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Kenneth Cope

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Kenneth Cope
Born
Kenneth Charles Cope

(1931-04-14)14 April 1931
Died11 September 2024(2024-09-11) (aged 93)
OccupationActor
Years active1954–2009
Spouse
(m. 1961)
Children3, including Martha and Nick

Kenneth Charles Cope (14 April 1931 – 11 September 2024) was an English actor and scriptwriter. He was best known for his roles as Marty Hopkirk in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), Jed Stone in Coronation Street, Ray Hilton in Brookside, Sid in The Damned and as a minor member of the Carry On team.

Early life

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Kenneth Cope was born on 14 April 1931 in Wavertree, Liverpool (at the time in Lancashire, now in Merseyside), England.[1][2]

Career

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After training to be an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School,[3] Cope began playing character roles in films from the mid-1950s, and between 1961 and 1966 gained attention for his regular role in Coronation Street as the shady Jed Stone, a part he returned to in 2008. In May 1963 he issued a single with Tony Hatch on the Pye label, inspired by Mike Sarne, titled "Hands Off, Stop Mucking About" b/w "Why Am I So Shy".[4] The single was credited to Ken Cope and the Breakaways. He boasted: "It'll get me a golden disc if one in every 24 folk who watch Coronation Street go out and buy the record." The record was not a success[citation needed] but it led to a regular slot as a disc jockey with Radio Luxembourg.[5]

Cope also appeared in the satirical series That Was the Week That Was[6] from 1962 until 1963.[citation needed]

He played Subutai in the 1965 film of the life of Genghis Khan, and in the same year appeared in Dateline Diamonds playing Lester Benson. In 1967 he appeared as Tom Savage in "The Bird Who Knew Too Much" episode of The Avengers.[7]

In Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969–1970), Cope played the ghost private eye Marty Hopkirk opposite Mike Pratt's Jeff Randall.

He also took leading roles in two Carry On films. In Carry On at Your Convenience (1971) he played Vic Spanner, the obnoxious shop steward central to the film's trade union and industrial problems storyline and the rival in the film's romantic sub-plot. In Carry On Matron (1972) he took the more sympathetic role of Cyril Carter, the son of a thief who is forced to impersonate a female nurse as part of his father's attempt to rob a maternity hospital. Once there, Cyril finds love with a real nurse.

In an episode of the first series of The Adventures of Black Beauty, "Sailor on a Horse" (1972), he played Henry Thackery, a missing heir from Canada, returning from sea, just in time to save the land and Beauty's paddock next to the Gordon family, which greedy, contentious lawyer Weems tries to sell by fraud, palming one of his clerks off as being the true heir.

He appeared as Jack Victor in Catweazle ("The Wogle Stone") in 1971. In 1975–1976 he wrote three series of the BBC children's television series Striker, starring the young Kevin Moreton and inspired by the local youth football team in the village of Islip, Oxfordshire, where the Cope family was then living. Other screenwriting credits include A Sharp Intake of Breath.

Cope featured in three episodes of Minder playing different characters: newly released prisoner Albert Stubbs in "Bury My Half at Waltham Green"; 'Scooter' in "Waiting for Goddard"; and police informer Phelan in "Bring Me the Head of Arthur Daley".

He later appeared in the Doctor Who story Warriors' Gate (in 1981), and guest-starred in two episodes of Casualty, as well as taking roles in Juliet Bravo,The Bill, Waking the Dead, A Touch of Frost and Kavanagh QC.

In 1984, Cope starred in Bootle Saddles, a surreal sitcom about a failing themed 'cowboy village' on the outskirts of Merseyside. He played the lead character Percy James, who was passionate about the park despite the poor financial returns. The series appeared to be less a parody and more a sort of homage to 1950s and 1960s westerns, with episodes structured loosely around epics like High Noon and The Magnificent Seven. The characters rarely strayed out of their diegetic cowboy personas, despite the contemporary setting. The series was axed after one season.

