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Tales I Never Told!

E-BookEPUBePub WasserzeichenE-Book
320 Seiten
Englisch
Biteback Publishingerschienen am31.10.2011
Michael Winner's new book Tales I Never Told! is scurrilous, affectionate and sometimes sensational! Winner's tales have a cast including Simon Cowell, Sir Michael Caine, Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Faye Dunaway and many others of great fame and even some of less fame. The tales recount things that have happened in Winner's life. This is a man who lived with the stars and lived through extraordinary experiences. The book is a dazzling mix of genuine food 'expertise' - from the man who says he knows nothing about food but is arguably the most read food columnist in the world - and acerbic wit in telling the stories with which Michael has entertained his friends for years. Winner is full of surprises, none greater than when he married his long-time girlfriend Geraldine Lynton-Edwards in September 2011. His life has been extraordinary. At age fourteen he had a show column in twenty-seven newspapers. He was at Cambridge aged seventeen and came out with an Honours Degree in law and economics at twenty. He was, for a while, the youngest movie director in the English-speaking language. His career included decades in Hollywood and the producing and/or directing of some of the most famous films of the twentieth century, including the Death Wish series. His fi lms have been shown at the Venice, San Francisco and Cannes film festivals. In early 2011, the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles mounted a three-day tribute to him showing six of his movies, with Michael giving his well-known one-man show on one evening and speaking between movies on the others. He became a food critic by accident but has nevertheless been writing in the Sunday Times for over sixteen years. He has never missed a week - even when he was in intensive care and heavily dosed with morphine. The book also includes the last year of his Sunday Times reviews to bring people up to date with what is going on in that arena.mehr

Produkt

KlappentextMichael Winner's new book Tales I Never Told! is scurrilous, affectionate and sometimes sensational! Winner's tales have a cast including Simon Cowell, Sir Michael Caine, Marlon Brando, Burt Lancaster, Faye Dunaway and many others of great fame and even some of less fame. The tales recount things that have happened in Winner's life. This is a man who lived with the stars and lived through extraordinary experiences. The book is a dazzling mix of genuine food 'expertise' - from the man who says he knows nothing about food but is arguably the most read food columnist in the world - and acerbic wit in telling the stories with which Michael has entertained his friends for years. Winner is full of surprises, none greater than when he married his long-time girlfriend Geraldine Lynton-Edwards in September 2011. His life has been extraordinary. At age fourteen he had a show column in twenty-seven newspapers. He was at Cambridge aged seventeen and came out with an Honours Degree in law and economics at twenty. He was, for a while, the youngest movie director in the English-speaking language. His career included decades in Hollywood and the producing and/or directing of some of the most famous films of the twentieth century, including the Death Wish series. His fi lms have been shown at the Venice, San Francisco and Cannes film festivals. In early 2011, the American Cinematheque in Los Angeles mounted a three-day tribute to him showing six of his movies, with Michael giving his well-known one-man show on one evening and speaking between movies on the others. He became a food critic by accident but has nevertheless been writing in the Sunday Times for over sixteen years. He has never missed a week - even when he was in intensive care and heavily dosed with morphine. The book also includes the last year of his Sunday Times reviews to bring people up to date with what is going on in that arena.
Details
Weitere ISBN/GTIN9781849542845
ProduktartE-Book
EinbandartE-Book
FormatEPUB
Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen
FormatE101
Erscheinungsjahr2011
Erscheinungsdatum31.10.2011
Seiten320 Seiten
SpracheEnglisch
Dateigrösse1909 Kbytes
Artikel-Nr.1925152
Rubriken
Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe




DINING STARS


The first TV series that bore my name was called Michael Winner s True Crimes. It appeared between 1991 and 1994 on London Weekend Television. It was a phenomenal success. Running at 10-10.30 p.m., it attracted viewing figures that ranged between twelve million and seven million. Admittedly those were different days but the figures, even in those times, were phenomenal. True Crimes told the story of how the police go out on a major investigation and end up catching the criminal. The sentence and the trial were also part of it. The series was directed by one of the most successful producers in television today, a lovely man called Jeff Pope. It was produced by Simon Shaps, who went on to become Director of Programmes for ITV. It was taken off air because my so-called friend, Michael Grade (who d do anything to get into the newspapers) gave a speech at the end of the Edinburgh Television Festival in which he suddenly turned on me and said, Michael Winner s True Crimes was just the sort of exploitative television which should not be on the air. There was nothing remotely exploitative about the show. Maybe it was because his channel, Channel 4, didn t have anything like it. In those days, the programmes were chosen by a cabal of people, meeting in a room, who decided what would go where. They were all terrified of Michael Grade. Therefore, not wishing to cross him, they ditched my programme. Considering Michael Grade and I used to lunch regularly and were supposedly friends, this seemed to me an act of treachery, which is not untypical of Michael Grade s behaviour.

It was not until early 2010 that I was given a new series called Michael Winner s Dining Stars. This came about because one of the great television executives of our day, Jimmy Mulville, approached me and said they had this show where I would go round to people s houses and comment on their cooking. A pilot programme was made by a partnership of Jimmy and another company called 12 Yard. The show was to be transmitted in the afternoon.

When the pilot was seen by Peter Fincham, Director of Television for the ITV network, things took a turn! Mr Fincham was so delighted with the pilot he decided to give it a peak time evening slot. This was to be 9-10 p.m. on Tuesdays. Four programmes were made as a kind of test run. Everyone at ITV was marvellous. In fact, they were so marvellous and so enthusiastic they probably killed the show with kindness!

