Biographie

Winner claimed during his lifetime to be worth £75 million, with £25m in offshore bank accounts and his home worth an additional £50m. But on his death his bank accounts were frozen, and a formal investigation of his affairs began. During this, it emerged that Winner had been supporting two former lovers, both of whom had been provided with living expenses and accommodation. The financial assistance extended also to his long-term personal assistant, the former Miss Great Britain Dinah May. After investigations, it was revealed that Winner's total estate was actually worth £16.8m, with total outstanding debts of £12m. In his will, Winner had left his wife a lump sum of £5m, but the residual estate was only worth £4.75m. His former wife, P.A. and lovers engaged probate lawyers to contest the will and their sums due from it. However, it then emerged that none of the newspapers that reported the aforementioned information about Michael's beneficiaries were correct and that they included only probate information from UK assets when Michael Winner was on record as stating that he had substantial assets in Guernsey. When Guernsey probate was later added, Michael had left a total of £50m and this was more than enough to provide for all his beneficiaries in full while leaving a substantial balance to the Police Memorial Trust.

Tended to get his films done on time and under budget.

He persuaded Oliver Reed to audition for a part in Gladiateur (2000), which turned out to be his final film.

He was offered the opportunity to direct Les plus belles années de miss Brodie (1969), La filière française (1971), Les dents de la mer (1975), King Kong (1976) and a James Bond film, all of which he turned down.

In Dec. 2006, while vacationing at Barbados, he suffered a near-fatal illness from the extremely rare vibrio vulnificus virus, caught when he ate an oyster. After spending 5 days at the local hospital, his friend Philip Green chartered an ambulance plane to fly the director to London. He spent 3 months in the hospital where he ultimately went through 19 operations to save his leg. The virus destroyed his Achilles tendon and he had to walk with a walking stick.

I don't want to live in a tolerant society. I want to live in a very intolerant society.

Women like to be treasured for themselves. They don't get taken in by men with money. In fact, I did far better when I was an assistant director.

My sympathy is totally with the little old lady who gets bashed over the head with an iron bar, not with the youngster who did it and gets sent to the South of France for six weeks to turn into a lovely human being.

On late actor-comedian Terry-Thomas: "For years, in the English film business, if you wanted a Terry-Thomas-type comedian, you were lucky if you got Terry-Thomas himself.".

A team effort is a lot of people doing what I say.