Pat Roach

For the actor who plays Randy on "Trailer Park Boys", see Patrick Roach.

Pat Roach
Pat Roach.
Born	Francis Patrick Roach 19 May 1937(1937-05-19) Birmingham, (then Warwickshire, now West Midlands), England, UK
Died	17 July 2004(2004-07-17) (aged 67) Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England, UK
Nationality	British
Other names	Bomber
Ethnicity	White British
Occupation	Actor, wrestler, businessman, fitness club owner,[1] author,[2] scrap dealer
Years active	1971–2004
Notable works	See below
Height	6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)[3][4]
Television	Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
Spouse	Doreen Harris (m. 1957–2004) «start: (1957)–end+1: (2004-07-18)»"Marriage: Doreen Harris to Pat Roach" Location: (linkback://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Roach) (his death)
Children	1 son[5]

Francis Patrick "Pat" Roach (19 May 1937 – 17 July 2004) was an English actor, wrestler and author, from Birmingham. His most famous role is that of West Country bricklayer Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He also played a memorable role as General Kael in Willow. He was the only actor besides Harrison Ford to appear in all of the first three films in the Indiana Jones franchise (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade).

Early life

Roach was born in Birmingham, West Midlands on 19 May 1937.

Wrestling career

Before Roach broke into acting, he was a well-known wrestler who attracted unwarranted abuse from the crowds who wrongly assumed him to be a typical wrestling heel in a similar mould to the likes of Mick McManus.^{[citation needed]} After his acting career had taken off, he continued to wrestle under the name of "Bomber" Pat Roach, having previously been billed as "Big" Pat Roach, but now receiving affectionate cheering from the spectators. He was trained by Alf Kent and his first official wrestling match was against George Selko. Roach held both the British and European Heavyweight Wrestling Championships.^{[citation needed]}

Acting career

He made his acting debut as the red-bearded bouncer in the Korova Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange in 1971. Roach and Kubrick reunited for Barry Lyndon; Pat portrayed a hand-to-hand brawler named Toole, who engages Ryan O'Neal (as the title character) in bare-knuckle combat. Roach enjoyed considerable success via being typecast as muscle-bound supporting characters; these included the non-speaking role of Hephaestus in Clash of the Titans (coincidently, he later appeared as Atlas on "Jim Henson's The Storyteller": Greek Myths in the story of Perseus and the Gorgon, on which Clash of the Titans was based), a SPECTRE-backed assassin in Never Say Never Again, and a bandit-warlord in the sword-and-sorcery yarn Red Sonja. (The latter two pitted him against Sean Connery and Brigitte Nielsen, respectively, in mortal combat; Roach lost on both counts.) Perhaps most notable were his roles as the skull-helmeted General Kael in Willow,the Celtic chieftain in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves and as a brutal German mechanic in Raiders Of The Lost Ark who meets his demise via propeller blades on an airstrip in Egypt after an infamous fight scene.

In the Indiana Jones series Roach appeared as several characters. In Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Roach played a burly Sherpa who fights Jones in a bar in Nepal and as a brutal German mechanic who meets his demise via propeller blade on the airstrip in Egypt. He thus had the rare opportunity to be killed twice in one film. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Roach played a cruel Thuggee overseer. Roach appeared only briefly in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) as a Gestapo officer who runs alongside Colonel Vogel towards the zeppelin. A scene where he fights Jones in this film was cut.^[6] The role of Colonel Dovchenko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a stand-in for Roach, who died in 2004.

Roach is best known to British audiences as Bomber—in the ITV/BBC comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet—a bricklayer who joined the main cast in Düsseldorf and appeared in all four series, but died before the final special was completed.

Personal life

He married his wife Doreen in 1957, they had one son^[7] and one grandchild^{[citation needed]}.

Later life and death

During most of the 1990s Roach had a scrapyard in Arden Road, in Saltley, Birmingham.

Roach died in July 2004 after a long struggle against throat cancer. He is buried in Bromsgrove Cemetery, Worcestershire.^[8]

Selected filmography

His film roles have included:

• A Clockwork Orange (1971)
• Barry Lyndon (1975)
• Rising Damp (1980)
• Clash of the Titans (1981)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
• Never Say Never Again (1983)
• Superman III (1983)
• Conan the Destroyer (1984)
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
• Red Sonja (1985)
• Willow (1988)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
• The Return of the Musketeers (1989)
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991)
• The Big Man (1991)

Championships and accomplishments

• Joint Promotions

• British Heavyweight Championship (once)
• European Heavyweight Championship (twice)

• Premier Wrestling Federation

• Ken Joyce Trophy (1992)

References

1. ^ http://www.filmbuffonline.com/InRemembrance/PatRoach.htm
2. ^ WHSmith – Search for Pat Roach
3. ^ http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/jul/19/broadcasting.guardianobituaries
4. ^ http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/pat-roach-550121.html
5. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1467315/Pat-Roach.html
6. ^ (2003). The Stunts of Indiana Jones (DVD). Paramount Pictures.
7. ^ http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1467315/Pat-Roach.html
8. ^ BBC on Pat Roach's funeral

External links

• Pat Roach at the Internet Movie Database
• BBC Obituary
• Photos of Roach's grave at Findagrave

Persondata
Name	Roach, Pat
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	19 May 1937
Place of birth	Birmingham, West Midlands, England
Date of death	17 July 2004
Place of death	Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, England