If you grew up watching Star Wars, Willow, or Harry Potter, you probably recognized Warwick Davis before you ever knew his name. He was 11 when he first played Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi, and he has stayed in front of the camera ever since, but behind the fantasy roles lies a much harder story: his wife Samantha died in 2024, and a 2025 inquest turned the medical details into public record, as BBC News (UK public broadcaster) reported.
Born: 1970 (age 54) · Height: 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) · Spouse: Samantha Davis (m. 1991; died 2024) · Children: 2 (Lloyd and Annabelle) · Notable Role: Wicket the Ewok (Star Wars) · Net Worth (est.): $10 million
Quick snapshot
- Samantha Davis died on 24 March 2024, aged 53, at University College Hospital in London; the 2025 inquest recorded her cause of death as arrhythmic cardiac arrest following complications of essential surgical treatment (BBC News).
- Davis’s screen career spans Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Willow, and all eight Harry Potter films (The Standard).
- Exact net worth — the $10 million figure has no primary source.
- Stroke rumors — no confirmed report exists in the coverage reviewed.
- New partner status — no public confirmation in either direction.
- 1983 — Cast as Wicket the Ewok in Return of the Jedi (The Standard)
- 1991 — Marries Samantha Burroughs (BBC News)
- 2024–2025 — Samantha dies; the inquest concludes (BBC News)
- Further acting, convention, and charity work; no retirement announced. (The Standard)
- The 2022 Disney+ Willow revival shows franchise interest remains strong (The Standard).
This breakdown helps clarify what is known and what remains speculative.
Key facts
The identity details behind the headline numbers come from his Wikipedia biography (community encyclopedia), and the family milestones are documented in BBC News’s inquest coverage (UK public broadcaster).
| Label | Value |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Warwick Ashley Davis |
| Born | 3 February 1970 (age 54) |
| Height | 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) |
| Condition | Spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED) |
| Spouse | Samantha Davis (m. 1991; died 2024) |
| Children | Two surviving children: Lloyd and Annabelle |
| Notable Roles | Wicket the Ewok, Willow Ufgood, Professor Flitwick, Leprechaun |
| Charity | Co-founded Little People UK (2012) |
| Estimated Net Worth | $10 million (unverified) |
These details provide a factual baseline for Davis’s life and career.
What movies has Warwick Davis been in?
Five decades, three fantasy franchises, and one through-line: Davis kept getting cast because he kept delivering. The roles are easy to list; the pattern behind them is the interesting part.
- Star Wars: Return of the Jedi (1983): cast at 11 as Wicket the Ewok — the debut that made him a fixture (The Standard).
- Willow (1988) to Willow (2022): the title role in the original film, Professor Flitwick in all eight Harry Potter films plus the goblin Griphook, and a return to Willow Ufgood in the Disney+ series (The Standard).
- Leprechaun franchise (1993–2003): a horror-cult run that kept him on screen between blockbusters (Wikipedia).
Related reading: Warwick Davis: Star Wars, Harry Potter & Family Facts.
The pattern: Davis didn’t need one signature role because he collected several. In an industry that rarely writes parts for actors with dwarfism, he built a career that spans generations of fandom.
What is Warwick Davis doing nowadays?
Davis is not retired, and the record shows a public calendar that is still full. The Disney+ Willow revival in 2022 was his latest flagship credit, and he remains closely identified with Little People UK, the charity he co-founded with Samantha in 2012 to support people with dwarfism and their families (BBC News).
The biggest moment in his recent timeline wasn’t a premiere, though. In April 2025, the inquest into Samantha’s death was held, and the coverage around it kept the family’s story at the center of public attention (The Standard).
Has Warwick Davis had a stroke?
- The rumor: a recurring online question about whether Davis had a stroke.
- The record: none of the coverage reviewed for this profile contains a confirmed report of a stroke.
- The context: the 2025 news cycle around Davis centered on the inquest into Samantha’s death, not on his own health (BBC News).
