Peter Copley
Birth : 1915-05-20, Bushey, Hertfordshire, England, UK
Death : 2008-10-07
History
Peter Copley was a British stage, film and television actor.
Patron
In the spring of 1913, Parisian businessman Gabriel Astruc opens a new theater on the Champs Elysées. The first performance is the premiere of Igor Stravinsky's 'The Rite of Spring', danced by the Ballet Russes. The rehearsal process is extremely fraught: the orchestra dislike Stravinsky's harsh, atonal music; the dancers dislike the 'ugly' choreography of Vaslav Nijinsky. The volatile, bisexual Nijinsky is in a strained relationship with the much older Sergei Diaghilev, the Ballet Russes' charismatic but manipulative impresario. Public expectation is extremely high after Nijinsky's success in 'L'apres-midi d'un faune'. Finally, 'The Rite of Spring' premieres to a gossip-loving, febrile, fashion-conscious Parisian audience sharply divided as to its merits.
Dining Hall Master
Oliver Twist the modern filmed version of Charles Dickens bestseller, a Roman Polanski adaptation. The classic Dickens tale, where an orphan meets a pickpocket on the streets of London. From there, he joins a household of boys who are trained to steal for their master.
Old Pilgram (director's cut)
After his wife dies, a blacksmith named Balian is thrust into royalty, political intrigue and bloody holy wars during the Crusades.
Colonel Colin Ingate
Davies investigates the drowning of a local character known for collecting discarded scraps of paper - but did he stumble across someone's well kept secrets?
Sean's Father
Janice Beard is a dreamer who can't seem to quite make it big. She is working in an auto design company and falls for the mailboy, but he is hiding secrets.
Maitland
In 1919, the great English military man T. E. Lawrence tries to help the king of the Syrian in the Conference of Peace in Paris.
British Prisoner
Jamie Graham, a privileged English boy, is living in Shanghai when the Japanese invade and force all foreigners into prison camps. Jamie is captured with an American sailor, who looks out for him while they are in the camp together. Even though he is separated from his parents and in a hostile environment, Jamie maintains his dignity and youthful spirits, providing a beacon of hope for the others held captive with him.
Frossard
Decades after the end of World War II, escaped war criminal Klaus Barbie is brought to justice.
Vicar
An idealistic former soldier helps unite and house ethnic minorities in a run down area of the east end
Gribsby
Adaptation from the play by Oscar Wilde.
Commissioner
Incendiary 1981 Play for Today, written by Jim Allen and directed by Roland Joffé that tells the story of a group of housing estate residents who attempt to organise against persistent rent rises.
Reverend Muldaur
Young Cedric Errol and his widowed mother live in genteel poverty in 1880s Brooklyn after the death of his father. Cedric's grandfather, the Earl of Dorincourt, has long ago disowned his son for marrying an American. But after the death of the Earl's remaining son, he decides to accept Cedric as his heir.
Gen. Sir John Dill
The complicated relationship between Winston Churchill and the leaders of the British army during World War II.
A gung-ho ex-military man pursues a secret life of crime, culminating in the kidnapping of a teenage heiress.
Admiral Howe
During World War One an English adventurer, an American elephant poacher and the latter's attractive young daughter, set out to destroy a German battle-cruiser which is awaiting repairs in an inlet just off Zanzibar. The story is based on a novel by Wilbur Smith, which in turn is very loosely based on events involving the light cruiser SMS Königsberg, which was sunk after taking refuge in Rufigi delta in 1915.
Home Secretary
Former Irish Republican Army member Niall Hennessy lives in Belfast, Ireland, with his wife and daughter amid the ongoing Irish-British conflict. Though he still knows people in the IRA, including fugitive leader Tobin, Niall has given up his violent ways. One day his family is caught in a chaotic street shootout and killed by British forces. Overwhelmed with rage and hunted by a Scotland Yard inspector, Niall heads to London to exact his deadly revenge.
