Michael Winner

Robert Michael Winner (30 October 1935 – 21 January 2013) was a British filmmaker, writer, and media personality. He is known for directing numerous action, thriller, and black comedy films in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, including several collaborations with actors Oliver Reed and Charles Bronson. Winner's best-known works include Death Wish (1974) and its first two sequels, the World War II comedy Hannibal Brooks (1969), the hitman thriller The Mechanic (1972), the supernatural horror film The Sentinel (1977), the neo-noir The Big Sleep (1978), the satirical comedy Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), and the Revisionist Westerns Lawman (1971) and Chato's Land (1972). Winner was known as a media personality in the United Kingdom, appearing regularly on television talk programmes and publishing a restaurant review column for The Sunday Times. He was also a founder of the Police Memorial Trust. Early life and education Winner was born at 40 Belsize Grove, Belsize Park, Hampstead, London, England, the only child of Jewish parents George Joseph Winner (1910–1975), of Russian-Jewish origin, and Helen (née Zlota; 1906-1984), of Polish-Jewish parentage. George Winner was a businessman and company director responsible for running a branch of the Winner's clothing chain founded by his father, who became a naturalised British citizen in 1910. Following his father's death, Winner's mother gambled recklessly and sold art and furniture worth around £10m at the time, bequeathed to her not only for her life but to Michael thereafter. She died at the age of 78, in 1984.