Michael Winner

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

Mike Castaway this week is a film director and restaurant critic. If that sounds an unusual combination, it's because this is an unusual man. On the outside, flamboyant and self promoting, he claims to be actually rather shy, and his friends attest to this.

Presenter0:45

Brought up in a beautiful house in West London, in which he still lives, by a mother who gambled and a property developing father, he went to Cambridge and then into the film industry. His first film was called This Is Belgium, and was made entirely in East Grinstead.

Presenter0:59

He graduated to successful British films such as The Jokers and I'll Never Forget What's His Name, and then went to Hollywood, where he enjoyed a hugely successful career as the man behind the Death Wish trilogy, with Charles Bronson, as well as nearly thirty other movies.

Presenter1:15

More recently he's become a restaurant critic with the Sunday Times, translating into print the energy and, it has to be said, the occasional mayhem that he once enjoyed putting on the screen.

Presenter1:25

The only person I have to answer to for my behaviour, my attitude and my activities, he says, is myself. He is Michael Winner. And when you answer to yourself, Michael, what do you say? Do you tell yourself, you know, I went a bit over the top there, or I ought to be a bit more diplomatic next time? Or do you just say, what the hell?

Michael Winner1:45

No, I do in the quiet of evening sometimes reprimand myself considerably and say you've got to stop that behaviour, winner. You know Bernard Shaw said it's better for a parent to be a horrible warning than a good example. And my mother who I adored, who t sued me for ten years'cause she was an inveterate gambler, I occasionally say you're getting a bit too like your mother. She was a tantrum thrower, was she? Yeah, and how, but you know, she was a killer.

Presenter2:05

She was a tantrum.

Michael Winner2:09

So sometimes when I get a bit over the top, but it's always in fun, you know. I mean, Bert Lancaster tried to kill me three times. He held me over a cliff and tried to throw me over and throttle me. He was my friendly. Oh, yes, yes. But oh, well, Bert in a temper was something to be terrified of. But he was my dearest friend. You know, who cares if he tries to kill you one minute?

Presenter2:29

But you got it from your mother, this this this business of the tantrums. I mean, she was apparently a woman of very caustic wit, hm?

Michael Winner2:35

Oh, my mother could reduce people to jelly with the venom and and with the power from within. She's the only person I've ever been afraid of. Uh she was wonderful though, wonderful, but sadly was a congenital gambler, lost eight million pounds in the seventies at the Cannes Casino, and to pay for it sold all the furniture of the buildings that were left to me. Well all of them she uh some of them she didn't get her hands on.

Presenter2:58

Then how did you f

Michael Winner2:58

How did your father put up with all of this? I mean, she was pretty horrid to him, was she? She was pretty horrid to my father, yes. She was always criticising him. He never criticised her. The answer is he died at sixty-five. That's how he put up with her.

Presenter3:11

So which one of them?

Michael Winner3:13

Ha ha ha.

Presenter3:13

Yeah. Top.

Presenter3:14

Uh

Michael Winner3:14

Yeah.

Presenter3:14

Which one of them are you more like, would you say?

Michael Winner3:17

Well, you know, I think I'm a mixture of both and I'm me,'cause you you gather something as you go along from your own life experiences, which are immensely different to theirs. You know, my mother was born in Poland, saw terrible persecution of the Jews. So

Michael Winner3:31

Well, I think all those three things go into your persona, don't they? Your mother, your father and and what life experience you have, a lot of which is independent of them.

Presenter3:38

Mm.

Presenter3:40

But what about this business of your being shy underneath it all? I mean, can this be true?

Michael Winner3:45

I'm immensely shy.

Michael Winner3:47

I was very shy as a child. And I think most film directors are shy. I think that's why they go to the cinema. They don't have a problem with the cinema. They can relate to people on the screen. There's no come back from them. You know, I I I'm I'm still very shy.

Presenter4:01

But despite the shyness, you've always been driven. I mean, have you been driven to be a success, or driven to make money, or both, or driven by some other great ambition?

