Michael Winner was a motion picture director and writer. With an Honours Degree in Law and Economics from Cambridge University, he spent over 50 years making films in Hollywood and England. He started in 1957 and went on to make many acclaimed pictures including the legendary Death Wish series. He directed actors such as Marlon Brando, Anthony Hopkins, Faye Dunaway, Sophia Loren, Charles Bronson, Robert Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner and many more. His films have been shown as invited entries at the Cannes Film Festival, the San Francisco Film Festival, the Venice Film Festival and many others. He’s famous for a number of sayings one of which is “A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say”.
Michael Winner also performed a one man show which started in 1966 at the National Film Theatre and had since been adapted. In February 2011 he was given a three day tribute by the Los Angeles Cinematheque in Hollywood. John Patterson in the Guardian who saw one of his talks there said, “Michael Winner shows us how a real raconteur grabs his audience. He has us in the palm of his hand”.
Michael wrote 11 books including many restaurant review books often with other stories added. His autobiography Winner Takes All was a best seller. Lloyd Evans in the Spectator wrote, “This book is a gem . . .one of the books of the year.” He has also written a diet book, The Fat Pig Diet, showing how he lost 35lbs and kept it off. He wrote a weekly column in the Sunday Times called Winner’s Dinners about his life in restaurants and other places which ran for 16 years. He is also well known for a number of appearances on television including being the lead performer in Michael Winner’s Dining Stars for ITV. In 2006 he turned down the OBE which was twice offered to him.