Veteran Actor David Warner Died at the Age of 80.
His film and television credits include “The Omen,” “Time After Time,” “TRON,” “Titanic,” and “Wallander.” Warner passed away on Sunday in Northwest London after a long illness. He began his acting career on the British stage, where he played Hamlet at the age of 24 with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He was 80 years old.
He died at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors, following “a cancer-related ailment,” according to a statement from his family.
While Mr. Warner had a diverse range of roles, it’s possible that the villains he played were the ones he was most often associated with. Two years prior, in “Time After Time,” he played the infamous serial killer Jack the Ripper; two years later, in “Time Bandits,” he played the villain simply known as “Evil Genius.” Jeff Bridges’s character, Kevin Flynn, in the 1982 film “TRON” (in which he is transported into the computer’s inner workings), was both Flynn’s antagonist in the real and virtual world.
During an interview with The Independent in 2003, Mr. Warner said, “I’ve never been asked to play the cheerful, romantic lead.” “As a result, getting a girl is something I’ve never experienced. Despite the fact that I’ve worked with some breathtakingly attractive ladies, none of them ever wanted to stick around.”
He wasn’t bothered by parts like “TRON,” either.
In 1982, he told the New York Times, “It was exciting to see it with an audience, hear them boo me and my gang.”
Mr. Warner’s career lasted a long period compared to other actors’ short-lived popularity. To date, he has accumulated more than two dozen credits in his first decade in film and television, the 1970s, and more than 80 credits in his second decade, the 1990s. Regardless of whether the position required secrecy or complexity, his face seemed adaptive.
It was meant to be a praise to Mr. Warner’s performance as a soldier in the 1968 movie “The Borfors Gun” when Vincent Canby said of him in The Times, “He renders his face almost perfectly forgettable, like any one of a thousand faces seen in a bus station. Emily Young, who directed him in the 2003 film “Kiss of Life,” expressed the exact opposite 35 years later.
The Independent quotes her as saying, “David has such a physical presence.” “His body and face appear to be etched with the scars of his past.”
When director Peter Hall, then creative director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, cast the young Mr. Warner in numerous prominent roles, including the title role in “Hamlet,” he launched Mr. Warner’s career as a star on the international stage. Theatergoers and critics alike were surprised by the performance of Mr. Warner, who delivered a very different take on the role than they were used to. The Sunday Mercury of Birmingham, England’s Mark Gardner, was a fan.
Using the disguise of a clown hat and khaki school uniform, “this gangly, blinking, timid young man masks his pain and insecurity,” said Mr. Gardner.
Hamlet for this befuddled, postwar generation, he said. “sure of nothing,” he said.
For a total of two years, the show was presented in repertory. According to Mr. Hall, Warner’s performance was a major factor in his decision to leave the company.
“It was Hamlet that really defined the role for the ’60s,” he remarked. “It was the Hamlet of the younger generation.” Flowers and all that were a perfect match for David’s softness and lack of aggression. I loved him,” he said.
At the age of 60, Mr. Warner made his American theatrical debut in a performance of George Bernard Shaw’s “Major Barbara” at the Roundabout Theater Company in New York, which prompted the article from 2001. It was also the first time he had appeared on stage since 1972. He said he had quit playing on stage because he was afraid of performing in front of an audience.
In 2001, he told The Times, “You see, I’m not a man of the stage…. Like McKellen and Jacobi and Ian Holm (all of whom I adored when I was just starting out), you’ve worked your way up from the bottom.
Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, and Mr. Holm had become household names in the theater, but Mr. Warner by that time had become a household name in the film and television industry for his refusal to turn down any role. Aside from a role as a Klingon chancellor in the “Star Trek” franchise and a role in the 1981 miniseries “Masada,” in which he earned an Emmy Award for his portrayal of the Roman Empire’s siege of Israel’s Masada castle, his acting credits include a number of lesser-known parts. Mr. Holm, an old colleague who worked with him on a TV version of “Uncle Vanya” in 1991, jokingly recounted a talk he had with him regarding that reputation.
My next question to him was, “What are you going to do now?” In an interview with The New York Times, Mr. Warner explained the situation. It was also revealed that Ian, who was known for being quite picky, had agreed to star in the Jeremy Irons-led Kafka adaptation. So, what are you doing now? “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze” is what I’m working on,” I added.
On July 29, 1941, in Manchester, England, David Hattersley Warner was born. Since his parents were unmarried and “kept taking me from each other,” he had to relocate frequently, according to an interview with The Times in 1982.
At the Royal Academy of Dramatic Craft, he learned the art of acting and had a seven-line role in an experimental theater group until fate intervened.
I got an audition for the Royal Shakespeare Company a year later after Peter Hall came to see the production as part of his job, and I went and got an offer.
His first major television part came at the same time, in a British television play called “The Madhouse on Castle Street.” Among the cast members was a little-known American folk singer named Bob Dylan, who would go on to become a household name. A single episode of the series aired in the beginning of 1963, but no film was kept. “Blowin’ in the Wind” is claimed to have been one of Dylan’s earliest performances.
He received his first major film part in the same year with “Tom Jones,” in which he played a character named Blifil, who was (of course) unattractive. Further cementing his film credentials was the lead part in “Morgan!” (1966).
Acting parts in miniseries such as The War of the Roses, The Holocaust, Hold the Back Page, The Choir, and Conviction were all part of Mr. Warner’s television career, which spanned several decades. Recurring roles include Twin Peaks (1991), Wallander (1994), and Ripper Street (1997-2000).
There is a statement from his family saying that he is survived by his partner Lisa Bowman and their son Luke.