David Hattersley Warner was born July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England, to Ada Doreen (Hattersley) and Herbert Simon Warner. He has 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: de l'alcôve à la potence (1963). With the title role in Morgan (1966) and a two-year stint as Hamlet with the RSC, Warner became a star at age 24. He has often played villains in such films as Les 39 marches (1978), C'était demain (1979), Bandits, bandits (1981), Tron (1982) and Titanic (1997). He also appeared in Star trek V - L'ultime frontière (1989) and Star trek VI - Terre inconnue (1991), two sequels to the popular Star Trek films.
