David Warner once described his childhood as "messy". His father changed jobs often and moved from town to town. David attended eight schools and "failed his exams at all of them". His parents separated when he was a teenager and he only saw his mother again seven years later - on her deathbed. After a series of odd jobs, he was accepted at the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Arts (RADA) where he was very unhappy. After RADA, he became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company and got the part of Blifil in Tom Jones. With the title role in Morgan! and a two-year stint as Hamlet with the RSC, Warner became a star at 24.


Has vertigo. Was doubled in Time Bandits (1981) in the scene where the Evil Genius walks up the steps after caging the bandits, because he could not handle the drop below him. Has been in 3 movies about the Titanic: S.O.S. Titanic (1979) (TV); Time Bandits (1981) and Titanic (1997). Is one of only 32 actors or actresses to have starred in both the original Star Trek (up to and including Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)) and then in one of the spin offs. Played an ape in Planet of the Apes (2001), a character obsessed with gorillas in Morgan: A Suitable Case for Treatment (1966) and did a gorilla impression in The Man with Two Brains (1983). In Time After Time (1979), he played John Leslie Stevenson (Jack the Ripper). In "The Outer Limits" (1995) episode "Ripper", he played Inspector Langford who was investigating Dr. Jack York (Cary Elwes) who was suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Although he played Reinhard Heydrich, one of the key architects of the Holocaust, in both "Holocaust" (1978) and Hitler's S.S.: Portrait in Evil (1985) (TV), he is Jewish in real life. He has two roles in common with both David Collings and Richard E. Grant. All three have played Bob Cratchit - Warner in A Christmas Carol (1984) (TV), Collings in Scrooge (1970) and Grant in A Christmas Carol (1999) (TV) - and the Doctor from "Doctor Who" (1963) - Warner in the Big Finish audio dramas "Sympathy for the Devil" and "Masters of War", Collings in the Big Finish audio drama "Full Fathom Five" and Grant in Comic Relief: Doctor Who - The Curse of Fatal Death (1999) (TV) and "Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka" (2003).