Pat Roach

Francis Patrick Roach (19 May 1937 – 17 July 2004) was an English professional wrestler, martial artist and actor. During an acting career between the 1970s and the 1990s, he appeared in multiple films, usually as a henchman. He appeared in the Indiana Jones film series, as the West Country bricklayer Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in the 1980s British television series Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and in the role of Petty Officer Edgar Evans in the television production The Last Place on Earth.

Early life Roach was born and brought up in Birmingham, West Midlands, the son of Francis "Frank" Roach (born 1905). He was National Judo Champion in 1960, and Midland Area Black Belt Champion in 1962.

Sports career

Roach boxed as an amateur before becoming professional as a protege of Jack Solomons.

He began his professional wrestling career under the name of "Judo" Pat Roach. After his acting career had begun, he continued to wrestle under the name of "Bomber" Pat Roach, having previously been billed as "Big" Pat Roach before receiving affectionate cheering from the audience. He was trained by Alf Kent and his first official wrestling match was against George Selko in 1960. Roach held both the British and European heavyweight championships at one time.

Acting career Roach made his acting debut as the red-bearded bouncer in the Korova Milkbar in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. He worked on another Kubrick film, Barry Lyndon, where he played a hand-to-hand brawler named Toole who engages Redmond Barry in a fistfight. Roach went on to play a number of strongman supporting character roles in films in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, including the non-speaking role of Hephaestus in Clash of the Titans.

Pat cameoed as a SPECTRE assassin in the non–Eon produced James Bond film Never Say Never Again, and as the bandit-warlord Lord Brytag in the sword-and-sorcery film Red Sonja. He appeared as the skull-helmeted General Kael in the film Willow, the evil wizard Thoth-Amon in Conan the Destroyer, and the Celtic chieftain in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

In 1985, he played Petty Officer Edgar Evans in the Central TV serial The Last Place on Earth about Captain Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole. Roach was turned down for the part of Darth Vader in Star Wars; however, its director, George Lucas, subsequently cast him as several burly villains in the Indiana Jones film series in the 1980s. In Raiders of the Lost Ark he played two roles, the first being a giant Sherpa who fights Jones in the bar in Nepal, the second a German Luftwaffe mechanic who fistfights with Jones before being killed by an aircraft's propeller blades on the airstrip in Egypt. In the next film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Roach played the Thuggee guard overseer in a mine who fights with Jones before being killed in a rock crusher. His final appearance in the series was as a Gestapo officer in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where he appears only briefly because the character's fight with Jones was the director, Steven Spielberg, considered the scene otherwise "too long" for a subplot.

On television Roach played the down-to-earth and easygoing Brian "Bomber" Busbridge in the long-running comedy-drama Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. He appeared in all four series, but was absent from the final two-part Christmas special. He was a guest on Central TV's Bullseye game show in 1984, and appeared in season 11, episode 39 ("Swan Song"), of The Bill, playing the character Reg Warren.

Personal life

Roach married Doreen Harris in 1957. They had a son and a daughter.

In the 1990s, Roach owned and co-managed a scrapyard in Winson Green, Birmingham. He also ran a gym on Gravelly Hill North, Erdington, in North-East Birmingham.

Roach died on 17 July 2004 of esophageal cancer. His body was buried in extension section B at Bromsgrove Cemetery, Worcestershire.

Filmography Film

Television

Championships and accomplishments Joint Promotions British Heavyweight Championship (once) European Heavyweight Championship (twice)

Premier Promotions|Premier Wrestling Federation Ken Joyce Trophy (1992)

Publications If, Brewin Books (co-written childhood autobiography) Pat Roach's Birmingham, Brewin Books (2004)