Michael Winner

By James Knight
Portrait By Ben Rayner
Photos Courtesy of Michael Winner Play it Cool, West 11, The Jokers I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname Lawman The Big Sleep The Mechanic The Sentinel Death Wish Vice Vice: Jimmy Page lives next door, I hear. How did you end up becoming neighbours?
Michael Winner: Death Wish 2 Winner and a friend at a debutantes’ ball in the late 1950s. 

Directing Robert Mitchum and Joan Collins in The Big Sleep, 1978.

As well as Jimmy you’ve had more than a few A-list wining and dining buddies. Any favourites?
From the nudism in Some Like it Cool to the raunchy sex in Dirty Weekend and the sado-masochistic elements of Nightcomers, your early work shocked and surprised its way through the 60s. Did you purposefully intend to push the British film censor’s buttons?
Nightcomers Dirty Weekend As well as starring Orson Welles, didn’t I’ll Never Forget What’s’isname also feature the first recorded use of the word “fuck” on film?
How did you make the transition from doing those Swinging London-type pictures to making movies in Hollywood?
Lawman Backstage with Nat King Cole in 1954. Directing Marlon Brando in The Nightcomers, 1972.) Did you ever meet Wayne?
Lawman In 1972 you made three major motion pictures in a year. Now it takes Tarantino about a decade to do one.
Nightcomers Chatto’s Land Have you worked much with modern technology?
Stone Killer You did a run of movies throughout the 70s with Charles Bronson. How did you two first meet?
Chatto’s Land With Charles Bronson on the set of Death Wish 3, 1985. With Bronson during the filming of Death Wish, 1974. Wowsers, I wouldn’t want Charles Bronson coming after me. How did Death Wish come together?
Death Wish Stone Killer Death Wish Death Wish By comparison to the Daily Mail-style whining suffered by your early British films, Death Wish faced something like full-blown outrage.
Death Wish Death Wish Death Wish Being held up by Sophia Loren while filming Firepower in 1979. With James Coburn and some ex-American football player on the Firepower set, 1979. There’s big talk of a remake of the original Death Wish. Who would you like to see picking up Charlie’s Magnum?
Out of all of your movies I reckon your remake of The Big Sleep was the most underrated. Who did that soundtrack?
The Wild Bunch Having worked with some of the biggest names in modern Hollywood history, is there anyone you didn’t get the chance to work with who you feel you missed out on?
King Kong, James Bond, The French Connection The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie You’ve directed everything from horror to crime to Westerns and romances. Is there anything you’d say holds that body of work together?
Death Wish The Jokers Having left a pretty big mark yourself, why did you decline your OBE in 2006?