David Hattersley Warner was born July 29, 1941 in Manchester, England. 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 role of Blifil in the adventure comedy Tom Jones (1963). With the title role in the comedy-drama 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 The Thirty Nine Steps (1978), Time After Time (1979), Time Bandits (1981), TRON (1982) and Titanic (1997). He has also appeared in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), two sequels to the popular Star Trek films.