In 1995 he appeared with his daughter Martha in an episode of Out of the Blue.[citation needed] In 1997 Cope played dodgy ex-copper Charlie Fairclough alongside David Jason in an episode of A Touch of Frost titled "True Confessions".[citation needed] From 1999 to 2002 he played Ray Hilton in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside.[citation needed]

Cope was offered a cameo role in the 2000–2001 revival of Randall and Hopkirk starring Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, but turned it down. He did, however, feature on the "Behind the Scenes" section of the Series 1 DVD, wishing the cast of the remake well. He also provided the foreword to a Randall and Hopkirk Deceased retrospective book by Geoff Tibballs, published in 1994.[8] In addition, an 'Appreciation', written by Cope, was included in the 2018 autobiography of Australian actress Annette Andre, Where Have I Been All My Life?.[citation needed]

Cope played Neville Harding in 2004's "Shadowplay" (Series 4, episodes 11 and 12 of Waking the Dead).

In 2008 Cope's Coronation Street character Jed Stone returned to the ITV soap after 42 years' absence, appearing as part of a storyline involving property developer Tony Gordon. The character was kept onscreen for several months before being written out again, and marked Kenneth Cope's final acting appearance.

Personal life

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Cope married actress Renny Lister, whom he had met when she worked on Coronation Street, in 1961. They had two sons and a daughter together and lived in Witney, Oxfordshire. Their sons Nick and Mark Cope went on to form a rock band, The Candyskins. Their daughter, Martha Cope, is an actress. In 1997, Lister announced her retirement.[citation needed]

In 1974, Cope and his wife opened a restaurant, in Watlington, Oxfordshire, named Martha's Kitchen after his daughter.[citation needed]

Cope was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2000, but six years later he was told this was a misdiagnosis;[citation needed] he later suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.[9]

In January 2014, Cope appeared as a character witness during the trial of former Coronation Street colleague William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow in the series.[10]

In retirement Cope resided in Southport and wrote a weekly column for the weekly Southport Visiter newspaper.[11] He was a loyal supporter of Everton F.C.[12]

Cope died on 11 September 2024, aged 93.[12][13][14]

Filmography

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Television appearances

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References

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  1. ^ "Kenneth Cope". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 30 September 2015. Retrieved 24 April 2024. Born: 14 April 1931, Liverpool
  2. ^ Obituary.The Guardian, 12 September 2024.
  3. ^ Obituary.The Guardian, 12 September 2024.
  4. ^ Hands Off, Stop Muckin' About on YouTube
  5. ^ "Kenneth Cope". www.corrie.net. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  6. ^ "In pictures: That Was The Week That Was". BBC News. 26 November 2002. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  7. ^ "The Bird Who Knew Too Much". BBC. Retrieved 5 April 2012.
  8. ^ Randall & Hopkirk Deceased. ITC [and] Boxtree. 1994. ISBN 978-0-7522-0915-9.
  9. ^ Corrie actor Kenneth Cope was told he was dying Archived 19 October 2013 at the Wayback Machine. Unreality TV. Retrieved 15 January 2012
  10. ^ Thomas, Joe (7 February 2014). "Kenneth Cope relief at William Roache sex offences trial verdict". Liverpool Echo. Retrieved 3 March 2014.
  11. ^ "Carry On and Coronation Street star Kenneth Cope dies aged 93". Daily Telegraph. 12 September 2024. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  12. ^ a b McIntosh, Steven. "Kenneth Cope: Randall and Hopkirk and Coronation Street star dies". BBC. Retrieved 12 September 2024.
  13. ^ "Carry On and Coronation Street star Kenneth Cope dies aged 93". The Telegraph. 12 September 2024. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
  14. ^ Cooper-Fiske, Casey (12 September 2024). "Carry On and Coronation Street star Kenneth Cope dies aged 93". The Independent. Retrieved 16 November 2024.
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