Michael Winner4:10

I was never driven to make money'cause I always had enough money, uh vaguely. Uh I was driven to wallow in the film industry, to enjoy every part of it. Okay, let's begin the wallow. Tell me about your First record. Well, my first record, I was nine when in 1944 I saw Henry V, Olivier's Henry V, a fantastic film. It was just magical, and I saw it about thirty times. And my father said, Why do you keep seeing this film? I said, Well, I love the battle scene. He said, Well, that's only three minutes. I said, Yes, but I can't miss the battle scene. There's the most incredible music on the battle scene by William Wilson of these French soldiers charging against the British position. They'd been put onto their horse by cranes because their armour was so heavy. It's the most wonderful battle scene.

Presenter5:25

William Walton's music for the battle scene in Olivier's nineteen forty four film of Henry the Fifth. So there's a sense, really, Michael, in which um schooling interrupted, interfered with your cinema going, isn't there? You were always going to be a film director, never any doubt.

Michael Winner5:39

Never does at all. I remember even when I was five or six, I used to uh h have a boy hold a torch, I did shadow play on the wall and told the story, and then I had a uh a light bulb behind pictures I'd drawn with uh with sweet paper, different colours, like a little film show you see. And I remember it was a f it was a co-educational school, and I was sitting on the toilet.

Michael Winner5:59

and there was a girl sitting in the same room on a potty.

Michael Winner6:03

And I said to her, How did you like my film? She hated it. It's my first critic. She's on a potty. I said, Well, why did you hate it? Well, she said, I don't like films, she said, They frighten me.

Michael Winner6:13

Ha ha ha ha.

Presenter6:14

But it seems even at that school, I mean that that was a little boarding school, was it? It was a big boarding school. Big boarding school. You were living in some style, really, because you paid somebody to clean your room at that school.

Michael Winner6:19

Quake the board

Michael Winner6:25

Well, they had the children do a lot of the menial work on the grounds that it made them better human beings. Of course, it it wasn't that, it saved them paying staff. And there was a boy in the class above who was very scholarly, very senior, and I paid him to clean my room. And the headmaster took him and said, This is uh the power of the purse, this is against all the principles of the school, you see. So this fellow Fraser came to me and he ti I said, Well, what do you want, John? You want to stop you wanna want the money? So I'll take the money and he still works for me, he's still working for me now, seventy two, he's still working for me. What does he do?

Presenter6:52

Still to discuss.

Presenter6:54

What does he do?

Michael Winner6:55

Cool.

Presenter6:55

He's like an assistant, he's wonderful. But you pay him legitimately now.

Michael Winner6:59

Well money legitimately then with coinage of the realm.

Presenter7:01

Hey, who's going?

Presenter7:03

Oh.

Michael Winner7:03

Yeah, but where did you get it is the point? I stole I took it from the boys' pockets during the uh games time. I would go around stealing their money. And then I had great guilt about this later on in life. And I wrote to them and I phoned them and I said, I must pay you back. It shows how dumb the school was that when I put this in all the papers and said, Any boy in this school from X year to Y year, write in, I'll give you money. The only person who wrote it was some of Germany wasn't at the school at all.

Michael Winner7:30

So I was very dishonest as a kid.

Michael Winner7:33

Record number two. Well, my next choice is another film that was immensely influential to me in my youth, The Third Man, the most brilliantly directed film, Carol Reed. And the music was a Zither player. Very, very brave. I don't think it's ever been done in the history of cinema. They had a solo instrumentalist playing the music throughout the entire film. I later did a film called Hannibal Brooks. We got a Zither player. Unfortunately, Anton Karras, who did The Third Man, was dead. We had a lovely woman called Frau Titschu came to England and spent her entire time in cake shops. But she was a good Zither player. So this is incredible music, The Third Man. So lively, so evocative of Vienna just after the war.

Presenter8:38

The Harry Lyme theme from The Third Man, written and played by Anton Karas. So you're in love with movies and the movie stars. It gave you an escape. You said you were shy or you were lonely even. You've said

Michael Winner8:49

No, of course I was lonely I was only a child. I was lonely. I didn't relate to the sort of Bernard Shaw Socialist School. I didn't relate dare I say it to the rather flashy Jewish people in London. I was very lonely.

Presenter9:00

So you got into the cinema and then you saw a whole new world that you wanted to be part of.