I remember sitting in my cinema with Peter Fincham and ITV s Head of Factual Programming, Alison Sharman. I said, What we need on this show is a producer. At the moment, it s like those games we used to play when we were kids, where someone comes over with a tray with a number of objects on it and we kind of linked them together and made a story. To which Peter Fincham said, You ve got Jimmy Mulville who is one of the greatest producers of all time! I replied, That s quite true Peter, Jimmy is one of the greatest producers of all time. But we never see him. He never phones, he never writes. We ve got some man who produced a programme about people on a bus and while he is a very nice human being, I really don t think he s up to it. But nobody took any notice of me - we went ahead and made the programmes.

The critics were somewhat divided. The popular press wasn t crazy about it but others were. Charlie Brooker in The Guardian said: It s the sort of programme that simultaneously makes you feel glad and aghast to be alive. Winner himself plays to the cameras with more knowing skill than anyone in any of his own films has ever managed. It s all put on for the cameras of course but somehow this in itself it fascinating. In the end, I simply admitted defeat and started laughing at him and with him. The show elevates from mere schedule-filler to amusing cultural artefact. Boyd Hilton, the TV Critic of Heat magazine, said: I couldn t tear myself away from it, it was brilliant TV. It s fantastic. Michael Winner can be on every night as far as I m concerned. Matthew Norman in The Independent said: It s cracking television. A riot of more mirth and buoyancy. I could go on. But you might think I was being conceited!

Before we got to these reviews the show had to be made. Somewhere along the line, the word had filtered down from Peter Fincham that I had to be very menacing. The reason my column in the Sunday Times has run for over sixteen years and is so popular is that I take the piss out of myself. I realised very early on that menacing was not altogether sympathetic. But I went along with it. Many of the critics noticed I was playing the pantomime villain. Some did not. Perhaps the public took me more seriously than I should have been taken.

There were also some rather strange happenings. Quite early on, I made some silly comments about the north of England. I said I loved the people, I loved the scenery but that the food was dreadful and that the ladies didn t know how to dress. It was later that I learned that ITV s main audience is northern women. I ask myself now, why didn t someone say to me, You can t really say that Michael, because our audience is northern women. We were not making Hamlet. I would have been happy to redo that bit. The comments were made in my house and since they were shooting in my house nearly every week it would have been very easy to change. It s so easy to look back in retrospect at what could and should have happened. Doesn t help really!

It was a wonderful romp going round people houses; I liked them greatly. Although some of the press suggested I was a great bully, I stayed friends with all of the contestants. They were all invited to my house to dinner and I still speak to them regularly.

I d been working with, and employing, technicians in film and television for well over fifty years before the advent of Dining Stars. What happened on this programme was beyond human belief. I have never seen anything like it! We had a youngish director, Nic Guttridge, and an executive producer, Matt Walton, who thought he was God s gift to the world. They were amusing and I liked them. Very near the beginning of the series I realised the trouble I was in. I was going on a private jet (which I was paying for) to Italy. The crew would meet me there later to do some shooting at a hotel on Lake Garda. First of all, I checked the weather. The day they were due to film in Lake Garda, which was four days after they shot me getting on the plane, the forecast showed total and continuous rain. Neither the executive producer nor the director had bothered to check, which is something every professional should do if they are shooting outdoors. I said to them, Have you checked the weather forecast? They replied, No. I said, Well I suggest you come tomorrow when the forecast is good. There s only three of you coming anyway. Why wait until it s raining and misty and you can t even see the other side of the lake or much else. So they did come earlier. If they d come on the day they d chosen it would have rained nonstop. I was there and saw nonstop rain and low cloud.

What was particularly bizarre was that I came in my Rolls-Royce Phantom to the plane for the journey and I said, My fiancée Geraldine and I will get out and walk to the plane, whereupon the director replied, No, Geraldine can t walk onto the plane. We only want you. We don t want Geraldine. I said, Just a minute she s coming on holiday with me. You re going to be showing her in these luxurious places with me. How do you suggest she got there? Did she hitch hike? Did she swim and then take a train? Of course, she should walk onto the plane with me. If you want to interview me afterwards about what is going to happen that can be done without her. This blew into a major incident. Finally I said, Look I m paying for the plane, which ITV could not afford and would not wish to, and I don t blame them. If I m paying for the plane, I ve got news for you: Geraldine and I are going to walk from the car to the plane. This is what happened. Whereupon the executive producer, Matt Walton, sent me an email in which he threatened to quit unless he had total control and that did not include me saying who walks from car to the aeroplane. When we got to Lake Garda the director said, Can I see you? We went out on to the balcony of my suite and he asked, Who s running this show? I said, Well it s quite clear you are, Nic. We ve been filming all day and I ve done absolutely everything you told me to. The business with the aeroplane was just ridiculous. So shut up and let s get on with life. Then the executive producer came out and announced he wanted to have a private conversation with me. I said, No, I don t wish to talk about this. It s all over. Thus we continued.

I could list some quite extraordinary ineptitude in the organisation of the show but that doesn t help matters. It did produce for me the most extraordinary day I ve ever had in the fifty-five years I ve been in show business. Normally, the director leaves a TV series the second shooting is over. But thinking he would be helpful, I insisted that Nic Guttridge stayed on through the editing. This cost the show quite a bit of extra money. ITV was very kind and helpful and agreed to it. The editing period is normally supervised by the executive producer and the associate producer only. I was shown the intended cut of each episode and asked to make my comments. The third...


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