Perfect: The David Warner Obituary

Since this blogger was old enough to have favourite actors, one of the handful that always got name-checked whenever he was asked the question was the great David Warner who died today, five days before his eighty first birthday. It was a television showing of Peter Hall's 1970 heist movie Perfect Friday sometime in the late-1970s on ITV that cemented this blogger's long-term admiration for one of the great stage, big-screen and small-screen actors of his generation. In a career that spanned over sixty years, David appeared in a vast array of movies and TV shows. Some of them, he freely admitted with wry smile, he did purely to pay the rent. But in not a single one of them did he ever give any less than one hundred per cent to the performance. In that regard he was a consummate actor. An actor's actor, if you like. As recently as last week, Christopher Eccleston was using an appearance at a Comic Con convention to praise David, with whom he had recently co-starred in an, as yet unreleased, Doctor Who Big Finish audio drama. He did it, Eccleston said proudly, because he wanted to work with David Warner again. (The pair had previously appeared in The Old Vic's 2005 production of Night Sky.)

One of this blogger's favourite interviews with any actor, ever, was this 2017 piece by Will Harris with David for The AV Club website. In which David managed to talk, with great humour and charm, about just about every role he'd ever played on film and TV. Except, of course, for this blogger's favourite one! Obviously, the main focus of the interview was going to be on performances that the readers would know - the Star Trek movies, Twin Peaks, Tron, Doctor Who et cetera. But, to get six paragraphs on A Mad House On Castle Street and stuff about Time After Time, Morgan and The Bofors Gun ... It was, dear blog reader, brilliantly brilliant.

Tall and ruggedly handsome, David will probably be known to most dear blog readers from his appearances in two of the Star Trek movies, superbly villainous roles in Twin Peaks and Time Bandits and that mad bit in The Omen where his crazed character gets decapitated by a sheet of glass. David's wider breakthrough, when he was just twenty one, was as Blifil in Tom Jones. He became a twenty four-carat TV star soon afterwards, as Morgan in David Mercer's masterpiece A Suitable Case For Treatment (Warner would subsequently reprise the role in the even better-known movie version four years later). His CV also includes Work Is A Four-Letter Word, Straw Dogs, Cross Of Iron, Little Malcolm & His Struggle Against The Eunuchs, Age Of Innocence, the hugely under-rated Time After Time, The Company Of Wolves, Planet Of The Apes, Scream 2, Titanic and From Beyond The Grave as well as voicing Ra's al Gul in Batman: The Animated Series. And many, many other great performances. 

David was, in short, a Goddamn legend. If you're a keen player of the 'six degrees of separation' game, he also provides Matt Smith with a direct link to, not only Bill Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Gregory Peck but, also, to Bob Dylan (via the - now tragically lost - 1963 A Madhouse On Castle Street). In 2010, Mark Gatiss interviewed David about his role in The Omen for Mark's acclaimed BBC Four documentary series A History Of Horror. It's tempting - though , as it turns out, wholly inaccurate - to imagine Mark ending the interview by pitching the part of a Soviet submarine scientist in Doctor Who to Warner!

David was born in July 1941 in Manchester, the son of Ada Hattersley and Herbert Warner, a nursing home proprietor. He was born out of wedlock and was frequently shuttled backwards and forwards between his parents during his early childhood, eventually settling with his Russian-Jewish father and his stepmother. He once described his pre-teen years as 'messy' and refused to tell interviews what kind of child he was because, he said, 'it's too personal.' But, he admitted that he would spend a lot of time at the cinema. 'Not really for the movies themselves, but to be away from home for a couple of hours.' He attended eight boarding schools and would fail his exams at all of them. He was 'neither brainy nor athletic,' he said. When he was fifteen, his English teacher encouraged him to take part in the school play. His first role was as Lady Macbeth. His family was 'dysfunctional' he claimed, explaining that going into acting was 'a means of escape.' David's mother, who struggled with drugs and alcohol addiction, disappeared from his life when David was still a teenager.

