Thank heavens Charles Bronson never found out I slept with his wife: Michael Winner's outrageous life in his own words

By Michael Winner

Published: 20:45 EDT, 25 January 2013 | Updated: 20:46 EDT, 25 January 2013

One day in Barbados, I was walking along the beach with John Cleese. It was a near-perfect day: the sun was shining on the golden sands and the sea was lapping at our feet.

As we walked, John turned to me and said quite seriously: ‘You know, Michael, there must be more to life than this.’

That gave me a good laugh. It also made me ask myself: is there more to life than simply living it? Should we spend all our days searching for its true meaning?

Inimitable: Legendary Michael Winner cavorts with friends in Barbados

But I knew I already had the answer. All that’s important, I’ve learned over the years, is simply to get on with living and having fun.

I’m always suspicious of do-gooders. People say: ‘Wasn’t Mother Teresa wonderful?’ I agree — but she was saving the poor because that’s what she wanted to do. Nobody forced her to do it.

As for me, I enjoy making movies and being with girls. In fact, you could say that actresses have been my whole life — at work and during the times in between.

Despite my lifelong adoration of women, however, I can’t claim to have been an early starter in the world of sex.

When I was 14, a pretty girl at my co-educational Quaker boarding school in Letchworth, Hertfordshire, chased me into the boys’ changing room and told me: ‘If you’ll meet me tonight, I’ll do everything.’ I was so scared I muttered my excuses and fled.

My romantic initiation didn’t take place until I was 18, when I was dating Monica, the daughter of a rabbi. We went to a cinema in the Edgware Road and I put my hand on her knee.

Before I could plan where it might go next, she grabbed my hand and stuck it under her jumper, on her naked breasts. I thought: ‘My God! I’ll have to go the whole way.’

The director, seen here with Jenny Seagrove, confesses in his memoirs about how much of his life was driven by the pursuit of women

And thus a whole new world opened up to me. Soon, I discovered that although I was very shy, girls said ‘yes’ when I plucked up the courage to ask them out.

Later, when I became a famous film director, I had to put up with people writing that the only reason girls ever went out with me was because of my job.

Absolute nonsense! I had my greatest success with women when I was poncing round London as a total failure.

I have very few qualities, but the one thing all my girlfriends have said is that they enjoyed being with me because I was entertaining and fun.

The idea that girls will only go out with someone for money is deeply insulting to womanhood in general.

After my conquest of Monica, I started on my devoted quest to have as many women as possible in the shortest time possible.

To my surprise, I did remarkably well. But it was not until 1956, when I was 19, that I first experienced real love. My first sight of Jill Ireland was in May 1955, when I saw a photo of her in shorts and a striped shirt on the cover of Picturegoer, a cinema fan magazine.

Jill Ireland was an actress and former girlfriend of Michael Winner. She was was married to actors Charles Bronson and David McCallum

Michael Winner died aged 77 after a long and eventful life

She was a budding actress with Rank and quite simply the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen.

At the time, I was a student at Cambridge. But I’d been writing showbusiness features and film reviews for magazines and newspapers since the age of 14, and I was full of youthful confidence.

So I rang Jill’s agent and asked if I could see her. Incredibly, Jill agreed. We met at Lancaster Gate Tube station. Whenever I pass it now, I picture her standing there as she was that day in July. Slender, with close-cropped blonde hair, a light blue jacket, a white pleated skirt, no stockings, no make-up.

Even at 19, Jill was an exceptional character. I’ve never known anyone before or since who had so much charm, or so much fun just getting through the day. We soon became good friends. After I’d known her about a year, I moved into my first flat — a tiny place in South Kensington  above an Indian restaurant, with peeling linoleum and kitsch  Fifties decor.

It was there, on one memorable evening, that I tried to seduce her. I succeeded in getting all her clothes off, but that was as far as Jill was prepared to go.

I had a major tantrum and stormed out of the flat — though by then Jill was crying: ‘I’ll do it! I’ll do it! Please come back!’