Michael Winner9:04

And then I went and collected autographs and then I flint fled my way to have a newspaper column, aged fourteen. How did you do that? Well, there was a very famous publisher called Paul Hamlington. He was working for a company producing film books.

Presenter9:04

And then I went to club.

Michael Winner9:16

And so I started phoning the studios and saying I'm writing a book called Film Making from the Children's Angle for Paul Hamnin. After a while Paul Hamlin rang the house and said, Michael, I hear you're telling everyone you're writing a book for me. Give it a rest, will you?

Michael Winner9:31

And my dad said, You've just met John Howard Davis, who was Oliver Twist in David Lean's Oliver Twist, lives up the road. Take an article about him.

Speaker 39:35

Uh

Michael Winner9:39

To the local paper. Oh, was that the Kensington Post? The Kensington Post group, it was. So I.

Speaker 19:42

Play drew.

Michael Winner9:44

gave them this uh article, it became a column. They never paid me, but I got everywhere free. I went to the London Palladium every two weeks, had major Hollywood stars, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Presenter9:55

What did you interview them?

Michael Winner9:56

Well, I interviewed everybody, but the only ones I couldn't get to interview was my favourite was Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis,'cause the British press murdered them. They were so upset the next day they wouldn't see me and uh Dean Martin, I used to take uh still film stills of his suits into my tailor and say, You know, I wanna be Dean Martin, give me this suit, please

Speaker 110:03

Mud

Michael Winner10:17

Got some D body

Presenter10:17

Uh

Michael Winner10:18

Jackets, I'm too fat. For all the black

Presenter10:19

And you went up to Cambridge, as you said, and you but you went on writing the column when you were up at Cambridge'cause you enjoyed it so much and obviously it gave you an entree to the stars and so on. But you went up early. You went at seventeen, didn't you, for a very specific reason. You were kind of draft dodging when you

Michael Winner10:34

Well, I suddenly got this card through the letterbox, having done the medical in Shepherd's Bush, saying report to Catterick Camp. I thought, this really is not for me. So I phoned the bursa at Cambridge. I said, could I come up early? He said, well, the gentleman from Africa has just cancelled. Good, I said, I'd like a room overlooking the main courtyard. He said, not a hotel, Mr. Widder. He said, you go where you're put.

Michael Winner10:56

So I got to Cambridge early. Now, the funny thing was that three years later, I'm due for another medical, having passed A1 in Shepherd's Bush.

Michael Winner11:04

So I was very naughty. I went to the phone directory for London and I looked up psychiatrists, there weren't that many, and I counted the degrees they had.

Michael Winner11:12

And the one with the most degrees I went to see. I said, you know I said, I think I'm homosexual. But he said, You've done it no, I haven't done anything, but you know, it preys heavily on my mind. Well, he was getting three guineas a time, this fellow, you see, with a lot of money in nineteen fifty three. He sees me about four times, and he opens the diary.

Michael Winner11:29

He says, I'll book you in. I said, Well, you can't do that. He said, Why not? I said, Well, I've got to go in the army. He says, You don't want to go in the army, do you?

Michael Winner11:37

Oh, but no, I don't really. He said, wait there, he said. He goes to the room. I hear the typewriter going. He gives me a letter. He says, show them that. So now I'm holding this letter. And I go to the Cambridge Medical and at the end, there's an old colonel type sitting at a desk. And I said, excuse me. So I handed in this letter. I can see now his look of utter contempt, his look of utter fury. Out! I know it's awfully naughty. I'm ashamed, really. But, you know, I did. But you got what you wanted. Well, I wasn't going to do the army any good, was I? They were wasting money. I went no. I mean, what it says about.

Presenter12:04

You got what you want?

Presenter12:08

I mean what it says about you but what it says about you is that you know you're very you've always been very single minded and sort of even a bit ruthless really to get what you want. I mean whether it's the stealing at school or the lying about

Michael Winner12:19

Yeah.

Michael Winner12:22

But they stopped Met National Service very shortly thereafter. But you know, I think you have to be inventive.

Presenter12:24

Yeah.

Presenter12:27

Record number three.

Michael Winner12:28

Now record number three.

