Warwick Davis: Wife’s Death, Children, and Career (2025)

Most people meet Warwick Davis through a mask: an Ewok in Return of the Jedi, a leprechaun with a silver tongue, a tiny professor who teaches Charms at Hogwarts. The man behind the prosthetics has spent four decades as a working British actor, and the personal story under the costumes is just as dramatic — he married Samantha Davis in 1991 after they met on the set of Willow, raised two children with her, and lost her in March 2024 after a long illness (BBC News (UK public broadcaster)).

Born: 3 February 1970, Epsom, Surrey · Occupation: Actor · Known for: Willow (1988), Leprechaun (1993–2003), Harry Potter, Star Wars · Spouse: Samantha Davis (m. 1991–2024) · Children: Annabelle and Harrison

Six rows of biography, one pattern: the private details the public trusts about Davis come mostly from his own announcements, not from independent records.

Who is Warwick Davis?

Few actors can claim a résumé that spans Return of the Jedi, Willow, Harry Potter, and Star Wars. Davis is the connective tissue between all of them.

What is his real name?

• His full name is Warwick Ashley Davis, and, according to Wikipedia, he was born on 3 February 1970 in Epsom, Surrey (Wikipedia (open encyclopedia)).
• According to his IMDb biography, Davis was born with spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita, a genetic form of dwarfism (IMDb (film database).

Why is he known as the Leprechaun actor?

• He played the title character in Willow (1988) (The Standard (London news site)).
• He headlined the Leprechaun horror franchise from 1993 to 2003, per his IMDb biography (IMDb (film database)).
• According to Wikipedia, he later played Professor Flitwick in the Harry Potter films and remains known as Wicket W. Warrick from Return of the Jedi (Wikipedia (open encyclopedia)).

Willow made him a star, Leprechaun made him a cult icon, and Harry Potter made him a familiar face to a generation that had never seen either. The implication: Davis has never been a single-franchise actor.

Warwick Davis’ wife and her passing

Who is his partner now?

• Samantha Davis died on 24 March 2024, aged 53 (BBC News (UK public broadcaster)).
• As of early 2025, Davis has not publicly confirmed a new partner.

Warwick and Samantha met on the set of Willow and married in 1991 (BBC News (UK public broadcaster)). In his tribute after her death, Warwick called her “my favourite human, most trusted confidant, and most ardent supporter” (HELLO! (celebrity magazine)).

What did his wife die from?

• The exact cause of Samantha’s death has not been publicly confirmed.
• Reports describe her death as coming after a long illness.

The public record contains the dates, the marriage, and the grief, but not a detailed medical explanation.

Has he moved on?

• No public evidence of a new relationship exists as of early 2025.
• His public focus since her death has been their children and Little People UK, the charity they co-founded.

Little People UK, set up in 2012, supports people with dwarfism and their families (Metro (UK daily newspaper)). What this means: the public knows Samantha Davis mainly through Warwick’s grief. The absence of an official cause of death leaves room for secondary reporting — and this profile flags it as such.

Warwick Davis’ children and family life

How many children does he have?

• Two surviving children: Annabelle and Harrison (BBC News (UK public broadcaster)).
• Their first child, Lloyd, died nine days after birth (The Standard (London news site)).
• Metro has reported a later pregnancy loss involving a son named George, though the details remain secondary (Metro (UK daily newspaper)).

Have any of his children passed away?

• Yes — Lloyd’s death shortly after birth is the only child loss confirmed by mainstream reporting.
• A later loss involving George rests on Metro’s account, which has not been confirmed elsewhere.

That first loss is one of the hardest details in Davis’s biography, and also the one most profiles rush past.

Are his children average height?

• No — both Annabelle and Harrison have dwarfism, like their father (HELLO! (celebrity magazine)).
• The specific diagnosis for the children has not been consistently detailed in public reporting.

Is his son famous?

• Not yet — Harrison has appeared in minor roles, including a goblin in a Harry Potter production (Metro (UK daily newspaper)).
• Annabelle is the more established actor so far: she has appeared in The Dumping Ground and Hollyoaks (The Standard (London news site)) and in the Disney+ Willow series (HELLO! (celebrity magazine)).

The pattern: the losses in this family are real, and so is the continuity. Annabelle and Harrison carry the Davis name into the same fantasy franchises their father helped build.

What is Warwick Davis doing today?

Is he still acting?

• Yes — he continues to work in film and television and remains a fixture at fan conventions.
• According to Wikipedia, he was awarded an OBE in 2024 for services to drama (Wikipedia (open encyclopedia)).

What are his latest projects?

• Public appearances and conventions keep him connected with fans.
• He remains a vocal advocate for the dwarfism community through Little People UK, the charity he co-founded with Samantha.

Davis has spent the years since Willow and Leprechaun working steadily rather than chasing stardom. That approach made him a familiar face to three generations of fantasy fans.

The trade-off: Davis turned a condition that often ends acting careers into a durable brand, but his signature roles — Willow, Leprechaun — remain cult properties rather than ongoing franchises.

What happened to Richard Warwick?

The short answer: nothing happened to Warwick Davis. The confusion is about a different actor entirely. Richard Warwick was a separate British actor, unrelated to Warwick Davis.

• The two are often mixed up online because of their similar stage names.
• If you searched for “Richard Warwick” hoping for Warwick Davis’s biography, the correct trail starts with the actor born in Epsom in 1970.

The takeaway: when a public figure’s name collides with another, clarifying the difference matters more than chasing every possible lookalike.

Career and family timeline

Seven milestones, one pattern: the career and the family moved in lockstep from the very beginning.

Each milestone is sourced in the profile sections above. The pattern: from Epsom to Endor to the OBE, Davis’s life has been a series of improbable transitions — each one navigated in public.

Confirmed facts vs. what’s unclear

The line between what is documented and what is reported matters when a family’s grief becomes public.

Why this matters: because so much of the family’s story is private, readers should weigh the confirmed list more heavily than the unclear one.

Warwick Davis in his own words

“She was my favourite human, most trusted confidant, and most ardent supporter.”

Warwick Davis, on Samantha Davis (HELLO! (celebrity magazine))

Their first son, Lloyd, died nine days after birth.

The Standard on the family’s earliest loss (The Standard (London newsite))

Samantha Davis died on 24 March 2024, aged 53.

BBC News report (BBC News (UK public broadcaster))

Why this matters: the grief is public, but the details are private. Davis has shared the love, not the medical record.

The takeaway

Davis’s story is unusual not because he is a little person in acting — it is because he turned that identity into a career instead of a limitation. The through-line from Return of the Jedi to Harry Potter to the OBE in2024 is a man who kept working while the people around him kept believing in the work. For Warwick Davis, the choice is clear: keep showing up — on screen, at conventions, and through Little People UK — because that is the most fitting answer to the woman who helped him build it.

Frequently asked questions

These answers summarize the most common queries about Warwick Davis’s career and personal life.

Related reading

• Warwick Davis: Biography, Height, Net Worth, and Family Life
• Warwick Davis: Acting Career, Family, and Living with SED