R.I.P. David Warner, star of The Omen and Twin Peaks
Warner's illustrious career includes roles in Tron, Time After Time, Star Trek and more
Aux News Twin Peaks
David Warner, the prolific actor known for roles in The Omen, Tron, and Twin Peaks, died on Sunday of a “cancer-related illness,” his family told the BBC. He was 80 years old.
“Over the past 18 months he approached his diagnosis with a characteristic grace and dignity,” his family says in a statement to the outlet. “He will be missed hugely by us, his family and friends, and remembered as a kind-hearted, generous and compassionate man, partner and father, whose legacy of extraordinary work has touched the lives of so many over the years. We are heartbroken.”
The British performer began his career training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company. He eventually transitioned from stage to screen and made a name for himself playing villains, like Jack the Ripper in Time After Time and Ed Dillinger in Tron. In a stacked list of credits, his most memorable role may have been in the iconic horror film The Omen, in which his character meets a gruesome end. Most recently, he appeared on screen as Admiral Boom in the 2018 Mary Poppins sequel, Mary Poppins Returns.
Warner also had numerous television and voice acting roles over the years, appearing in Holocaust, Twin Peaks, Doctor Who, Batman: The Animated Series, and Penny Dreadful. He played multiple characters in the Star Trek franchise, including films The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country as well as an arc on The Next Generation as Gul Madred. He won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1981 for his role as Pomponius Falco in the miniseries Masada.
Per the BBC, 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.”
113 Comments
Oh no! Warner was always one of my favorites!One of my favorite Warner performances is his take on Bob Cratchit in the excellent George C. Scott version of “A Christmas Carol.” Easily my favorite adaptation, Warner gives a beautiful and wholly understated performance, selling us on Cratchit’s humanity and decency without stepping remotely towards schmaltz like so many other productions had a tendency to do until that point.
I’ve seen him perform so many villains that I’d forgotten he was Cratchit in that performance.
This. He was so warm yet believable in that role that it’s hard to imagine he spent most of career playing villains and weirdos.
Exactly. While his mostly know, perhaps unfairly, for villainous roles, he’s fantastic as Cratchit.
Oh yeah, that was him. And I’ve seen that Christmas Carol the most because my mom is a George C. Scott fan.
yes!!!!
It’s the role I associate him with the most. I’ve seen that version of A Christmas Carol dozens of times (starting when it originally aired on PBS). He’s just wonderful in it.
Indeed!
So long, one of the great ones…
Probably the best actor to unfortunately appear in an MST3K-level film.
I mean, Gregory Peck was in Space Travelers/Marooned…
Wasn’t that the one with Gene Hackman?
Also Ian McShane in Codename: Diamond Head.
Raul Julia?
Demi Moore?
Basil Rathbone?
(Are we counting Rifftrax?) Jack Palance?
No need to count Rifftrax! Jack Palance was in at least 2 MST3K episodes: Outlaw (of Gor) and Angels Revenge
Oh yeah. I remember Angels Revenge. Not sure I saw the other one.
Outlaw was the episode that won the Peabody award.
Angels Revenge is a stone classic. I can’t believe they got away with the line “I’m worried Johnny Wadd is in this movie.”
Jack Palance was a class act in many prestigious films like Cyborg 2 and Hawk the Slayer
You don’t even need to go to Rifftrax for Jack Palance – he was the bad guy in Outlaw of Gor, and The Shape of Things to Come is upcoming in the Gizmoplex season.Edit: The Greatest for no Raisin got to this first.
Peter CushingChristopher Lee
If you haven’t seen Christopher Plummer in Starcrash, you’re in for a… I hesitate to call it a “treat”, but it sure is something.
[30 minutes into the movie]
“…HEY! That’s also David Warner.”
“Yeah, Crow.”
“Watch out! He’s in a pee-throwin’ mood!”
This is what I know him from also the various other movies he was in that are part of Rifftrax. Even in crap he did his best.
