Michael Winner

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2005

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the film director Michael Winner. Michael Winner is a film-maker, restaurant critic and columnist who has been called Britain's 'Jester Laureate'. He has enjoyed a career spanning 30 years as a director, working with Orson Welles, Marlon Brando and Faye Dunaway as well as being the man behind the controversial Death Wish films starring Charles Bronson. Born in October 1935, the only son of Helen and George Winner, Michael was a shy and sometimes lonely child. Even as a very young boy he knew he wanted to be connected to the movie industry - projecting shadow pictures and devising his own commentary when he was only five years old. At the age of 14 he was given his own showbusiness column in his local paper - which was syndicated across more than two dozen titles. It gave Michael access to some of the biggest stars of the time, including Nat King Cole, Bob Hope, the Marx Brothers.

His first film, This is Belgium, was notable for being largely shot in East Grinstead. He says that while he admires directors who tackle social issues, he always wanted to be part of the glamour of Hollywood, making films that weren't to be taken too seriously and that were just a bit of fun.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: Charge and Battle by Sir William Walton Book: The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Luxury: Big supply of caviar

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a film director and restaurant critic.
0:33.4	If that sounds an unusual combination,
0:35.6	it's because this is an unusual man.
0:38.0	On the outside, flamboyant and self-promoting,
0:40.8	he claims to be actually rather shy shy and his friends attest to this.
0:45.0	Brought up in a beautiful house in West London in which he still lives by a mother
0:49.2	who gambled and a property developing father. He went to Cambridge and then into the film industry.
0:54.8	His first film was called This is Belgium and was made entirely in East Grinstead.
0:59.7	He graduated two successful British films such as The Jokers and I'll never forget what's his name
1:05.3	and then went to Hollywood where he enjoyed a hugely successful career as the man behind
1:10.0	the Death Wish trilogy with Charles Bronson as well as nearly 30 other movies.
1:14.9	More recently he's become a restaurant critic with the Sunday Times
1:18.2	translating into print the energy and it has to be said the occasional mayhem that he once enjoyed putting on
1:24.5	the screen. The only person I have to answer to for my behavior, my attitude and
1:29.6	my activities he says is myself. He is Michael Winner. And when you answer to yourself
1:36.1	Michael what do you say do you tell yourself you know I went a bit over the top there
1:40.5	or I ought to be a bit more diplomatic next time or do you just say what
1:44.4	the hell? No I do the quiet of evening sometimes reprimand myself considerably
1:49.2	and say you've got to stop that behavior winner. You know, Bernard Shaw said it's better for a parent to be a horrible warning than a good example.
1:57.0	And my mother, who I adored, who sued me for 10 years because she was an inventor of veteran gambler. I occasionally say you're
	...

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