an actor.
Career Highlights
Lacey began his acting career in 1959 in a television play, The Secret Agent. His first significant performance was at the Royal Court Theatre in 1962’s Chips with Everything. Lacey had an unusual ‘pug’ look, with beady eyes, an upturned nose, liver lips, an overbite, receding chin and no brows. He could scream at a very high pitch. This unique combination of features landed him repeatedly in bizarre roles on both stage and screen, often as seedy, creepy villains. Together with his Welsh background, it helped qualify him for the role of Dylan Thomas, which he played on BBC2 in what critic Clive James described as a “bravura performance” [according to Wikipedia].
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 [according to Wikipedia].
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 a series of various villain roles for the next five to six years: Sahara with Brooke Shields, and 1985’s Red Sonja with Arnold Schwarzenegger, in addition to 1982’s Firefox with Clint Eastwood, in which he 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 1982, and broadcast by Channel 4 in 1983 [according to Wikipedia].
Personal Life and Death
Lacey was married twice: first to Mela White from 1962 to 1969, and then to Joanna Baker from 1972 to 1989. He had three children: Rebecca, Jonathan, and Matthew. He had his lower intestines removed in his early twenties and as a result had to have a colostomy bag implemented. Over the years he was refused certain film roles in other countries at his personal doctor’s fervent request. His lack of “guts”, so to speak, prevented him from travelling abroad for the sake of appearing in motion pictures [according to IMDb].
Lacey was diagnosed with terminal liver cancer on 25 April 1991. He died less than one month later, on 15 May 1991, at the age of 55 [according to Wikipedia]. A tremendous talent with great depth and many facets, Ronald Lacey will probably be remembered best for his small but significant role as the dapper yet psychotic Nazi in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