One of the reasons I like MST3k and Red Letter Media is that even with bad movies, they’ll give credit where credit is due.
This… was not news I wanted to wake up to, honestly.He was so prolific and did so much voice work that you could be a fan of David Warner without even knowing who David Warner was.
Loved him in Time Bandits and The Man With Two Brains! R.I.P.
RIP David Warner. One of my favorite all-time actors whose presence just seemed to elevate any film or show he was in.
P.S. How could you forget his role as The Lobe? I loved how easily he could switch between an over-the-top, theatrical villain and a petulant child on that show.
One of the hosts of the We Hate Movies podcast has the nickname “Now We’re Talkin’” for David Warner because of how he elevates everything he’s in.
How could you forget his role as The Lobe?Here’s a scene that the kids watching probably didn’t get:
(pouts) “…I want you to chase me.”
I believe he was also the original casting for Freddy Krueger, according to the Never Sleeps Again documentary. There are even some photos of him in makeup.
Gul Madred was an extremely hard role to cast, as the episode is basically a two man play where Madred’s actor has to constantly dominate the instantly commanding Patrick Stewart. Warner was cast at almost literally the last minute and only had time for a quick skim of the script, so he’s reading off cue cards for the entire episode. And even if you know all that, it’s impossible to tell (just compare to Marlon Brando’s notorious glances to the side in the latter half of his career).
good night Mr Blifil. Say hi to Albert Finney.
Someone check on Shatner, unsure how many more Quickenings he can take.
Can someone please come take his head?
I don’t think anyone wants Shatner’s power.
Here… we are. We’re the… princes… of… the universe.
::slow jazz bass solo::
This makes me very sad. Warner was incredible, loved him in everything. Nobody had his presence. Time After Time will always be my favorite of his.
Yeah I’m gonna watch it tonight.
Time traveling Jack the Ripper? Hell of a concept.
yeah that was a great one as well
One of the greatsHe’s the type of actor that has been in so many movies and always plays certain parts that he is also someone you misremember was in movies. Like I always misremember him as Professor Falken in War Games.
Same!
One of the few actors to be in TWO Titanic films, he was in Titanic SOS from the 70s. He was mighty entertaining in the Cameron film of course. Fare thee well good sir.
Time Bandits and Time After Time. Just wonderful evil!
Warner’s greatest role was playing Evil in Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits.
So great
Aw man, I loved him. He was in so much that I love, but to this day, when I think of David Warner, I think of:RIP, David Warner. You finally made it to Pepperoni Heaven.
Me too.
Mark Gatiss: “Do you have any idea what happened to your severed head?”David Warner: “…I lost it in the divorce.”RIP
Now that is one hypnotic gif.
How can you run an obit about this guy without mentioning “Time Bandits?” I mean, he certainly doesn’t come to mind when I think of Twin Peaks. When Bruce Willis dies I full expect the headline here to be
“R.I.P. Bruce Willis, star of Cop Out and Seagrams’ Wine Cooler commercials”
*zap* “It’s a good question.”RIP to one of the greats. Also:
“It’s better in the original Klingon.”
“The Respect Yourself singer is survived by his wife and five children…”
Or Titanic, which is probably what most people would recognize him from? Love his exchange with Zane.Warner: Good luck.Zane: I make my own luck. (holds up cash)W: So do I. (flashes gun)
Indeed! Every time I saw him over the last 25 years I thought “There’s that undertaker of a manservant again. How typical.”
I was schooled, fiercely by a competing pub trivia team about what role Warner played in Time Bandits. I always thought he was the Supreme Being, not Evil. I’m also reminded that I’m long overdue for a rewatch of that film.
“Nipples for men!”
“I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, Day One!”
Having never seen the entirety of Twin Peaks but knowing enough about it, I was surprised to learn that he was in it.
But the Time Bandits erasure in this article is disgusting.
Spent the last 30 seconds going, wait, wasn’t he in Time Bandits?
