Jack Warner the actor

Discussion of the actors, directors and film-makers who 'made it all happen'
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stuart.uk
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Joined: January 21st, 2008, 12:25 pm
Location: Dundee, Scotland

Jack Warner the actor

Post by stuart.uk »

In the UK Jack Warner is best known for the cop show Dixon Of Dock Green, which lasted over 20-years from the mid 50s to the mid 70s. ''Dixon'' was a tv spin-off of the classic movie The Blue Lamp, even though Dixon was murdered by Dirk Bogarde in the film. When the series was finally cancelled Warner was 84, kinda old to still be playing a copper, even though his character was greatly loved.

Jack Warner was also a top character actor in the movies, appearing in many classics, including Scrooge where he played a currupt businessman. He was also a Nazi double agent in Against The Wind, shot in the back by British spy and action heroine Simone Signoret, while shaving, after she discovered his secret. Warner was also the star of The Hugget film series with screen wife Kathleen Harrison, son-in-law Jimmy Hanley and young daughter Petula Clark. Perhaps his best character role, other than Dixon, came in Carve Her Name With Pride. There's a great scene in the film where he accidently discovers daughter Virgina McKenna is a British secret agent.

He did star in The Final Test, playing an international cricketer coming to the end of his career, again a bit old in his late 50s to be playing a sportsman, but still good nonetheless. Robert Morley co-starred.
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knitwit45
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Re: Jack Warner the actor

Post by knitwit45 »

Jack Warner was great in my favorite Brit movie The Captive Heart (cue groans from all who have heard from me about this movie, incessantly)...he and my favorite "Bob Cratchit", Mervyn Johns, were neighbors and business partners who enlisted together, and spent 5 years in a POW camp.

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Joe Macclesfield
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Location: Cheshire, England

Re: Jack Warner the actor

Post by Joe Macclesfield »

There was quite a bit more to Jack Warner than Dixon of Dock Green. He'd been a motor racing driver before breaking into Films. Had worked on the continent (he idolised Maurice Chevalier, and could speak fluent French). He's excellent as the police inspector investigating a murder in Brighton in Jigsaw (1962). I remember reading his autobiography entitled Jack of all Trades. In which, he expressed amusement at the way movies often cast him as a detective, while he was best known from TV as an ordinary "bobby".
"...Then as a bee, which among weeds doth fall,
Which seem sweet floures with lustre fresh and gay,
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But pleasd with none doth rise and sore away..."
loureviews
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Joined: November 29th, 2013, 9:06 am

Re: Jack Warner the actor

Post by loureviews »

Can definitely second the love for The Captive Heart. Jack Warner's sisters Gert and Daisy (Elsie and Doris Waters) were better known for their comedy films but Jack took a different path.
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