John Warner

John Hickson Warner (1 January 1924 – 19 May 2001) was a British film, television and stage actor whose career spanned more than five decades. His most famous role was that of Timothy Dawes in Salad Days, which premiered in the UK at the Theatre Royal in 1954, and transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre in London in the same year.

Early years Born the son of a clergyman in George in South Africa, Warner was educated at Brighton College after his family returned to Britain in 1929. His first job in 1939 was at the Little Theatre in Bristol.

Other television appearances include The Treaty (1991), Agatha Christie's Poirot (1992), Lovejoy (1992), Mr. Bean (1992), Shakespeare: The Animated Tales (1992–94) and Desmond's (1994).

Warner's film appearances include The Cruel Sea (1953), Isadora (1968), Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971), The Trouble with 2B (1972), Got It Made (1974), Little Dorrit (1987) and Without a Clue (1988).

Theatre Warner's first Shakespearean role was that of the Chief Fairy in a production of The Merry Wives of Windsor directed by Tyrone Guthrie in 1942. He appeared in Peter Brook's productions of Romeo and Juliet and Love's Labour's Lost at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1947. In the 1950s Warner spent some years at the Bristol Old Vic when it regularly transferred productions to the Old Vic. In 1951 he played Osric and Reynaldo to Alec Guinness's Hamlet at the New Theatre in London. running for 2,283 performances to become the longest-running show in musical theatre history until overtaken by My Fair Lady in the US (1956) and Oliver! in the UK (1960). He appeared in A Man of Distinction at the New Theatre in 1957. He was the Vice-President of the Actors' Benevolent Fund.

John Warner died of heart attack on 19 May 2001 in Canterbury, Kent aged 77. He never married.

Filmography