Michael Winner12:30

Is indeed Dean Martin.

Michael Winner12:33

And he was so smooth, and he has this song.

Michael Winner12:36

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie That's a moray. How can anyone sing that and come out Cool? Dean Martin can.

Speaker 312:47

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that's for more

Speaker 312:56

When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine, that's some old end

Speaker 313:05

Bells'll ring, tingle, linger, ling, tingle, linger, ling, and you'll sing the

Presenter13:12

Abella

Presenter13:14

Dean Martin and that's a moire from just after you've gone up to Cambridge, Michael Winner. Where suited you better than school, as you've said, but you didn't do a lot of work, but you got a degree. How did you manage that?

Michael Winner13:25

Well, I was editor of the university newspaper. It's where Michael Frayne first was published. Jonathan Miller, Freddie Raphael who got an Academy Award for Darling, Leslie Brickers. I had a lot of writers working for me there, but I didn't do much academic work. After the first year, I said to my tutor, I don't wish to attend any more academic functions at all. All the lectures were done by people who had written long books. And then other people did a presea of the books.

Michael Winner13:53

called crammers, and I would go into the exam half an hour late, and I would look at a crammer on a certain section of law sitting on the chair alone outside.

Michael Winner14:02

In the Senate House, Cambridge. I'd rush in.

Michael Winner14:05

And before I looked at the paper I'd write down on the blank paper what I'd just read about this area of law.

Michael Winner14:12

Then I did the exam, and then I always left half an hour early because I thought if I start thinking this over and re-reading it.

Michael Winner14:20

It's so feeble, and it's so only just there, I'll panic and start so I I was an hour shorter in the exam than anybody else.

Michael Winner14:29

But it did the trick. You've got it. I got an honours degree. You know, it means very little. But I got an honours degree in law and economics from Cambridge University. And it's never meant anything in the film industry, presumably. I think it means something,'cause there are all such oaths in the film industry, you know, that they they think, oh, he's a bit posh or he must have a brain, you know, he's got some evidence of a brain, which is not true at all, of course,'cause you know if that's how you get for an exam, you've got evidence of s

Presenter14:30

I didn't like it on the

Presenter14:36

But it's not

Michael Winner14:51

of skill, you know, like the artful Dodger, you know.

Presenter14:55

You have been a bit of an artful dodger really when you think about it.

Michael Winner14:58

When I was younger, I was the awful torture, yes, yes. Why do

Presenter15:00

Yes, yes, why not? Anyway, you dodged into making films shorts first of all, those little things that ran before the Pathy News and the main feature and so on. And um, as I mentioned earlier on, you've made This Is Belgium in East Grinsted, where

Michael Winner15:13

Well, most of it was in East Grinstead because we went to Belgium, it rained a lot. So we came back, we hadn't finished the Book of Records as being the only film about Belgium made in East Grinstead. At the end of the fifties, a distributor had a film of three totally nude girls throwing snow at each other. It was twenty minutes long.

Presenter15:18

It rains in East Greenstein cried a lot of

Michael Winner15:31

There was no nudity allowed on the screen. Sensor was a very distinguished man called John Trevelyan, he passed this film.

Michael Winner15:37

In my view, that was the moment the swinging sixties came into being, because suddenly there were three nude girls throwing stir at each other a cinema in Oxford Street, and every rubbish director like me was phoned up to make a nudist film, quick. They had to be nude, these people. So did you do it? Oh, I made a nudist film called Some Like It Cool. It was a

Presenter15:55

Yeah.

Michael Winner15:56

Yeah.

Presenter15:56

Uh

Michael Winner15:56

Yeah.

Presenter15:56

Take b

Michael Winner15:56

Uh

Presenter15:56

But you couldn't make it full fr

Michael Winner15:58

I mean, it had to be foot. Later they allowed them to wear pants. So the answer is that when they got anywhere near the camera.

Presenter15:58

What no

Michael Winner16:05

They picked up a deck chair or a copy of The Times. And the film made zillions. So when that, plus the French new wave having young directors so I was A young, B had just had a film making zillions with nudists playing volleyball.

Presenter16:21

So you were low.

