Film director and restaurant critic Michael Winner has died, his wife Geraldine said today. He was 77.
Mr Winner, who made more than 30 films including the blockbuster Death Wish series, had been ill for some time and died today at his home in Kensington, London, where he was being nursed by his wife.
Paying tribute to her husband Mrs Winner, a former dancer who he married two years ago, said in a statement: “Michael was a wonderful man, brilliant, funny and generous.
“A light has gone out in my life.”
In a film career which spanned more than 50 years, he worked with some of the biggest stars in Hollywood, including Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum and Faye Dunaway.
He later reinvented himself as a restaurant critic, writing about food in his typically flamboyant style in his Winner’s Dinners column for the Sunday Times.
Winner, whose appearance in adverts for motor insurance coined the catchphrase “Calm down dear, it’s only a commercial”, also founded and funded the Police Memorial Trust following the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher outside the Libyan embassy in London in 1984.
More than 50 officers have been honoured by the trust at sites across the country.
