Person Biography:
David Hattersley Warner was born on July 29, 1941, in Manchester, England, to Ada Doreen (Hattersley) and Herbert Simon Warner. He was born out of wedlock and raised by each of his parents, eventually settling with his itinerant father and stepmother. As an only child from a dysfunctional family, Warner excelled neither at academia nor at athletics. He attended eight schools and "failed his exams at all of them."
Despite the challenges he faced, Warner received some early mentoring from one of his teachers and made his theatrical debut in 1962 at the Royal Court Theatre as Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tony Richardson. A year later, he became the youngest-ever actor to play Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Warner's early career was marked by a series of odd jobs and a lack of success, but he eventually found his footing as a character actor. He received his big break in 1963 with a small part in A Midsummer Night's Dream, courtesy of Tony Richardson, who cast him in his bawdy period romp Tom Jones as the mendacious, pimple-faced antagonist Blifil.
Throughout his career, Warner has appeared in a wide range of films and television shows, including A Midsummer Night's Dream, Tom Jones, Morgan!, Work Is a Four Letter Word, Holocaust, Time After Time, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Titanic, Time Bandits, Tron, The Omen, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Babylon 5, and many more.
Warner has also had a successful stage career, appearing in productions such as Major Barbara, King Lear, and Penny Dreadful. He has won numerous awards for his performances, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Limited Series for his performance as the Roman Senator Pomponius Falco in the miniseries Masada.
In his later years, Warner continued to act, appearing in films and television shows such as Ripper Street, Wallander, and Penny Dreadful. He passed away on July 24, 2022, at the age of 80, from cancer at Denville Hall, an entertainment industry care home, in Northwood, London.