Michael Winner16:21

So you alone you alone. I got into Pinewood to make a film called Play It Call with Billy Fury, bless him.

Presenter16:27

I want to hear about that. Oh, he's in this next record. This is it.

Michael Winner16:30

I got Billy Fury, Helen Shapiro and Bobby V in a film called Play It Cool 1962.

Michael Winner16:37

That was my entry into proper film making.

Michael Winner16:41

at Pinewood Studios. But he was a lovely boy, Billy Fury. Wonderful singer, I think. Died very young.

Michael Winner16:49

and he had a gang with him who were his band, who were actors quite famous. Ray Brooks was one of them, quite famous actors. And I remember the first day I went in the canteen at lunch, and Billy feels like on the edge of the table, and all the boys had taken all the space, and Billy was trying to eat his meal off the corner of the table. And I said, Excuse me, fellows, I said.

Michael Winner17:07

You know, you are only here'cause of mister William Fury. That's why you're employed. That's why I'm employed. So I suggest you give him space to have his lunch and behave properly.

Michael Winner17:18

And the hit film was called Once Upon a Dream. He sang it in an airport lounge. I don't know why.

Speaker 317:25

Once, once upon a dream, I met her long ago But somehow I can't forget her I met her

Speaker 317:40

Once upon a dream

Speaker 317:46

We built a castle

Presenter17:48

Billy Fury and Once Upon the Dream from Play It Cool, Michael Winner's first major film at Pinewood, made to chime with those other sixties films with Dick Lester and The Beatles and

Michael Winner17:58

Yeah, Dick Lester shared Helen Shapiro with me and it's Trad Dad and before that was Cliff Richard, then the Beatles, yes.

Presenter18:03

The Beatles, yes. But the one that really did the trick for you was called The System, a film called The System. What was that about?

Michael Winner18:10

Well, it was the first film I produced and directed myself. It was about boys on the beach at Torquay making the most of the summer. And it came out in England. You mean it was about sex? Yeah, it was about sex. But, you know, nicely.

Presenter18:19

You mean it was about

Michael Winner18:24

according to what you think. And it came out in England to moderate reviews and moderate success. And I was then trying to get a film going called The Jokers. And I was sitting in my office one Saturday, destitute. I'd been out of work for a year.

Michael Winner18:39

And I opened a letter from a famous writer called John Gardner, and he said, Congratulations on your reviews in Time and Newsweek.

Michael Winner18:47

I thought this man is mad. I'm sitting here unemployed. I've nothing out in America. I've nothing out in England.

Michael Winner18:55

Unbelievable reviews for the system. I mean Michael Winner is a genius. Where's he been? And nobody told me. I was the hottest director in America. I didn't know. I took the ad to the head of Universal Stu Studios in England.

Michael Winner19:08

I put it through his letter box on Saturday evening.

Michael Winner19:12

On Monday morning he rang my partner. He said, If Michael Winner will sign a six picture deal with Universal, you can make the picture immediately. I had gone from unemployable bum

Michael Winner19:22

To in demand by the biggest studio in the world in Hollywood.

Presenter19:24

Uh

Michael Winner19:25

And a six-year-old.

Presenter19:25

Just deal with movie websites.

Michael Winner19:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter19:27

Six pillars.

Michael Winner19:28

And that was uh Oliver Reid, Michael Crawford was a big hit as well.

Presenter19:31

Yeah.

Michael Winner19:32

Something very good for kids.

Presenter19:32

Very good freaking.

Michael Winner19:34

It is I mean all of these it's just called Hutsbury. It's funny, it's a bit of fun, you want to have a bit of fun with none of it's serious, you know, it's only the movie business, for heaven's sake.

Michael Winner19:44

Number five. The next record, I made a film, The Jokers was about my own experiences.

Michael Winner19:51

I'll never forget Watts's name was said quite a bit in Cambridge. Wonderful story, not written by me, about a a young man who smashes his desk up with an axe'cause he wants to go back to the simple life. And Orson Welles was the owner of this advertising agency.

Michael Winner20:07

Oh, Oliver, you can't do this. You know, you must come back and do this commercial for me. So, uh,

Michael Winner20:12

It was a very good film. Again, got rave reviews. Did not make as much money as the joke, so it doesn't matter.