Dr. Warlock
In a Victorian Gothic mansion, strange things are afoot. The master of the house, away in Egypt, has been replaced by a sinister Egyptian. Cloth-wrapped Mummies roam the grounds, killing people. Beneath a pyramid, the last of the Osirans — Sutekh the Destroyer — waits to be freed, to at long last bring his gift of death to all who live.
Pilgrim
The medieval legend of a supernatural knight who challenges the king's men to kill him.
1st Funeral Director
Two funeral parlours fight one another for business, one of whom is more shady than the other.
Dickson
Two young people plot to get their hands on grannie's money, but rather than simply pushing her down the stairs they hatch an elaborate plot to convince her that radical youth have taken over England are planning to do away with "oldies" like her.
John
Jane Eyre is an orphan, sent to Lowood school, and eventually becomes a governess at Thornfield hall to a girl named Adele. While she is there, many strange things happen and eventually she and Edward Rochester, owner of Thornfeild and Adele's guardian, fall in love. Suddenly, when Jane is about to win the happiness she deserves, a dark secret comes to light, and it will take all of her courage, love and understanding to triumph.
Archbishop
The story of the Earl of Warwick and Perkin Warbeck, during the reign of King Henry VII.
Principal
Blackmailing a young couple to assist with his horrific experiments the Baron, desperate for vital medical data, abducts a man from an insane asylum. On route the abductee dies and the Baron and his assistant transplant his brain into a corpse. The creature is tormented by a trapped soul in an alien shell and, after a visit to his wife who violently rejects his monstrous form, the creature wreaks his revenge on the perpetrator of his misery: Baron Frankenstein.
Mr Scott
While a WW2, RAF squadron leader mourns the death of a comrade, he receives a bombing mission against a secret Nazi V-2 rocket testing facility in France.
English Cardinal
All eyes focus on the Vatican, watching for the traditional puffs of white smoke that signal the election of the next Pope. This time much more is at stake. The new pontiff may be the only person who can bring peace to a world on the brink of nuclear nightmare.
Howell
An ancient Martian spaceship is unearthed in London, and proves to have powerful psychic effects on the people around.
Jeweller
An obscure Eastern cult that practices human sacrifice pursues Ringo after he unknowingly puts on a ceremonial ring (that, of course, won't come off). On top of that, a pair of mad scientists, members of Scotland Yard, and a beautiful but dead-eyed assassin all have their own plans for the Fab Four.
Picture Owner
A nebbish schoolteacher begs his smooth (and misogynistic) pal to teach him 'the knack' - how to score with women. Serendipitously, the men meet up with a new girl in town, as well as a friendly lunatic who can’t help but paint things white.
Colonel
During World War I, Army Private Arthur James Hamp is accused of desertion during battle. The officer assigned to defend him at his court-martial, Captain Hargreaves, finds out there is more to the case than meets the eye.
Dr Leo Whitset
A prominent London psychologist seems to have taken his own life, causing stunned disbelief amongst his colleagues and patients. His teenage daughter refuses to believe it was suicide as this would go against all of the principles her father stood for, therefore she is convinced it was murder. She enlists the help of a former patient to try to get to the truth. However, the truth turns out to be both surprising and disturbing.
Paul Mandrake
Barrister Melville Farr is on the path to success. With his practice winning cases and a loving marriage to his wife, Farr's career and personal life are nearly idyllic. However, when blackmailers link the secretly closeted Farr to a young gay man, everything Farr has worked for is threatened. But instead of giving in, Farr decides to fight.
Jane and Tom set out on an adventure in which they must keep the corrupt Grimblatt from locating the K-13 fuel for his evil space mirror.
Scientist
The inhabitants of Todday are content to live their lives in peace and quiet, until, that is, the government decides their little corner of the world would be the perfect place for a rocket launch site.
