Kenneth Cope
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For the musician, see Kenneth Cope (musician).
Kenneth Cope (born on 14 July 1934 in Liverpool) is an English actor.
He is most famous for his leading role in Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (1969-1970) as the late private eye Marty Hopkirk opposite Mike Pratt's very much alive Jeff Randall. He had previously in Coronation Street as the shady Jed Stone (between 1961 and 1966), and had a regular role in the influential satirical series That Was The Week That Was (1962-1963).
He played 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 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.
He later appeared in the Doctor Who story (Warriors' Gate in 1981), and guest starred in four episodes of Casualty.
From 1999 to 2002 he starred as Ray Hilton in the Channel Four soap opera Brookside.
He married actress Renny Lister in 1961 and they have three children, his daughter Martha Cope is also an actress. They met when Renny worked on Coronation Street.
He was offered a cameo role in the Vic Reeves-Bob Mortimer revival of Randall and Hopkirk, but turned it down. He did, however, provide the foreword to a Randall and Hopkirk retrospective book (by Geoff Tibballs), published in 1994.