Michael Winner20:18

So we got my then next door, my now next door neighbour, as my neighbour then, Don Black.

Michael Winner20:23

Academy Award winning lyricist to do a lyric. And Tom Jones recorded it. Well, of course, this was going to be the number one hit of the nation. We have a saying in the movie business, every film is a great success until it's released. Same with record. But it it only appeared on a Tom Jones long playing record as they called it then. But it's a great melody.

Speaker 320:41

Woondess soon we'll wander Where we've never walked before

Speaker 320:53

Say it to me.

Speaker 320:58

You will wait for me.

Speaker 321:03

Well the winters

Presenter21:09

Tom Jones and One Day Soon from Michael Winner's film I'll Never Forget what's his name? He went on to make I have thirty-two Hollywood movies all up.

Michael Winner21:17

Hollywood movies all up? About thirty movies and many more with Oliver Reid. That was uh that melody went as he was g going into punt and of course he fell off the punt, you see. So if you look at the film you notice that the the clothing shrunk. So the latter part the sleeves halfway up his arm that he'd fallen in the river cam.

Presenter21:37

But would you say there's anything is there any kind of recurring theme in your movies? Is there anything that unites them or are they just

Presenter21:45

Good solid entertainment.

Michael Winner21:45

No, no, that's solid entertainment. There is a recurring theme, and the theme is somebody who is a loner.

Michael Winner21:52

who makes a grand gesture.

Michael Winner21:55

The grand gesture was Olive Reed chopping his desk up, going back to the quiet life, Oliver Reed and Michael Croft stealing the Crown jewels, Charles Bronson going out and shooting mothers alone at night,

Presenter22:05

Becoming a vigilante.

Michael Winner22:06

becoming a vigilante. Nearly every film was about somebody saying, I'm going to do something special because I'm not satisfied.

Michael Winner22:16

with the ethos of the society in which I live.

Presenter22:19

Was this post hoc rationalization, or did you think that at the time?

Michael Winner22:24

It's partly post-rationalization, but you know, one had a choice of scripts on the whole, and those were the scripts I leaned toward. So I think it must have had some.

Michael Winner22:34

A choice at the time as well.

Presenter22:36

Oh well, I see that as a theme, but you you've n you've always resisted making films with a message, and you don't you don't like all of that, do you?

Michael Winner22:44

Well, I think films are to entertain. People want an hour and a half or two hours of light entertainment in a dark room at the end of a heavy day. They want to be entertained, and in providing them with entertainment, Hollywood has again and again provided the most marvelous movies. I mean, I admire Ken Loach, who's a film like Kess, one of the great films of all time. I admire people who do social issues. But I wanted to be part of the mainstream glamour cinema I saw as a child.

Presenter23:11

And the other great theme, of course, in your films i is sex. I mean there's often rape and and sexual violence, you know. Why are you laughing? It's true.

Michael Winner23:20

Yeah.

Presenter23:21

I don't

Michael Winner23:22

I mean, it is true. I mean, in some of the films there is indeed rape. Hannibal Brooks, Oliver, escapes over the Alps with an elephant. There's he he doesn't have any sex with the elephant.

Presenter23:25

Oh, there's a lot of it to that. I mean, you've got.

Presenter23:33

Oh, right. But there is a lot. I mean, in Deathwish, there certainly is. I mean, one immediately thinks of the violent rape in Deathwish 2 of the housekeeper. But, of course, you know what the theory is. The theory is that you've had it rough from women, beginning with your mother, most of your life, and so you sort of get your own back in films.

Michael Winner23:33

There is a

Michael Winner23:48

Can you film this?

Michael Winner23:50

That's

Presenter23:50

Yeah.

Michael Winner23:50

It's quite a good theory.

Presenter23:51

It's quite a good theory then.

Michael Winner23:54

I love my mother. I did have it rough from Mumsy, bless her. But

Michael Winner23:59

I had the most wonderful life with women. I can't complain about the other women in my life. They have been people say to me, You have no family. Isn't this sad? You're nearly seventy years old. You have no family. I have a family of all the wonderful girlfriends who I was with over the years. They're a family of choice. So those women, you know,

Michael Winner24:19

were counteracted by mother, as it were. But of course then they say, Well, you never married any of us'cause of your mother. That's why you we we got fed up with waiting for you to marry us and we left.

