Micheal Winner & Dame Helen Mirren Recall Their One & Only Meeting in 1964
Michael Winner and Dame Helen Mirren, 62, have differing memories, or should we say, mammaries, of a 1964 event. Helen claims that Winner, the then film director, now restaurant critic, had her turn around and show off her physique, which made her ‘mortified and angry’. She is still angry. She thought it insulting and sexist and doesn’t think that any actress should be treated like a ‘piece of meat’. She felt it incredibly insulting.
However, Winner’s remembrances are of a request made to him by Dame Helen’s agent, Margaret Johnston, who was concerned about Helen’s refusal to wear a bra in public and that it might lose her work. Michael is quoted as saying, “I saw Helen and as I had been instructed to deal with the situation of her breasts, I did indeed ask her to stand up. I don’t remember asking her to turn around but if I did I wasn’t being serious,” he went on to say, “I can see it now. She was wearing a peasant blouse and a skirt in the photographs with enormous bosoms that were sagging a bit even though she was young. I was only doing what the agent asked me, and for this I get reviled. Helen’s a lovely person, she’s a great actress and I’m a huge fan, but her memory of that moment is a little flawed.”