There followed a scene I’ll never forget. As I got into my open-topped Sunbeam Alpine sports tourer, I looked up to see Jill standing stark-naked at the  first-floor window.

Suddenly she leaned forward, picked up a flowerpot from my balcony and hurled it down at me. Then another and another.

Each one exploded with an almighty bang, showering bits of broken clay and earth everywhere. Within seconds, the road was like a scene from a war movie. I accelerated away as fast as I could.

But we weren’t finished with each other yet. The following night, we finally became lovers.

To my eternal regret, I then started taking her for granted — just like all men who are chauvinistic and piggish. It wasn’t until she left me a few months later that I realised just how much I loved her.

For some reason I never quite understood, Jill was desperate to become a wife.

‘The minute I’m 21, I’m going to be married,’ she’d told me. ‘I’d like to marry you, Michael.’

The director said his greatest success with women was when he 'was poncing round London as a total failure'

‘I’m far too young to marry,’ I replied. ‘I have no money. I have no prospects. I can’t take that on right now.’ In that case, she told me, she’d marry someone else. Ridiculous, I thought: she didn’t know any other suitable candidates.

That year, Jill threw a big 21st birthday party, to which she invited all her film friends. You may find this unbelievable, but I was too shy to go. Instead, I went on holiday with my parents to France.

When I got back, I went straight round to Jill’s. In her large living room, a man stood silhouetted at one of the windows.

It was David McCallum, a young actor who’d later find fame in the TV series The Man From U.N.C.L.E. That night, I realised that the girl I loved was slipping away from me.

Two weeks later, I got up early and bought the Sunday papers. That’s how I learned that Jill had married McCallum at a register office in South London. I leaned against the door of my flat, weeping.

A short time later, the telephone rang. It was Jill. ‘Have you seen the newspapers?’ she asked. ‘What do you think?’

‘It’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘You wanted to marry me three weeks ago.’

‘I know it is,’ said Jill. ‘I don’t love him. I still love you. But I told you I was going to get married, and I have.’

Within weeks, she was bombarding me with phone calls, begging me to meet her. I agreed only once.  We lay on Hampstead Heath together, and I fondled her bosoms one last time. Some months later, I was filling up my car with petrol in West London when a man got out of the car behind me and came over.

It was McCallum, and I thought he was going to hit me.

‘Michael,’ he said. ‘I want to thank you. I know how many times Jill telephoned you. Thank you for not seeing her.’ Then he got back into his car and drove off.

I didn’t speak to Jill again for 14 years. By then she was with her second husband, Charles Bronson.

I met him for the first time in 1970, when I tried to get him for a part in the western movie Chato’s Land. Our meeting went well, and he agreed to do the film.

Shooting began a few months later in Spain, and it wasn’t long before Jill, Charlie and I got into the habit of dining together every night at our hotel.

One night, as Charles had a shower and I stood with Jill on the balcony of their suite, she whispered: ‘I’ve told Charlie we were friends. I didn’t tell him about the rest of it. Whatever you do, don’t tell him.’ ‘Jill,’ I said, ‘my lips are sealed. This is the safest secret in the world.’

By then I knew that Charles was a man capable of taking violent dislike to people.

If he knew that I’d made love to his wife, he’d probably have killed her. He’d definitely have killed me.

I’m relieved to say that he never did know the full truth about Jill and me. Meanwhile, she remained for me the most outstanding woman I knew.

In 1990, when I heard that she’d died of breast cancer at 54, I was utterly stunned. I just sat there, not knowing what to do: the most beautiful person who ever lit up my life had gone.

If only I’d been a few years older when we first went out together, I would certainly have married Jill Ireland. A lot of girls followed, of course. Many of them I loved and respected, but I didn’t get married until very recently. Perhaps I deluded myself for most of my life that Jill was the only wife for me.