Michael Winner24:30

Next piece of music. Now this is com something completely new. My current uh wonderful girlfriend, I hope the last, used to be a singer, and she bought this C D.

Michael Winner24:40

by a completely unknown person.

Michael Winner24:43

And she started broad played it very loudly in the bedroom area of the house. Fantastic. And the man became the greatest sensation of two thousand and five. James Blunt. I tried to get him for my birthday party actually, but he's touring America.

Michael Winner24:58

And of course it was an enormous hit in this country, and he came from nowhere.

Speaker 325:02

My life is brilliant.

Speaker 325:05

My love is pure.

Speaker 325:08

I saw an angel.

Speaker 325:11

Of that I'm sure, she smiled at me on the subway.

Speaker 325:16

She was with another man.

Speaker 325:19

But I won't lose on sleep all night, cause I've got a plan.

Speaker 325:25

You're beautiful

Speaker 325:28

You're beautiful.

Presenter25:30

James Blunt and your beautiful let's talk about your house, Michael,'cause it sounds fantastic. It's a Norman Shaw house in Holland Park, built for a Victorian artist. How many rooms has it got?

Michael Winner25:42

Well, it's probably about forty-six rooms, got swimming pools, jacuzzis. It's kind of it's got everything blessed.

Presenter25:47

How many bathrooms?

Michael Winner25:48

It's got uh seven bathrooms and nine toilets.

Michael Winner25:52

Well, it's it's a very famous house built for a Victorian artist called Sir Luke Files, who uh th these artists lived in Melbury Road, the road where the house is. They were very successful, they were like the pop stars of their day, they were not starving, these people.

Michael Winner26:05

And I'm leaving it to the nation as a museum.

Presenter26:08

Hiya.

Michael Winner26:08

A museum of what? Well well, I think first of all any house frozen in time will be interesting fifty years later.

Presenter26:09

Amusement.

Michael Winner26:15

It will have my life attached to it. It will have everything frozen there, my private cinema, all the movie stills, everything, the Luke Files Association. And rather like Leighton House round the corner or Lindley Sanborn House, another house in Kensington that is frozen in time and open to the public, it will be just giving something back.

Michael Winner26:35

to the people of this country and the area in which I lived.

Presenter26:38

But it'll be very much

Presenter26:39

your house that was, won't it? I mean it's it's'cause it I mean it sounds like a kind of shrine to Michael Winner.

Michael Winner26:45

Well, no,'cause it uh it it it has an interesting collection of art. Not a great collection. I have a great collection of children's arts. I have the originals from Winnie the Pooh, original illustrations of children's books. You've got lots of teddy bears.

Presenter26:56

You've got lots of teddy bears and stuffed animals too.

Michael Winner26:57

Oh, hundreds of teddy bears everywhere. Teddy bears stuffed toys. I'm extremely stupid.

Michael Winner27:03

But uh look it'll be fun for people to visit.

Presenter27:06

But it's a beauty it's obviously very important to you. It's a very unusual thing, really, to live at the age of seventy, nearly now. Yeah. Am I allowed to

Michael Winner27:17

We have to say that because I can't I wish I could lie about it, I can't. It's been on record since I was about twenty. People could count one year at a time, sadly.

Presenter27:18

I just can't.

Presenter27:20

I'm sorry.

Presenter27:25

But to live at age 70 in the house that you've lived in all of your life, you've never left.

Michael Winner27:30

Well most of them came in there was about twelve we came there after the war, just after the war.

Presenter27:32

Yeah.

Presenter27:34

But I mean it's a it's a a nice sense of continuity is really what I'm asking about.

Michael Winner27:39

Well Scorpio Scorpio. You see, Scorpios like like everything to be in order and they like everything to be more or less the same.

Presenter27:39

You see I was copying.

Michael Winner27:45

Now you don't really believe in Scorpios and Capricorns I believe in, because they they have definite characteristics.

