Kenneth Charles Cope was an English actor and scriptwriter.
20 Facts About Kenneth Cope
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Kenneth Cope was best known for his roles as Marty Hopkirk in Randall and Hopkirk, Jed Stone in Coronation Street, Ray Hilton in Brookside, Sid in The Damned and as a minor member of the Carry On team.
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Kenneth Cope was born on 14 April 1931 in Wavertree, Liverpool, England.
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Kenneth Cope appeared in the satirical series That Was the Week That Was from 1962 until 1963.
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Kenneth Cope played Subutai in the 1965 film of the life of Genghis Khan, and in the same year appeared in Dateline Diamonds playing Lester Benson.
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In Randall and Hopkirk, Kenneth Cope played the ghost private eye Marty Hopkirk opposite Mike Pratt's Jeff Randall.
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Kenneth Cope took leading roles in two Carry On films.
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Kenneth Cope appeared as Jack Victor in Catweazle in 1971.
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Kenneth Cope later appeared in the Doctor Who story Warriors' Gate, 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.
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In 1984, Kenneth Cope starred in Bootle Saddles, a surreal sitcom about a failing themed 'cowboy village' on the outskirts of Merseyside.
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Kenneth Cope played the lead character Percy James, who was passionate about the park despite the poor financial returns.
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In 1997 Kenneth Cope played dodgy ex-copper Charlie Fairclough alongside David Jason in an episode of A Touch of Frost titled "True Confessions".
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Kenneth Cope did feature on the "Behind the Scenes" section of the Series 1 DVD, wishing the cast of the remake well.
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Kenneth Cope provided the foreword to a Randall and Hopkirk Deceased retrospective book by Geoff Tibballs, published in 1994.
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Kenneth Cope played Neville Harding in 2004's "Shadowplay".
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The character was kept onscreen for several months before being written out again, and marked Kenneth Cope's final acting appearance.
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Kenneth Cope married actress Renny Lister, whom he had met when she worked on Coronation Street, in 1961.
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Kenneth Cope was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2000, but six years later he was told this was a misdiagnosis; he later suffered from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
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In January 2014, Kenneth Cope appeared as a character witness during the trial of former Coronation Street colleague William Roache, who plays Ken Barlow in the series.
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In retirement Kenneth Cope resided in Southport and wrote a weekly column for the weekly Southport Visiter newspaper.