My most publicised affair was with the actress Jenny Seagrove, whom I met in 1987 on the Israeli set of my movie Appointment With Death. One of the first things that struck me about her was how painfully thin she was.

After filming had finished one night, I phoned her in her hotel room and told her she absolutely had to put on some weight. ‘How?’ she asked nervously.

‘It’s very easy,’ I said. ‘You ring room service and order six vanilla ice creams and a chocolate cake.’

Jenny always seemed very nervous and uptight and troubled, but there was definitely something about her. Two days later, I took her out for dinner.

I put my hand on Jenny’s arm and looked into her eyes. Back then, when I was with a girl, I invariably did my seduction act.

‘Darling,’ I said, ‘if we don’t make love tonight, it will be too late.’

As I said it, I could see she was going to accept. And I was thinking: ‘What on earth am I going to do with my current girlfriend, who’s coming out to Israel to see me on Wednesday?’

In fact, Jenny moved into my hotel that night and stayed in my life for six-and-a-half years.

We loved each other very much. But I behaved quite badly during the relationship. A couple of nights after we’d first made love, for instance, I said to Jenny as a dare: ‘I’d like you to go stark naked into the hotel corridor and I’ll let you back in very quickly.’

Jenny said: ‘Promise you’ll let me back in?’ ‘Of course,’ I said.

She was a game girl, Jenny, not at all the frosty, cold person she sometimes appears, and did it straight away.

I think she was seen by only three people waiting for the lift.

I wasn’t faithful to Jenny: she knew this yet she stayed with me. Funnily enough, it was only when I stopped all the playing around that she left me.

There’s a moral there somewhere, but I can’t be bothered to work it out. What I can tell you, though, is that I was devastated when she walked out on me in 1994 — and, sadly, she won’t talk to me to this day.

Both before and after Jenny, I had affairs with many other famous actresses. I was invariably unfaithful to them, too.

Many relationships broke up because of this failing, and I realise now it was very hurtful and selfish of me. Perhaps I was deliberately unfaithful because I was afraid  of commitment.

My girlfriends have been an immense source of pleasure — for their company, their problems, their wit, their tantrums, their fury at my indiscretions or downright philandering. All these are treasured moments.

To me, my ex-girlfriends are my family. Some I still see; many I speak to regularly. They’re friends: the passion has long passed.

Some days, as many as six or seven of them — some very old — phone up for advice or just for a chat. Some, of course, I help. I’m a Scorpio: we never forget those who were good to us.

Geraldine Lynton-Edwards, for instance.

I met Geraldine when I was casting my very first film, a 20-minute short called The Square. She’d turned up a day late to audition for a part, but I’d agreed to see her anyway. In walked the most beautiful 18-year-old girl. I gave her a part in the film and we were soon having an affair.

After it ended, we stayed friendly and enjoyed an encore from time to time over the years, during which Geraldine was enjoying success as an actress and dancer in films and the West End.

A few years ago, we met up yet again and this time she came to live with me.

I’m convinced she added years to my life by forcing me to do Pilates for 45 minutes every morning and to walk for an hour every night. Then, for some reason, the relationship stopped working after three years.

I returned to another ex-girlfriend, Paola Lombard, who’d once worked as my receptionist. But eventually Geraldine and I rediscovered each other again.

Among her many virtues, I’m happy to say, she has a good sense of humour. And when I became very ill after contracting a disease from some oysters I ate in Barbados, she looked after me tenderly.

Finally, at the age of 75, I married the wonderful Geraldine —  and I’ve been faithful and  happy ever since.

When I look back, my private life has been extraordinary, really. If only I’d had the sense to stay faithful to my girlfriends, I could have had a long marriage and children. As it is, though, I’ve had a happy life by another route.

n Adapted from Winner Takes  All: A Life Of Sorts by Michael Winner, published by Anova Books @ £8.99. © 2005 the Estate of Michael Winner. To order a copy for £7.49 (incl p&p), call 0844 472 4157. Also available as an e-book.