Bio
Warren Clarke was an English actor best known for his role as Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel in the television drama series Dalziel and Pascoe, from 1996-2007.
Warren was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England, in 1947.
After leaving school at the age of 15, he joined the Manchester Evening News as a copy boy. He later moved onto amateur dramatics and performed at Huddersfield Rep and the Liverpool Playhouse, before taking up acting as a full-time professional.
Clarke has been a stalwart of TV drama since the 1970s. His credits also include Down to Earth, Bleak House and The Jewel in the Crown.
Warren's career took off in the late 1960s and 1970s with parts in TV dramas Softly Softly, The Avengers, Callan, The Onedin Line, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and the controversial Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange.
He continued to work regularly on TV throughout the 1980s, clocking up appearances in popular dramas such as Boon, Bergerac, The Manageress and Lovejoy.
Warren also appeared in 1987's Blackadder The Third, and as Oliver Cromwell in a special Comic Relief Blackadder episode in 1988.
His credits in the 1990s included Sleepers, in which he and Nigel Havers played under-cover Soviet Agents, A Respectable Trade, Giving Tongue, The Locksmith, and The Mystery of Men.
Warren firmly established himself on TV when he landed the lead role of Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel in the BBC crime drama Dalziel and Pascoe. The series, based on the books of British writer Reginald Hill, proved a big hit with viewers.
Away from Dalziel and Pascoe, he starred in several seasons of Down to Earth, alongside Pauline Quirke.
He also appeared in the 2005 adaptation of the Dickens classic Bleak House as the impetuous and hearty Lawrence Boythorn.
In 2002, Warren starred in the film Arthur's Dyke, alongside Down to Earth co-star Pauline Quirke.
Warren worked as a consulting producer on Dalziel and Pascoe from 2000 until the end of the show's run in June 2007, and directed several episodes.
He once admitted that despite having to put up with less than complimentary comments about his looks, he receives his fair share of saucy letters from admiring women. One even sent a picture of herself in the nude.
Warren claimed to be nothing like his boozy on-screen character Dalziel. "The man's a chauvinist pig whose idea of a good night out is swilling back ten pints in the pub with his supper waiting for him and the little woman tucked up in bed with a welcoming smile," he told The Mirror newspaper in 1997.
"I like going to the pub but my wife goes with me, too. Blokes like Dalziel just see women as sex objects."
He was one of a number of high-profile actors who submitted themselves for questioning on comedy chat show The Kumars at No.42.
He lived in Buckinghamshire with his second wife, Michelle. On 12 November 2014, Clarke died in his sleep, after a short illness.