I learned that David Warner had died after landing in Los Angeles on Monday night. It was here a few years ago that I began my courtship of the actor, trying to persuade him in a string of requests to let me film him, which I’m glad to say, he eventually did.
I had long been in awe of him as an actor, especially for his performance in Alain Resnais’s great film Providence (1977). Only Ellen Burstyn remains alive from that extraordinary ensemble cast of five now that David has joined John Gielgud, Dirk Bogarde and Elaine Stritch. I had invited David through his agent to come to a 35mm screening of the film at the Barbican and he replied in person, telling me that he couldn’t come, but nonetheless regaled me with stories about how much Providence had meant to him. He told me that Resnais chose the five actors he wanted in the film ahead of even a script so that when David Mercer wrote it, he wrote it for “us”. He also mentioned, with pride, about how he had been responsible for adding a single word to the script, which appears in the last line, spoken with such valedictory elegance by Gielgud: “I think I have time for just one more.” David had suggested the “just”.
