Film director Michael Winner, latterly a restaurant critic and always a bon vivant, died on Monday January 21st at the age of 77.
His wife Geraldine said he died at his London home after an illness, Winner suffered poor health in recent years including a near-fatal bacterial infection from oysters, MRSA and liver disease.
Winner's 30 movies included three lucrative Death Wish films starring Charles Bronson as a vigilante using maximum violence, a trait of many Winner films. He worked with Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum and Faye Dunaway and was a renowned self-publicist and never took criticism of his films too seriously.
"If you want art, don't mess about with movies," he memorably said "buy a Picasso."
Born in London in 1935, Winner was writing a showbiz column for a local newspaper by the time he was 14, and as a student edited Varsity at Cambridge University.
Guardian Obit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2013/jan/21/michael-winner
Winner in pictures:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-21129336
