British actor Jeremy Kemp has died at the age of 84. Kemp will be known to Star Trek fans for playing Robert Picard, the elder brother of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode. His other notable roles include playing PC Bob Steele in Z Cars, Troy Kennedy Martin’s gritty look at the life of a police unit in a fictional suburb called Newtown. Kemp left the show in its second season for fear of being typecast for the rest of his career. He also claimed to hate wearing the police uniform. He did return to the series for its final episode in 1978 playing a vagrant.
He later experienced the true gritty side of the police force when he claimed to have been beaten up in a police cell. He was charged with assaulting a police officer.
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“I reported a drinking club to the police for not having a proper license,” he told The Sun in 1985. “What I did not realize was that the club was paying ยฃ50 a week protection money.”
Throughout his career, Kemp was often cast as military men, noblemen, and doctors. One such notable role was as Brigadier General Armin von Roon in the 1983 miniseries The Winds of War and its sequel, 1988-1989’s War and Remembrance.
While Kemp only had one Star Trek credit, it was a memorable one. The episode “Family” is the only time fans saw Capt. Picard, dutifully dedicated to Starfleet, interact with his family Earth. Kemp played Robert as concerned but somewhat resentful of Jean-Luc, who had become a famous Starfleet captain. But Jean-Luc was just returning from being turned into Locutus of Borg and was having second thoughts about his career choice. The tension was diffused as the brothers wound up wrestling in the mud and then singing songs together.
Kemp was born near Chesterfield, Derbyshire by the name Edmund Jeremy James Walker to engineer Edmund Walker and his wife Elsa (nee Kemp). He enlisted with the Gordon Highlanders and became a lieutenant in the Black Watch before he decided to go to attend the Central School of Speech and Drama in 1955 to train to become an actor.
Kemp’s film credits include Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors (1965), The Games (1970), The Prisoner of Zenda (1979) Top Secret! (1984). On television, his credits include Kill (1965), Colditz (1974), The Rhinemann Exchange (1977), Henry VIII (1979), The Winter’s Tale (1981), George Washington (1984) and The Great Paper Chase (1988). His stage roles include Aston in The Caretaker (Mermaid, 1972) and Buckingham in Richard III (Olivier theatre, 1979). His final performance was as Hissah Zul in the TV series Conan (1997-98),
Source: The Guardian
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