He was accepted at the RADA when he was seventeen, in 1959 - his contemporaries included John Hurt and Ian McShane. David said that he loathed 'practically every second' there, mainly because 'all the beautiful girls were interested in other students who were playing leads while I was playing butlers! RADA taught me what not to do. I didn't learn much. It was full of Hamlet types. Quite handsome people; I thought all I could play was servants. I did character parts, never juvenile roles. I did a fifty-year-old in Ah! Wilderness. I was a servant in Romeo & Juliet. I never thought in a hundred years I'd ever be asked to play Hamlet. There were favourites; I wasn't one. I felt surrounded by people who all thought they were so good. It was very strange. I didn't worry about it, though. I just went to plays and wondered what I could do.' He added: 'I have no anti-RADA thing or anti-school thing. It's just a matter of instinct, I learned instinctively what not to do.' He graduated in 1961.

David made his professional stage debut at the Royal Court Theatre in January 1962, playing Snout in A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Tony Richardson. In March, at the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, he played Conrad in Much Ado About Nothing, following which he appeared as Jim in Afore Night Come at The New Arts Theatre in London. He joined the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford in April 1963 (where he acted alongside two other actors who would become good friends and, later, co-stars - Malcolm McDowell and Patrick Stewart) playing Trinculo in The Tempest, Cinna in Julius Caesar and, in July, the title role in the John Barton adaptation of Henry VI, Parts I, II and III. Returning to Stratford in 1964, he played the King in Richard II.

At The Aldwych a few months later, he was Valentine Brose in Eh? by Henry Livings, a role he reprised four years later in the movie adaptation, Work Is a Four-Letter Word co-starring with Cilla Black. He first portrayed the title role in Hamlet for the RSC in 1965. David's portrayal of the Prince of Denmark as a moody proto-student radical horrified traditional critics but chimed with the younger audiences. 'When I was a kid and saw Shakespeare, I never heard the actors for all the posturing and declaiming,' he said. 'I thought surely kids today were the same as I was, not wanting Shakespeare shoved down their throats. I wanted to make them come back again, of their own free will.' The reviews, he said, were 'awful with a few exceptions. But we felt they panned it for the right reasons. Then audiences started flocking in, mainly young people, to demonstrate their approval.'

According to his 2007 programme CV, Warner's other theatre work included The Great Exhibition at Hampstead Theatre (February 1972); I, Claudius at The Queen's Theatre (July 1972); A Feast Of Snails at The Lyric (February 2002) and Where There's A Will at The Theatre Royal, Bath.

In 1963, he made his film debut as the villainous Blifil in Tom Jones and, in 1965, reprised his stage role of Henry VI in the BBC version of the RSC's The Wars Of The Roses cycle. Another early television role came when he starred alongside Bob Dylan in the 1963 play A Madhouse On Castle Street. Dylan had originally been cast in the role of the beatnik poet, Lennie but, arrived on-set protesting that he was a singer not an actor. A swift rewrite ensued with most of the lines were given Warner whilst Dylan played 'Bobby', Lennie's guitar-strumming flatmate. The pair met up again, many years later, back-stage at one of Dylan's gigs in Los Angeles and David was amazed to find Dylan had fond memories of the production. 

A major step in David's career was the leading role in Karel Reisz's Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966) opposite Vanessa Redgrave, which established his reputation for playing off-the-wall characters. David, of course, had already played the role on TV in the BBC's 1962 production off David Mercer's teleplay. He also appeared as Konstantin Treplev in Sidney Lumet's 1968 adaptation of Chekhov's The Sea Gull and starred alongside Jason Robards and Stella Stevens in Sam Peckinpah's The Ballad Of Cable Hogue. He got on well with Peckinpah who, subsequently cast David in two further, memorable, roles (in Straw Dogs and Cross of Iron). 