I surprised by how many articles about Warner aren’t mentioning Time Bandits.
Time bandits is a cult film, not widely known or referenced
https://www.thebulwark.com/david-warner-1941-2022/Evil’s dead 🙁
Hey man! Seagrams’ are wet AND dry!!!!
Also surprising that the article used a picture from long before he was famous. If you weren’t quite sure who he was, you probably wouldn’t recognize him from that pic.
Absolute legend. Going to have to do a Time After Time/Tron/TNG marathon in his honor.
Awesome actor who always delivered. This stinks.
Man, this is a rough day. First Bob Rafelson, then David Warner, now Paul Sorvino.
I’ll fire up Baldur’s Gate 2 in his memory
Baldur’s Gate II was absolutely stacked with vocal talent. Jim Cummings. Melissa Disney (who, incidentally, was the first woman to do the VO for the trailer for a major studio film in the same year as BGII: Cage’s Gone In 60 Seconds – also, my mate Damo owes me $5 for not believing me when I said “That’s Imoen!” when we saw the trailer). Jennifer Hale. Dee Bradley Baker. Cam Clarke, who actually manages a passable Aussie accent (though I don’t know if that was his intent). Grey DeLisle. But Warner’s stood out, absolutely cold, contemptuous, and inhumanly hollow, yet strangely childlike in his wants and desperation for answers. So many lines would’ve been absolutely cheesy coming from anyone else, but by god he made them work: “Silence, dog! Your only purpose is to die by my hand.”“This woman had power, of a sort. She lost her parents to plague, her husband to war, but she persevered. She was well respected, her farm was prosperous and her children were well fed. And now she’s dead.” His simplistic, apathetic delivery of that line absolutely made it work. I cannot be controlled. I cannot be caged.
“You let all of my subjects loose! How wonderfully mad of you!”
Oh man, this one hurts. He was always so great in everything, and iconic in a bunch of things from my youth (Sark! Evil! Gorkon! Madred!). I’ll miss him.
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OH NOOOO!!!!! he will always be ultimate evil in “time bandits” to me!!!!
He was one of those actors that made whatever he was in, better. I was always delighted to see him turn up. His most memorable performances for me were in “Time After Time,” and as Captain James Sawyer in the Hornblower episode, “Retribution.”
He was in a couple of the Hornblower episodes — just great. And a great cast all around.
David Warner was Alan Rickman when Alan Rickman was in drama school.RIP, MCP.
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Time Bandits!!! he was hilarious
Time Bandits is one nutty movie.
They left out he was the (awesome) bad guy in Time Bandits, bummer.
I have seen him in so many things that I loved him in – and “fancast” him in things as I was reading books over the years – but I’ll be damned if I can recall whatever the hell he did in Twin Peaks.
Season 2. He played Thomas Eckhardt, who’s character ended up killing Pete Martell and Andrew Packard.
S2 Twin Peaks, at that? Might as well headline his role in Airport ’79.
His two big Trek roles, Chancellor Gorkon and Gul Madred are absolutely perfect and even his minor Federation diplomat in ST V is memorable as he’s the only Federation member who is still chain-smoking hahaha
He was good as Hugo Rune in the BBC radio production of The Brightonomicon.
Bit of a deep cut, but he was the voice actor for the main villain in Baldur’s Gate II – and he was, of course, awesome.
Literally the only voice I hear when I see the word “detective” because of his role as Ra’s Al Ghul in Batman: The Animated Series. And from his interviews, he always seemed the most humble and demure working actor, despite being in some of the best media over his life.
RIP, sir. Part of all of our lives, will continue to be.
Throwing it out there that AV Club needs to do a retrospective on Warner’s performance as EVIL in “Time Bandits,” one of the best villainous performances in a fantasy genre film.
The “Lasers! 8 OCLOCK! DAY ONE!”
