David Hattersley Warner was an English actor, who was famous for his multiple roles in Tron, including businessman Ed Dillinger, the second-in-command Sark, and the main villain in the film Master Control Program.
For Tim Burton, he portrayed Senator Sandar in the 2001 feature film Planet of the Apes.
Biography[]
David Warner was born on July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England, to Ada Doreen Hattersley and Herbert Simon Warner, a nursing home proprietor. He was born out of wedlock and raised by each of his parents, eventually settling with his stepmother and Russian Jewish father. He only saw his mother again on her deathbed. As an only child from a dysfunctional family, young David excelled neither at academia nor at athletics. He attended eight schools and "failed his exams at all of them." After a series of odd jobs, he was accepted against all odds at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).
Warner made his professional stage debut at the Royal Court Theatre in January 1962, playing Snout, a minor role in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tony Richardson for the English Stage Company. In March 1962, at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, he played Conrad in Much Ado About Nothing, following which in June he appeared as Jim in Afore Night Come at the New Arts Theatre in London. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in April 1963 to play Trinculo in The Tempest and Cinna the Poet in Julius Caesar, and in July was cast as Henry VI in the John Barton adaptation of Henry VI, Parts I, II and III, which comprised the first two plays from The Wars of the Roses trilogy.
Warner became the youngest-ever actor to play Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Peter Hall's 1965 production of Hamlet. His performance was widely praised, and he received a BAFTA nomination for the film version directed by Tony Richardson. He also starred as Morgan, a deranged artist with Marxist leanings, in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966), for which he was nominated for another BAFTA.
Warner's film career spanned over six decades and he appeared in a variety of genres, often playing villains or troubled characters. Some of his notable films include The Omen (1976), where he played a photographer who meets a gruesome fate; Time After Time (1979), where he played Jack the Ripper who travels to modern-day San Francisco; Time Bandits (1981), where he played the evil genius who wants to control the universe; The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), where he played the husband of Meryl Streep's character; Tron (1982), where he played three roles: Ed Dillinger, Sark, and the Master Control Program; A Christmas Carol (1984), where he played Bob Cratchit opposite George C. Scott's Scrooge; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), where he played the Klingon chancellor Gorkon; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), where he played the Federation ambassador St. John Talbot; Titanic (1997), where he played Spicer Lovejoy, the bodyguard of Billy Zane's character; Scream 2 (1997), where he played a drama professor who is killed by the Ghostface killer; Ladies in Lavender (2002), where he played a retired army officer who befriends two elderly sisters; and Mary Poppins Returns (2018), where he played Admiral Boom, the eccentric neighbor of the Banks family.
Warner also had a prolific television career, where he won an Emmy Award for his role as Pomponius Falco in the miniseries Masada (1981). He was also nominated for another Emmy for his role as Reinhard Heydrich in the miniseries Holocaust (1978). He appeared in many other TV shows, such as The Twilight Zone, Murder, She Wrote, Babylon 5, The Outer Limits, Doctor Who, Penny Dreadful, and Stranger Things. He also voiced several animated characters, such as Ra's al Ghul in Batman: The Animated Series, The Lobe in Freakazoid!, Brainiac in Superman: The Animated Series, and Nergal in The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.
Warner was married twice, first to actress Harriet Lindgren from 1969 to 1972, and then to actress Sheilah Kent from 1979 to 2005. He had one daughter, Melissa, with Kent. He also had a long-term relationship with actress Lisa Bowerman from 2006 until his death. Warner died of lung cancer on July 24, 2022, at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors in Northwood, London. He was 80 years old. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in a private ceremony. He was survived by his daughter, his partner, and his two stepsons.