David Warner, a flexible British actor whose roles ranged from Shakespearean tragedies to sci-fi cult classics, has died. He used to be 80.
Warner’s circle of relatives stated he died from a cancer-related sickness on Sunday at Denville Corridor, a retirement house for entertainers in London.
Continuously forged as a villain, David Warner had roles within the 1971 mental mystery Straw Canine, the 1976 horror vintage The Omen, the 1979 time-travel journey Time After Time — he used to be Jack the Ripper — and the 1997 blockbuster Titanic, the place he performed the malicious valet Spicer Lovejoy.
Skilled on the Royal Academy of Dramatic Artwork in London, Warner turned into a tender celebrity of the Royal Shakespeare Corporate, enjoying roles together with King Henry VI and King Richard II. His 1965 efficiency within the identify position of Hamlet for the corporate, directed via Peter Corridor, used to be regarded as one of the crucial greatest of his era.
Gregor Doran, the RSC’s creative director emeritus, stated Warner’s Hamlet, performed as a tortured pupil, “appeared the epitome of 1960’s early life, and stuck the unconventional spirit of a turbulent age.”
Warner additionally starred in Corridor’s 1968 movie of A Midsummer Evening’s Dream, reverse Helen Mirren and Diana Rigg.
In spite of his acclaim as as a level actor, persistent level fright led David Warner to favor movie and TV paintings for a few years.
He used to be nominated for a British Academy Movie Award for the identify position in Karel Reisz’s Swinging London tragicomedy Morgan: A Appropriate Case for Remedy, launched in 1966. He later received an Emmy for his position as Roman baby-kisser Pomponius Falco within the 1981 TV miniseries Masada.
He had a prolific profession on movie and TV in each Britain and the US, and turned into liked of sci-fi fanatics for roles in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits, pc film Tron, Tim Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes, and the Superstar Trek franchise, the place he made a number of appearances in numerous roles.
David Warner returned to theater in 2001 after nearly 3 many years to play Andrew Undershaft in a Broadway revival of George Bernard Shaw’s Primary Barbara. In 2005, he starred in Shakespeare’s King Lear on the Chichester Pageant Theatre, and in 2007 returned to the RSC to play Shakespeare’s comedian buffoon Falstaff.
One in all his ultimate movie roles used to be as retired naval officer Admiral Growth in Mary Poppins Returns, launched in 2018.
Warner’s circle of relatives stated he can be remembered “as a kind-hearted, beneficiant and compassionate guy, spouse and father whose legacy of peculiar paintings has touched the lives of such a lot of over time.”
“We’re heartbroken,” the circle of relatives stated.
They stated Warner is survived via his spouse Lisa Bowerman, his son Luke, daughter-in-law Sarah, “his just right good friend Jane Spencer Prior, his first spouse Harriet Evans and his many gold mud pals.”