RIP

Death Wish Director and English Food Critic Michael Winner Has Died

Michael Winner in 2004.
Michael Winner in 2004. Photo: Phil Guest/Wikimedia

English filmmaker Michael Winner, who directed Charles Bronson in The Mechanic and Death Wish, has died at the age of 77 of liver disease, the Guardian reports. Winner took over for Sidney Lumet to direct 1974’s Death Wish, which featured Charles Bronson as a bereaved man who becomes a vigilante on the streets of New York after his family is attacked. (The movie marked the film debuts of Denzel Washington and Jeff Goldblum as thugs in separate gangs.) Winner began writing flashy and witty restaurant reviews for the Sunday Times after retiring from the movie business, and he also wrote the foreword to the 2006 edition of Arrigo Cipriani’s Harry’s Bar Cookbook. [Guardian UK]

Death Wish Director and English Food Critic Michael Winner Has Died