Gilbert Weaver
Norman works in a jewellers workshop and fantasises (in the nicest way) about meeting the window dresser across the road from his workshop. He wants to buy her a diamond pendant but calculates it will take him over 100 years to save up for it. He is talked into betting a pound on a six horse accumulator at the Goodwood races with a slightly shady bookmaker. When he has won on the first five races, the bookie owes him over 16,000 pounds and everyone begins to worry. Everyone's future depends on a single race ... what can be done ?
Leslie
A wealthy business man discovers he has a brain tumor and seeks medical help. The business man finds a scientist experimenting with transplanting monkey heads on different monkey bodies. The business man decides to steal the head of Nostradamus from the prophet's crypt.
Prison Chaplain
Alec Graham is sentenced to death for the murder of his girlfriend Jennie, with whom he spent a weekend at the English country home of the parents of his friend Brian Stanford. Alec’s father, David Graham, a not-so-successful writer and alcoholic who has neglected his son in the past, flies in from Canada to visit his son on death row. David then goes on a quest to try and clear his son’s name while battling “the bottle.”
Brown
Millionaire Victor Danemore, living on the French Riviera, dies suddenly of a heart attack. His secretary, Dave Bishop, wants to know more about his employer's life. Surprisingly, not even his young wife knows anything about her husband's background or how he earned his fortune. Clues lead Bishop to Vienna and Stockholm, where he learns that Danemore was blackmailing people who cooperated with the Nazis during World War II.
Mr. Ritter
Story of a group of children's successful efforts to bring to book a gang of oil men intent on stealing valuable invention.
Leader Mokhazenis
Saadia is a wild, strange Arab girl whose life has been dominated by a local sorceress, a vengeful outcast in the community, who has convinced her she has the "evil eye" and brings disaster to all who love her. French doctor Henrik takes her to his clinic, for rehabilitation purposes, and falls in love with her as does his friend, Si Lahssen, the reigning prince of this small Moroccan state. When a plague falls on the town, Saadia is convinced she is responsible, and rides alone into the mountain country to retrieve the plague serum being held for ransom by bandits. The love triangle dominates most of the rest of the film.
His Excellency
Story of how two youngsters round up crooks planning to blow up the British fleet off Gibraltar.
Sir Edwin Caskoden
Tells the story of Mary Tudor and her troubled path to true love. Henry VIII, for political reasons, determines to wed her to the King of France. She tries to flee to America with her love but is captured when she is "un-hatted" on board ship. In return for her consent to the marriage with France, Henry agrees to let her choose her second husband. When King Louis of France dies, Mary is kidnaped by the Duke of Buckingham. He tries to force her to marry him but she is rescued by her love in an exciting battle on the beach.
Cummings
1890, London, and a serial killer known as The Terror is murdering policemen. When gentleman thief Nicholas Revel unwittingly becomes the chief suspect, he must use his guile and wits to prove he’s not the killer; whilst also not getting caught for a jewel robbery he has just committed.
P. Shillitoe (uncredited)
A charming and ambitious young man finds many ways to raise himself through the ranks in business and social standing - some honest, some not quite so. If he can just manage to avoid a certain very predatory woman...
Aribi
An archaeologist stumbles into the territory of an evil crime syndicate and struggles to set things right.
Minor Role
Farewell Again is a multiplotted British comedy/drama about soldiers on leave and the people they've left. Given a six-hour pass after a tour of duty in India, several British Tommies (among them Robert Newton, Sebastian Shaw and Anthony Bushell) try to unravel their domestic tribulations before having to ship out again. American expatriate Tim Whelan was the directorial hand who kept the various plot threads from entangling, while another Hollywood vet, James Wong Howe, manned the cameras. The film became instantly dated with the advent of World War II, but in its own time Farewell Again was a box-office smash. The film was issued in the US as Troopship.
Waiter
A short comedy about dentistry by the doctor and (at this point) amateur film-maker Richard Massingham.
General Friedrich Olbright
A failed plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler.