Michael Winner

Michael Winner.

It was sad to sad to see that Michael Winner has died; for those who didn't know who he was he was a British film director. A flamboyant character who sent himself up and usually rubbed people up the wrong way - particularly if he felt they were somehow beneath him.

      Once he was offered the OBE (Order of the British Empire) and turned it down; Danny Boyle turned down a knighthood because he didn't want to be Sir Danny and so did Albert Finney, many times, but it seems the that the OBE wasn't good enough for Mister Winner. He said the lavatory cleaners at King's Cross Station are offered the OBE so didn't want to be put in the same class. I have to say I'm grateful for the lavatory cleaners at King's Cross and all the other stations and at times when the pipes are blocked and the place smells of the soft and smelly the last person I want to see coming through that door to help is a film director.

But a lot of people really loved him. He lived with a few women over the years but didn't get married till about two years ago and the wife he left behind described him as a wonderful man.

I never met him let alone work with him but I remember hearing a story that he was being awkward on a film set one day and Oliver Reed threw himself into the river in full medieval costume which caused everybody a problem.

Lately he was known for sending himself up in some TV commercials for an insurance company and he was a food critic for one of the Sunday Newspapers.

He said he didn't know anything about food but he knew how to eat it. The editor of the newspaper gave him the job as he was fed up paying food critics who were in the pockets of the 'celebratory chefs' and Winner just spoke the truth and his columns were, apparently, very controversial.

Restaurants in the west end would put notices in the window saying things like 'Winner Free' and the newspaper would receive many letters of complaint; which were published.

When asked why the letters were published the editor said that Michael Winner insisted upon it.

I didn't have a lot of time for him or his films but I saw him recently being interviewed on television in a one to one interview – rather like a psychiatrist – and the psychiatrist asked him at one point if he cried at his parents' funerals and he said no. He said that there was only one funeral he ever cried at and that was Oliver Reed's.

He said Oliver Reed was buried in Ireland and there was nobody from the film business there apart from himself. He said he looked at the coffin holding Reed and thought of the wonderful times they had had together and when he was saying this you could see the glint of a tear in his eye; I kind of warmed to him after that.