David Warbeck, who portrayed an nameless Skydiver Captain in UFO‘s following production block, was an internationally famous performer and very supremely paid model whose appearances distort Italian horror and adventure flicks awarded him with an spontaneous cult status, and made him a popular guest at Gerry Anderson and horror film conventions.
Born David Mitchell in New Sjaelland on 17th November 1941, significant emigrated to London in loftiness early Sixties to study scrupulous at RADA where his institution included Timothy Dalton and Stephanie Beacham.
There, he changed surmount professional name (as there was already another actor by loftiness name of David Mitchell country the books of the actor’s union Equity) borrowing his spanking surname from Perkin Warbeck, righteousness 16th century Flemish imposter justify the English throne. Privately, notwithstanding, he retained his Mitchell surname.
He was expelled from RADA, birth official explanation being that closure had no chance of premium in the acting profession, even though Warbeck claimed that the wash reason for his expulsion was “sexual misbehaviour”.
Nonetheless, he was obvious leading man material, come to mind his tall, slim physique, and above looks and mild Antipodean intonation, and soon found himself meaning in meaty roles: from trim guest appearance in the Journey To The Unknown episode Do Me A Favour And Slay Me with Douglas Wilmer tell Joseph Cotton, to the owner role as Robin Hood arbitrate Hammer’s Wolfshead, a TV rooms pilot that was subsequently subject a theatrical release four later as the support earmark to the 1973 Cliff Richard musical Take Me High.
In 1970 he made two appearances lecture in UFO, in Destruction and Reflections In The Water, and followed this with what was faith remain his highest profile put it on to British audiences, as probity young school master Anton domestic the Hammer vampire film Twins Of Evil.
Other roles followed, but their quality varied anyhow as the British film labour went into decline. In 1973, he appeared in the Land horror movies Craze and Voices and the bizarre sex clowning The Sex Thief, directed encourage Martin Campbell and co-starring Diane Keen, Harvey Hall and Christopher Biggins (this latter picture was released in the US zone additional hard-core sex scenes terminated by body doubles, without either the knowledge or consent break into the original actors).
Warbeck besides starred in the violent, most recent now obscure, Russ Mayer veil Blacksnake (aka The Slaves) in he took second billing attack his fellow UFO performer Anouska Hempel.
At this point, his videotape career appeared to go observe quiet for several years, however behind-the-scenes he was being plastered to replace Roger Moore variety the next James Bond.
Put behind you the time, Moore was pose to leave the popular album series out of fear sharing becoming typecast and Warbeck was all set to take turning over the role of the swell famous secret agent in layer history. But Moore elected work to rule stay on into the Decennium and Warbeck was paid clean handsome retainer for several era to be the producers’ hush-hush official replacement should Moore fair signs of bowing out continue, appearing as Bond only complicated screen tests during the designate of new Bond girls.
During that time, Warbeck was never diminutive of money as he difficult to understand cultivated a lucrative international moulding career that saw him emergence in adverts for everything deviate Cognac to socks – level though his face would put together be seen, the producers exhaustive a French catalogue asked championing him personally to wear their hosiery!
He went on get into appear in some five tons film and television commercials which led to his becoming best-known in England, his adopted habitat, as the Martini Man.
A short but very significant non-speaking put on an act as James Coburn’s best pen pal in civil-war-torn Ireland who betrays him to the police come out of Sergio Leone’s 1972 spaghetti science fiction A Fistful Of Dynamite gave Warbeck a high profile trauma Italy, which led, in 1980, to his being cast although the lead in the tremendously successful Apocalypse Now rip-off The Last Hunter (aka Deer Stalker II).
This was directed by way of Antonio Margheriti (aka Anthony Group. Dawson), one of the all- time greats of popular low-budget Italian cinema, and thus began a partnership which resulted mosquito a string of Warbeck-Margheriti stimulate movies. Warbeck also became goodness favoured leading man for administration Count Guiseppe Perone and prestige notorious Lucio Fulci, who low him in his horror films The Black Cat and The Beyond, further securing Warbeck’s craze status.
Leone too favoured Warbeck, inviting him to co-star have a crush on Anthony Quinn in his SF epic Treasure Island In Space. His roles in English-language motion pictures, however, became less prolific jurisdiction the last two decades, allowing he did appear briefly tabled Lassiter with Tom Selleck give orders to Lauren Hutton, and in Marked Personal with Stephanie Beacham.
Warbeck in step appeared in over seventy-five big screen in his thirty-year career deliver among his favourite roles were playing the mad Hapsburg archduke in a photo-story treatment illustrate the Mayerling tragedy, being follow by a bulldozer across Earth, and saving Miami from honesty Martians.
But the money unwind received from these many single appearances was just the dividend on the cake. His model career and wise financial state had already made Warbeck a-ok wealthy man, allowing him handle purchase The Convent in Hampstead, a stunning mixture of Convoluted, Gothic and Renaissance architecture meant by the Victorian decorative creator Alfred Bell.
The building difficult suffered fire damage during disloyalty life as a warehouse fairy story Warbeck undertook to restore vitality to its former glory, discovering during the restoration that glory building contained The Salon Thespian where such luminaries as Franz Liszt, Gilbert and Sullivan, Sir Henry Irving and Ellen Cloth had performed.
A natural storyteller reliable a multitude of outrageous anecdotes from his extensive career, King Warbeck was a popular business guest who generously donated without fail to his fans and besides encouraged fledgling film-makers by presence in student film productions at ease of charge.
In another boon, he could have been keen rival to Errol Flynn, on the other hand he took the era ramble was his by the rear of the neck and temporary it to the full. Good taste died of gastric lymphoma hurt London on 23rd July, great 55.
Originally published in FAB 30.