{"id":478430,"date":"2026-05-11T00:27:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:27:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478430\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T00:27:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T00:27:12","slug":"michael-pennington-star-wars-return-of-the-jedi-actor-dies-at-82","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/478430\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Pennington, Star Wars: Return of the Jedi Actor, Dies at 82"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Pennington, an actor who entered the pop culture realm in the movie Star Wars: Return of the Jedi in 1983, has died. The actor starred as Death Star Commander Moff Jerjerrod in the third film in the original\u00a0Star Wars\u00a0trilogy. Pennington died on Sunday at the age of 82. His death was originally reported by The Telegraph<\/a> and then shared by Star Wars News Net writer Soeren Kamper. The official cause of death has yet to be announced, and there has been no press release by his family. <\/p>\n

Pennington was not as well known to American audiences as he was to those in England. He was a beloved English actor who founded the English Shakespeare Company (ESC) in 1986 and was its Joint Artistic Director until 1992.\u00a0He was a beloved actor and also worked as an author, writing 10 books, as well as working as a director in the United Kingdom, the United States, Romania, and Japan. He was also celebrated for his stage work, which included roles in Hamlet, The Judge, and The Henrys. He also played Antony in Antony and Cleopatra in 2012. <\/p>\n

Michael Pennington Was Best Known in the U.S. for Return of the Jedi<\/p>\n

\"MichaelImage Courtesy of Lucasfilm<\/p>\n

Michael Pennington might be best known for his role in Return of the Jedi. He played Death Star Commander Moff Jerjerrod. His character was a bureaucrat and military officer who started off as an architect and starship designer before he was promoted to the rank of Moff. He then became the station commander of the DS-2 Death Star II Mobile Battle Station<\/a> thanks to his work on the first Death Star. He faced the wrath of Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine, and he ended up dying when the Death Star was destroyed. <\/p>\n

However, what might come as a surprise to many Star Wars fans is that Pennington regretted his role in Return of the Jedi. \u201cI look at it now, and I think I overact horribly, and I can\u2019t even remember the storyline. We all did it for a song, but I suppose that it has given we some kind of calling card for movies,\u201d Pennington said in an interview (reported by TheWrap<\/a>). \u201cWhenever I come out of the Stage Door after a performance, all people would ask about was\u00a0Star Wars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Other than Return of the Jedi<\/a>, Pennington starred as Michael Foot in The Iron Lady (2011) with Meryl Streep and had title roles in Oedipus Rex\u00a0(1986) and the made-for-television film\u00a0The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1987). In 2004, Michael Pennington was also the second actor to deliver the British Academy\u2019s annual Shakespeare lecture, and the first since Harley Granville-Barker in 1925. Pennington had one son, Mark. <\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the\u00a0ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Pennington, an actor who entered the pop culture realm in the movie Star Wars: Return of the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263],"tags":[18,117,19,17,327,5769,31242,8127],"class_list":{"0":"post-478430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-movies","13":"tag-obituary","14":"tag-regular-news","15":"tag-star-wars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116553111696487320","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}