Sad news swept across the entertainment industry early this week.
Because of the nature of the business, there are few times when an actor can boast a career spanning multiple decades, much less a half-century. But, that’s exactly what one beloved and iconic actor could do.
David Warner had an acting career that spanned 50 years and, during that time, he saw himself in many iconic roles. His family revealed today that the iconic actor had passed away over the weekend due to a “cancer-related illness.”
Warner had been sick for nearly 18 months and his family shared that he had “approached his diagnosis with a characteristic grace and dignity.”
“It is with an overwhelmingly heavy heart that we share the news of the death of the actor David Warner (at the age of nearly 81), from a cancer-related illness, in the early hours of July 24th,” his family said in the statement.”…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 is most known for his role as the iconic villain Edward Dillinger in TRON (1982). The Disney franchise, which saw a new movie released in 2011, has become so popular that a coaster is being built at Magic Kingdom in Walt Disney World Resort themed to the intellectual property.
In addition, Warner starred in many other popular films including Titanic (1997), Time After Time (1979), The Omen (1976), Time Bandits (1981), and many others. In addition to TRON, his Disney filmography includes the narrator in Pooh’s Grand Adventure: The Search for Christopher Robin, the Archmage in Gargoyles, The Spirit of the Tree in the Dinosaurs episode “If I Were a Tree”, Lord Angstrom in Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, Admiral Boom in Mary Poppins Returns, and Thomas Eckhardt in the ABC drama Twin Peaks.
In a 2017 interview with AV Club, Warner talked about his 50-year-career and explained that he was very happy to have had the opportunity to play a character in so many different genres.
“I’ve done war pictures, I’ve done Westerns, I’ve done sci-fi … I mean, I wasn’t in ‘Harry Potter,’ and I wasn’t in ‘Lord Of The Rings,’ and I haven’t been in ‘Game Of Thrones,’” he told the AV Club. “So there are those big ones that I haven’t managed to do. But that’s show biz … and, you know, I think I’ve still done okay.”