David was never precious about the genre movies in which he appeared. In the horror field, he was terrific in Amicus's From Beyond the Grave (1974) as a man spiralling into insanity after he buys a haunted mirror from Peter Cushing's curiosity shop. David lost his head, quite literally, in The Omen (1976) as the ill-fated photojournalist Keith Jennings and featured in the 1979 thriller Nightwing. He also starred in Waxwork (1988) and featured alongside a young Viggo Mortensen in 1990's Tripwire. And, he put in one of his finest, most nuanced, performances in Neil Jordan's dream-like fantasy, The Company Of Wolves (1984). 

He often played villains, in films such as The Thirty Nine Steps (1978), Time After Time (1979, as Jack The Ripper opposite his old Stratford mate, Malcolm McDowell), Time Bandits (1981, a memorably nostril-flaring turn as 'Evil'), Tron (1982) and Hanna's War (1988). And in television series like Batman: The Animated Series and Spider-Man: The Animated Series, as well as playing the rogue agent Alpha in Men In Black, The Archmage in Disney's Gargoyles and The Lobe in the mad-as-a-bag-of-frogs Freakazoid! He was also cast somewhat against type by Sam Peckinpah as Henry Niles in Straw Dogs (1971) and as Bob Cratchit in a 1984 TV A Christmas Carol starring George C Scott as Scrooge. In addition, he played SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich both in the film Hitler's SS: Portrait In Evil and the TV mini-series Holocaust. He also featured as the sinister millionaire Amos Hackshaw in HBO's 1991 Cast A Deadly Spell. In 1981, David received an EMMY for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries for his role as Masada as Pomponius Falco. Later in the decade he appeared in the Danny Huston film Mister North (1988).

He appeared in a lot of science fiction movies; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Avatar, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze (1991) as well as the (non-SF) blockbuster Titanic. In 2001, he played Captain James Sawyer in two episodes of Hornblower series and he appeared, to great acclaim, in three episodes of the second series of Twin Peaks (1991) as the villainous Thomas Eckhardt.

In Chain Of Command, an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, he was an astonishingly believable Cardassian interrogator/torturer of his RSC contemporary Patrick Stewart. David based his portrayal of the 're-educator', he said, on Winston Smith's nemesis O'Brien in Nineteen Eighty Four. His less-spectacular parts included a duel-role in the (extremely) low-budget fantasy Quest Of The Delta Knights (1993). He also played Admiral Tolwyn in the film version of Wing Commander. 

Warner's sympathetic side was seen in Peckinpah's Cross Of Iron (1977), where he portrayed Captain Kiesel. Similar roles included Aldous Gajic in Babylon 5 and Klingon Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI. In an episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures Of Superman, he played Superman's father, Jor-El. Warner was also the vampire bat exterminator Philip Payne in Nightwing and Doctor Madden in 1994's Necronomicon: Book Of The Dead. David appeared in the second series of Sky's Mad Dogs and starred in two 2014 episodes of Penny Dreadful as Abraham Van Helsing.

Another of his sympathetic roles was in 2013, when he played the kindly, Duran Duran-loving Professor Grisenko in the Doctor Who episode Cold War. David had a long near-association with the Doctor Who franchise. In the 1980s he was, reportedly, the first choice to play The Doctor in one of several proposed but, ultimately, never-made big-screen adaptation. 'At one stage, when I was younger, people thought I might play The Doctor,' he told AV Club. 'You know how rumours go round. But that never happened ... The writer, Mark Gatiss, has been responsible for Sherlock as well and I've been a friend of Mark's for a long time, because he was in a group called The League Of Gentlemen. I knew he wrote scripts, but I never, ever said to him, "Ooh, I'd like a part in your next script!" So it was a lovely surprise to get a message from Mark saying, "I think we've got a part for you in an upcoming Doctor Who." I just wanted to be part of it, because I'm kind of lucky to be in the Star Trek group [and] to be in Doctor Who as well ...'

