Jack Warner (actor)
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Jack Warner OBE (October 24, 1896–May 24, 1981) was a popular English film and television actor.
He was born in London, his real name being Horace John Waters. His sisters Elsie and Doris Waters would become well-known comedians under the name Gert and Daisy. Like them, Jack Warner made his name in music hall and radio, but he became known to cinema audiences as the father of the Huggett family in a series of popular films. He also co-starred in the 1955 Hammer film version of The Quatermass Xperiment and as a police superintendent in the 1955 Ealing Studios black comedy The Ladykillers.
Warner attended the Coopers' Company's Grammar School for boys in Mile End, while his sisters both attended the nearby sister school, Coborn School for Girls in Bow.
It was in 1950 that Warner first played the role with which he would forever after be associated, that of PC George Dixon in the film, The Blue Lamp. Although the police constable was shot dead in the film, the character was later revived for the long-running BBC television series, Dixon of Dock Green, which debuted in 1955 and ran until 1976, although in later years the aged Warner and his long-past-retirement-age character were confined to a less prominent desk Sergeant role. The series had a prime-time slot on Saturday evenings, and always opened with PC Dixon giving a little soliloquy to the camera, beginning with the words, "Good evening, all".
He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1965.
