An actress has accused the late director Michael Winner of asking her to remove her bra and massage her breasts during an audition.
The film icon’s widow has denied the allegations which first surfaced in a Sunday newspaper over the weekend before being repeated on Tuesday’s episode of This Morning.
Debbie Arnold has claimed she was invited to Mr Winner’s home for an audition in the 1980s, where he allegedly asked her to undress her top half.
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Debbie told This Morning stand-in hosts Ben Shephard and Amanda Holden: “As a young actress, he was a very big director and I was so excited that he wanted to see me.
“It was through my agent, a proper audition… I was invited to his house, which wasn’t unusual, as I’d already done a film with Ken Russell and met him at his house. It wasn’t unusual to go to a director’s house to meet him.”
Debbie alleged: “I was taken by somebody, I can’t remember who, to an office, and he was in there.
“He said to me, ‘I’d like you to go over by the window. I’d like to see you in the light’.
“Again, I didn’t think that was unusual. Sometimes they like to see what you look like [in the light], you know?
“Then he said, ‘Now I’d like you to take off your top, take off your bra and massage your breasts’.
“I went, ‘Sorry?’ I thought it was a joke, that it had to be a gag. Again he said it to me. So I went over to his desk and very rudely told him where to put it, really.
“I was very rude to him.”
Debbie continued: “He turned around and said he’d report me to my agent and Equity.
“I ran out of the building to phone my mum, who was my agent at the time, but he’d already rung her.”
Debbie told Ben and Amanda that Winner had claimed the whole incident was a “trick” and part of the audition, designed to test her, and he’d told her mum she’d passed with flying colours.
“My mum went, ‘Well done, darling! You did a fabulous audition! He wants you to go straight back for a recall’. I said, ‘Do you know what he did?'”
She added: “I was furious. I was so, so angry that I told this story to absolutely everyone.”
Debbie was joined during the interview by fellow actress Cindy Marshall-Day.
The women said they connected via social media after Debbie posted about the incident on Facebook.
Although Debbie did not use Winner’s name in her post, the women said it was enough for Cindy to recognise who Debbie was talking about and come forward to allege she’d had a similar experience with him.
Cindy alleged Winner asked her to take her top off, but said he didn’t request she massage her breasts as Debbie claimed happened to her. She said his behaviour was “shocking what the man did to young actresses, it was a modus operandi, he must have used it for years.”
Ben said This Morning had reached out to Winner’s widow, Geraldine, but she did not wish to comment.
She did, however, comment on the Sunday Mirror’s original story carrying the allegations against her husband, saying: “Thank you for bringing your ‘article’ to my attention.
“Obviously I feel any ‘story’ you print would be untrue.
“Therefore I have no further comment.”
Debbie is known for her soap roles including Carole Evans in Coronation Street, April Branning in EastEnders and Debbie Wilson in Emmerdale.
Cindy, meanwhile, played Tracey Booth in Crossroads.
Winner died in 2013 at the age of 77.
Both women made the allegations against Winner in the Sunday People, alongside a third actress who did not wish to be named.
They said they were speaking out now after the Harvey Weinstein scandal.
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The Hollywood movie mogul has been accused of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment against multiple actresses and female film industry workers.
He has maintained all sexual relationships were consensual.