Presenter27:46

Don't really believe it.

Michael Winner27:54

I won't ask what you are, Sue,'cause you're you know, you're a very important person.

Michael Winner27:59

Come on, record number seven. Well, now I've always liked Oddities, as we say. And the Jacksons were an incredible group, and Michael was incredible.

Michael Winner28:09

And in this case, this is such a jolly record. Jackson is so jolly. If you hear this music.

Michael Winner28:16

Forget what he may or may not have done personally. It has been cleared by a court in a civilized country. He's a wonderful performer. Let us remember that as well. I'm not excusing him if he did anything wrong.

Speaker 328:27

Always dancing, and wouldn't be a bad thing. But I don't get no love in the world.

Speaker 328:34

No lie, we spent the night in Frisco At every kind of disco From that night I kissed our little goodbye

Speaker 328:43

Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight

Speaker 328:50

Come on the break

Speaker 328:52

Don't blame it on the sunshine, don't blame it on the moonlight

Presenter28:55

Jackson's and Blame It on the Boogie. Okay, tell me about Michael Winner on a desert island. Set the scene.

Michael Winner29:02

Disaster. Can't think of anybody less suitable to be on a desert island. I mean, I like my comforts. I like to ring a bell and someone brings up breakfast. But you'd have to kind of do your best, wouldn't you? And hope something turned up with some food and a cup of tea. But nobody

Presenter29:15

Boom.

Presenter29:16

Nobody would. Of course. And nobody nobody to see you being outrageous or whatever. Um would that matter?

Michael Winner29:22

But I'd have this music would remind me of the life I used to lead.

Michael Winner29:27

It's a wonderful fantasy of the desert island, isn't it? We all of us think.

Michael Winner29:31

I think often when I look around the world today with all the problems in the streets and the terrorism and the unruliness, I think should I go to Switzerland and just sit by a lake and look at the lake and look at the mountains? That would be my desert island.

Michael Winner29:48

Should I retreat from it all? And I kind of stay in the thick of it. I don't know why.

Presenter29:54

Last record.

Michael Winner29:55

Now, you know, the last record is that when I was at school, of course, I went to as many movies as I could, but the other source of drama and entertainment was with the radio. And we used to s stay up under our bedclothes at night and we'd hear Donald Pearce singing by a Babblick Brook or whatever he sang. We'd listen to Dick Barton, Special Agent. But one of the great series that I was brought up on at night at school was Bogest. The BBC did Beaugest.

Michael Winner30:23

And it had a wonderful piece of music that crept in, and it was the eighteen twelve overture they used. And I I can see myself there now as this music comes in.

Presenter31:20

Part of Tchaikovsky's eighteen twelve overture played by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Herbert von Karrion. Now, Michael, if you could only take one of those eight records, which one would you take?

Michael Winner31:30

I think I'd take the Henry the Fifth uh music.

Presenter31:33

The Bolton.

Michael Winner31:34

Wellton's got stirring. I may need cheering up, you know. I may need a a get up and go sign.

Presenter31:40

And what about your book?

Michael Winner31:42

I'm dreadful on books. I never read books. I haven't read a book for years. I'd probably go back to Catcher in the Rye.

Presenter31:49

Salinger.

Michael Winner31:49

Sales's Catcher of the Rise, the only book that really impressed me.

Presenter31:53

He was quite an artful Dodger actually.

Michael Winner31:54

As it probably was.

Presenter31:55

BOLD

Presenter31:56

And a luxury.

Michael Winner31:58

Well, can I take a a lot of staff and a chef and

Presenter32:01

No, no, no, no.

Michael Winner32:02

Yeah.

Presenter32:02

No, you can't take any people, can't you?

Michael Winner32:03

I can't take peep, I can't take cigars'cause I gave them up.

Michael Winner32:07

Uh I'd take a big supply of caviar.

Michael Winner32:10

At least you're a caviar's fish, a bit of nourishment, it's quite good. Yeah, I take an enormous supply of caviar and a knife to open it with.

Presenter32:18

Michael Winner, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Michael Winner32:21

Slight

Presenter32:21

Q.

Michael Winner32:22

Yeah.

Speaker 132:30

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.