Veteran British actor, David Warner has passed on at age 80 following a cancer-related illness.
Warner died on Sunday 24th July at Denville Hall, which is a London care home for veterans of the entertainment industry.
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However, his death was confirmed by his family in a statement to the BBC in which they said he had been ill for the past year and a half.
The statement reads
“Over the past 18 months he approached his diagnosis with a characteristic grace and dignity.
“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.”
Warner was born in 1941, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and made his stage debut in 1962.
He got his first screen role in 1963 in Tom Jones, a film adaptation of Henry Fielding’s classic 1749 novel, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling.
His career received a major boost in 1966 when he took on the leading role in Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment opposite Vanessa Redgrave. The film helped to establish his reputation for playing off-the-wall characters.
One of his best-known roles was as Keith Jennings in the classic horror film The Omen, released in 1976 where he played a photographer whose head was famously chopped by a pane of glass. When asked about the severed head’s whereabouts in the 2010 docuseries A History of Horror, Warner said, “I lost it in the divorce.”
Warner left the UK for Hollywood in 1987 and lived there for 15 years, appearing in films including Star Trek V and VI and Planet Of The Apes.
He appeared in tons of films and TV shows over the years, but contemporary audiences may best remember him from 1997’s Titanic, in which he played Spicer Lovejoy, the villainous sidekick of Billy Zane‘s character, Cal Hockley.
His more recent appearances include the 2017 romantic comedy You Me And Him and his final role as Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins Returns the following year.
Warner was married twice over the years. First to Harriet Evans from 1969 to 1972 and Sheilah Kent from 1981 to 2002.
His family also noted that 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.”
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