David finally did get to play an alternate-universe version of The Doctor in the Big Finish Unbound audio play Sympathy For The Devil (2003) and also appeared in a series of audios based on ITV's Sapphire & Steel, again for Big Finish. He reprised his incarnation of The Doctor in a sequel, Masters Of War (2008). In 2007, he guest-starred as Isaac Newton in another Doctor Who audio drama Circular Time. He also appeared in the BBC Radio 4 science fiction comedy Nebulous (2005) as Professor Nebulous' arch-enemy, Doctor Klench. In all of these productions, David worked his friend Mark Gatiss and he played a guest role in the 2005 feature film The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalypse. A superb voice actor, David also performed in radio plays for the American companies LA Theatre Works and The Hollywood Theater [sic] Of The Ear. In 2005, David read an adaptation of Oliver Twist for Radio 2. Three years later, he guest-starred as Mycroft Holmes in the Bernice Summerfield audio play The Adventure Of The Diogenes Damsel starring his partner, Lisa Bowerman, in the title role. In 2009, he was the voice of Lord Azlok of the Viperox in the animated Doctor Who serial Dreamland. 2016 saw him return as his alternate Doctor in a series of audios where his Doctor travels to the 'prime' universe and enlists the Seventh Doctor's companion, Benny Summerfield, to help him save his own universe. Warner's Doctor continued his adventures with Benny in a second series of audios released in 2017. Shortly before his death it was revealed that he would return as The Doctor as part of Big Finish's celebration of the franchise's Sixtieth Anniversary and would share scenes with Christopher Eccleston.

In October 2008, David played the role of Louis Mountbatten in BBC4's In Love With Barbara, a biopic about the life of Barbara Cartland. He played Povel Wallander, the father of Kenneth Brannagh's title character, in the BBC's adaptation of Wallander. David's CV also includes appearances in Peter Hall's acclaimed all-star 1968 version of A Midsummer Night' Dream, The Deadly Affair, A Doll's House, Mister Quilp, The Concorde - Airport '79, The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Man With Two Brains (having loads of fun opposite Steve Martin as Doctor Necessitater), My Best Friend Is A Vampire, The Lost World, In The Mouth Of Madness, Ice Cream Man, The Code Conspiracy, Terry Prachett's Hogfather, Black Death, Before I Sleep and You, Me & Him. And, on television in episodes of Z Cars, Armchair Theatre, Remington Steele, Hart To Hart, Hold The Back Page, Tales From The Crypt, Murder She Wrote, Biker Mice From Mars, Houdini, The Hunger, Agatha Christie's Marple, Lewis and Ripper Street.

In 2001, David returned to the stage after a near three-decade hiatus to play Andrew Undershaft in a Broadway revival of Major Barbara. He had stopped treading the boards, he said, after a disastrous production of I, Claudius when he claimed to have developed stage fright and so focused on screen acting instead. In May 2005, at the Chichester Festival Theatre, David made a return to Shakespeare in Steven Pimlott's production of King Lear. Tim Walker, reviewing the performance for the Sunday Torygraph, wrote: 'Warner is physically the least imposing King I have ever seen, but his slight, gaunt body serves also to accentuate the vulnerability the part requires. So, too, does the fact that he is older by decades than most of the other members of the youthful cast.'

In his seventies, he was still much in-demand, recently playing Admiral Boon in Disney's Mary Poppins Returns (adding a musical to his wide variety of screen genres). David died from cancer at Denville Hall in Northwood. He had been diagnosed with the illness eighteen months prior to his death. He was twice married, in 1969 to Harriet Lindgren (divorced, 1972) and in 1981 to Sheilah Kent (divorced 2002). He is survived by 'his beloved partner, Lisa Bowerman, his much-loved son Luke and daughter-in-law Sarah, his good friend Jane Spencer Prior, his first wife Harriet Evans and his many gold-dust friends.' And, if you want to read a far better written overview of David's film career, allow this blogger to highly recommend a piece by the Gruniad Morning Star's Peter Bradshaw, here. 

      We have lost a giant, dear blog reader and today is a very sad day indeed.