That absence matters because Davis’s health has never been a secret: he lives with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), a rare skeletal condition, and his height of 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) has been part of his public identity since the Ewok days.
What this means: the stroke question is a rumor without a primary source. Davis’s actual recent record — the inquest, the charity, the conventions — is more ordinary, and more human, than the internet assumes.
What happened to Warwick Davis’ wife Samantha?
No part of Davis’s public story has been harder than the loss of his wife. Samantha Davis died on 24 March 2024, aged 53, at University College Hospital in London, after an illness that the 2025 inquest documented in unusual detail (BBC News).
How did Warwick Davis meet his wife?
- They met on the set of Willow in the late 1980s, married in 1991, and co-founded Little People UK together in 2012 (BBC News).
- Samantha was an actress in her own right and appeared with Warwick as a goblin in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (The Standard).
How much did Warwick Davis’ wife leave him?
No figure exists in the public record. The inheritance question has no documented answer.
The question spiked after Samantha’s death, but no estate document, will, or court filing has been cited in the coverage reviewed for this article. The inquest was about a medical event, not a financial one. Because of the inquest, the medical timeline is now specific. Samantha was admitted to hospital on 7 February 2024 after a sudden loss of mobility in her lower limbs following a disc prolapse (BBC News), underwent major surgical treatment on 20 February (Yahoo News New Zealand), and, according to the inquest findings, suffered a cardiac arrest at approximately 23:25 on 23 March. She was pronounced dead around 00:28 on 24 March after resuscitation attempts failed, with the recorded cause of death being arrhythmic cardiac arrest following complications of essential surgical treatment (BBC News).
The inquest turned a rumor-prone story into a closed medical record. For every claim circulating about Samantha’s death, the coroner’s finding — a cardiac arrest after complications of essential surgery — is the documented answer.
The trade-off: the public now knows more about Samantha’s final weeks than most families would choose to share. That detail resolved the medical questions; the financial and emotional ones stay in private territory.
The inquest thus resolved medical uncertainties while leaving personal ones untouched.
How many kids has Warwick Davis lost?
The search record around Davis’s family is heavy with loss, and it deserves care. The confirmed fact is straightforward: Warwick and Samantha had two surviving children, Lloyd and Annabelle (BBC News).
The less documented part of the story is an earlier tragedy. Reporting in The Mirror (UK tabloid newspaper) described how the couple’s first child died nine days after birth, according to later biographical accounts. That account has not been repeated with identical detail across other outlets, which is why the family’s full history of loss is the part of this story readers should treat most carefully.
Public sympathy for the Davis family is real, but so is the gap between what fans ask and what the record confirms. Grief is the one part of this story that no database can quantify.
Davis has acknowledged the role that grief has played in his family’s life, and the inquest coverage makes clear how intertwined public and private loss have become.
Why this matters: the question “how many kids has Warwick Davis lost?” assumes an answer the public record doesn’t cleanly provide. The verified facts are two surviving children and a first child whose death was reported by The Mirror; the rest stays private.
What is Warwick Davis’s net worth?
Ask the internet for Warwick Davis’s net worth and you’ll get a precise number: $10 million. Ask the record and you’ll get silence — no financial disclosure, estate document, or confirmed statement from Davis supports an exact figure.
The $10 million estimate appears in entertainment databases and fan publications, and it is not absurd as a ballpark for someone with five decades of franchise work, a horror series, and a busy convention schedule. But “estimate” is doing the heavy lifting: no primary source confirms it, and the inquest coverage that dominates his recent news cycle touches his finances not at all (BBC News).
The same search behavior that asks about net worth also asks about stroke rumors and inheritances. All three share one trait: the figure or rumor gets repeated, while the primary source stays absent.
Related reading: Warwick Davis: Acting Career, Family, and Living with SED.
Why this matters: net worth is the question fans ask most and the record answers least. Any precise number is a guess with good branding.
Warwick Davis: a career and family timeline
The dates that matter cluster into two threads — a public career and a private life — and in 2024 they converge. The timeline is compiled from BBC News’s inquest coverage (UK public broadcaster) and The Standard’s career reporting (London news outlet).