My first glimpse of David Warner was of a (pretty awful)
prosthetic decapitated head of his character from “The Omen” in a still from
the tie-in novelization of the movie that I, for some reason, looked at
obsessively when I haunted local bookstores in my late childhood. He made
enough of an impression that I later recognized him as the devil in “Time Bandits.”
Where he first really impressed though me was as in Nick Meyer’s “Time After
Time” where he quite smartly played Jack the Ripper not as a Victorian
villain but as a 20th Century psychopath a hundred years of his time. The
movie, by the way, is kind of clumsy as a time travel thriller but works
BEAUTIFULY as a romantic fantasy in large part from a lovely performance by the
always radiant Mary Steenburgen (go watch it NOW.)Getting back to Warner, while he was typecast as a villain it’s
a real shame he wasn’t given more good guy roles because he could exude decency
and warmth as well or better than any actor out there. He’ll be sorely missed.
while he was typecast as a villain it’s a real shame he wasn’t given more good guy roles because he could exude decency and warmth as well or better than any actor out there. Cases in point: He’s the most memorable Bob Cratchit on film for this exact reason. And even though he plays a sex offender in Straw Dogs, he’s probably the closest thing that film has to a sympathetic character, largely due to his performance.
RIP to one of my favourite actors of all time.I’ll repost my thoughts on him from the original Random Roles article from five years ago:“One of my absolute favourite actors. I met him at a Star Trek convention in London in October 2012 and nobody was lined up to see him. I ended up spending 15 minutes hanging out, talking about World War II, his favourite castles and I fixed the settings on his iPad.Good memories.”
When you see all the things Mr. Warner had been in by 2012, it is simply stunning to me that there was no line to see him at any convention, let alone a Star Trek con.
He is, and always will be, the best iteration of Ra’s al Ghul. This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire show. The “let me take my boy home” absolutely guts me.
Was just watching him in Waxwork over the weekend and thinking about how delightful it always is to see him on screen.
The man also voiced Ra’s Al Ghul during Batman: The Animated Series. Only on the show a handful of times but he made that character menacing with his vocal presence. To this day, like many of the V/O actors of that show, I can’t hear Ra’s when I read him without hearing David Warner.
I was disappointed he didn’t voice Ras al-Ghul in the Arkham games.
“How do you like my peppermint frisbee?”
Damn, this one hurts. RIP.And to pour salt in the wound, there’s been a criminal lack of discussion of Dr Necessiter from The Man with Two Brains.
Best video game villain.
“You have let all of my subjects loose. How wonderfully mad of you.”
I can’t believe you didn’t mention that he played a prominent role in a Best Picture winner that made over $2 billion. I’d say more people would recognize him from that than from “Masada.”
I’ve got this article bookmarked for when I want to mourn David Warner and also the AVClub: https://www.avclub.com/david-warner-on-twin-peaks-tron-titanic-time-bandits-1798265384
Well that comment looks like garbage. Oh well. Kinja!
RIP to The Archmage from Gargoyles
“as well as an arc on The Next Generation as Gul Madred”I wouldn’t call 2 episodes in a row (part 1 and part 2) an arc.
Dammit, will someone please do a wellness check on David Thewlis?
One of my biggest From growing up with Time Bandits, Time After Time, The Island, Tron, and The Omen, (and then later, his Peckpahs, obv) Warner loomed very large for me in my movie fandom. So one of my greatest pleasures after I got into the business was getting him for an indie I helped put together – he was the villain in “Shergar” (1999).When he visited our office during post, I was ready with and got to show him, in a room full of admirers, his recent episode of “The Larry Sanders Show”, in which he KILLED IT as the Rupert Murdoch analog who owned Larry’s network. He said he hadn’t seen it yet – he giggled so hard at the whole show and his scenes, and it gave us all a chance to give this amazing guy an ovation. He was just so friendly to me.He also was incredibly gracious and charming all around, and the crew and his castmates absolutely adored the guy. Cheers to David – a gentlemanly artist to the last!!