Terminally ill Michael Winner says he is considering suicide at Swiss clinic

 
Terminally ill: Michael Winner
Tom Harper4 October 2012

Michael Winner has revealed he may choose to kill himself at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland.

The film director, who said in the summer that liver specialists have told him he has 18 months to live, admitted he has researched services at the assisted-dying institution, where more than 150 Britons have travelled to end their lives.

The 76-year-old bon vivant disclosed his research into assisted suicide in a press interview — apparently before telling his wife.

“I checked Dignitas on the computer and you need to go through so much,” he said. “It’s not a walk-in death. You don’t just go in and say ‘Here I am, do your worst’.

“You have to go through a whole series of papers and re-examinations just to die. You have to fill in forms and things and you have to fly there, go back twice.”

He said his wife Geraldine, who he married last year after first meeting her 55 years ago, “would be shocked to know I’m even talking about it”.

The veteran director, whose films include Death Wish, has struggled with ill-health since eating a bad oyster on holiday in Barbados in 2007. He was almost killed by the bacteria Vibrio vulnificus.

Today, he claimed he was not frightened of death and believes he should be able to end his own life.

“I think the idea that people should be able to have an assisted suicide is absolutely, highly proper,” he told The Times. “Why should people elongate life when it’s no good for them? People should have the right to terminate their own life. If you’re dead, you’re dead, so who cares? I’m very happy to snuff it. I’ve had enough time on earth. I’d be happy if someone gave me the plug to pull.”

Winner — once voted the 38th most annoying person in Britain — also indulged in some of his legendary name-dropping. He said: “(Marlon) Brando was my best friend, (Robert) Mitchum, Burt Lancaster, even though he tried to kill me three times... I’ve had an incredible life.

“I can look back and say I have lived a life that very few people alive have lived. I have done 40 major movies with the biggest stars in the world.”

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