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 1970 | Born in Epsom, England |
| 1983 | Debuts as Wicket the Ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi |
| 1988 | Stars as Willow Ufgood in Willow |
| 1991 | Marries Samantha Burroughs |
| 2001–2011 | Plays Professor Flitwick in all eight Harry Potter films |
| 2012 | Co-founds Little People UK with Samantha |
| 2022 | Reprises Willow Ufgood in the Disney+ series Willow |
| 2024 | Samantha dies on 24 March, aged 53 |
| 2025 | Inquest records the cause of death; Davis continues public work |
What this means: the same man who made an Ewok a beloved character in 1983 was, four decades later, at the center of a coroner’s record. The career thread is long; the family thread is short and painful.
Confirmed facts vs. open questions
The gap between what’s verified and what’s repeated is the real story around Warwick Davis in 2025.
Confirmed facts
- Samantha Davis died on 24 March 2024, and the inquest recorded her cause of death; the couple married in 1991 and had two surviving children, Lloyd and Annabelle (BBC News).
- Davis’s career spans Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Willow, and all eight Harry Potter films (The Standard).
What’s unclear
- Exact net worth — no primary source supports any figure, including the $10 million estimate.
- Stroke rumors — no confirmed report exists in the coverage reviewed.
- New partner status — no public confirmation in either direction.
- Inheritance details — no estate or court document has been reported.
- The full timeline of the family’s early losses — The Mirror’s account differs from some later summaries.
The pattern: every confirmed item trails back to a mainstream institution — the BBC, the coroner’s record, The Standard. Every unclear item survives on repetition without documentation.
Key statements from the record
Three sentences define where the public record on Warwick Davis actually stands.
“The medical cause of death was arrhythmic cardiac arrest following complications of essential surgical treatment.”
Coroner’s conclusion, reported by BBC News
“Samantha had been admitted to hospital on 7 February 2024 after sudden loss of mobility in her lower limbs following a disc prolapse.”
BBC News, reporting the inquest record
“Davis rose to prominence as an 11-year-old after being cast as an Ewok in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi.”
The Standard
What this means: the record is medical and biographical, not scandalous. The sentences carrying Davis’s story are about surgery, a cardiac arrest, and an 11-year-old in an Ewok costume.
Where Warwick Davis stands now
Five decades in, Davis’s legacy on screen is secure, but the public version of his story has a new center of gravity. The verified record runs from an Ewok in 1983 to a 2024 loss that the 2025 inquest turned into a documented medical fact — while the rumors around net worth, stroke, and inheritance remain exactly that. For fans of Warwick Davis, the choice is clear: hold on to the documented record and the grief he has chosen to share, or let unverified numbers write the version you remember.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers to the questions readers ask most often.
How tall is Warwick Davis?
Davis is 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m) tall, a detail listed in his Wikipedia biography (Wikipedia). His height is tied to a rare form of dwarfism.
What condition does Warwick Davis have?
Davis lives with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita (SED), a rare skeletal condition that affects bone growth. It is the reason for his height of 3 ft 6 in (1.07 m).
Is Warwick Davis still acting?
Yes. His latest flagship role was Willow Ufgood in the Disney+ series Willow (2022), and no retirement has been announced (The Standard).
What was Warwick Davis’s role in Harry Potter?
Davis played Professor Flitwick in all eight Harry Potter films and also portrayed the goblin Griphook. His wife Samantha appeared as a goblin in the final film (The Standard).
Does Warwick Davis have children?
Yes — two surviving children, Lloyd and Annabelle, with his late wife Samantha (BBC News).
What was Samantha Davis’s cause of death?
The 2025 inquest recorded arrhythmic cardiac arrest following complications of essential surgical treatment. She had been admitted to hospital in February 2024 after losing mobility in her lower limbs (BBC News).
Alex Chen is Editor-in-Chief at Reef Brief, overseeing editorial standards, publication decisions and corrections.