Lorraine Kelly is getting candid about her celebrity guests, naming the “prickly” famous star who stormed off her show.
The TV presenter has hosted her self-titled ITV morning show since 2010 – but it was earlier on in her broadcasting career that she had what she described as her most difficult interview experience.
Kelly was due to interview film director Michael Winner during Good Morning Britain’s original run in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which she hosted with Mike Morris, but their chat didn’t go ahead as he got angry with the presenting pair before his segment.
“A million years ago, if people can remember, he was a movie director – prickly to say the least,” Kelly said on Countdown star Susie Dent’s Experience is Everything podcast, with Dent branding him “notoriously difficult”.
“He was sitting there talking about some movie he was doing – and he’d just had a triple heart bypass. I happened to say, you know, during the break, ‘Gosh, how are you doing? Are you alright? Have you recovered? Are you still having to take medication?’”
But Winner took exception to these inquiries and, removing his microphone, left the studio.
“I thought, ‘Oh, that’s a shame he didn’t do it on air because that would have been quite funny!’” Kelly said.
Winner, who was also a food critic, directed more than 30 films, including the Death Wish franchise (1974-85) starring Charles Bronson.
His other credits included 1982 Bronson films The Mechanic and Chato's Land, as well as Scorpio (1973), with Burt Lancaster.
He died in 2013, aged 77, having been given 18 months to live due to heart and liver problems.
His wife Geraldine said at the time: “Michael was a wonderful man, brilliant, funny and generous. A light has gone out in my life."
Geraldine met Winner when she auditioned for his debut film in 1957, aged just 16. She was later cast in his short film The Square.
Winner, who also worked as an actor, became well known in later life for appearing in the Esure car insurance advertisements with the catchphrase "Calm down, dear – it’s a commercial."
He had a prolific career as a food writer and journalist with his pieces continuing to appear in the Daily Mail up until his illness. His restaurant columns appeared weekly in The Sunday Times for 15 years.
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