David Warner

Distinguished character actor 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. He only saw his mother again on her deathbed. As an only child from a dysfunctional family, young David excelled neither at academia nor at athletics. He attended eight schools and "failed his exams at all of them." After a series of odd jobs, he was accepted against all odds at Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), and became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. When he first took up acting, it was not with the notion of a prospective career, but rather to escape (in his own words) 'a messy childhood.' 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