By Chris Hastings PUBLISHED: 17:02 EST, 9 February 2013 | UPDATED: 03:02 EST, 11 February 2013 It was a victory over the censors the irrepressible Michael Winner would savour for the rest of his life. The director never tired of telling how he and 50 VIP supporters stopped the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) cutting a ‘sadistic’ scene of Faye Dunaway whipping a topless woman from his 1983 romp The Wicked Lady. But now the author Fay Weldon, one of the figures who publicly backed Winner, has revealed that he duped her and her fellow celebrities into siding with him.
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Censors wanted to cut a 'sadistic' whipping scene from The Wicked Lady
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But Michael Winner won the support of 50 VIPs who publicly backed film
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Supporter Fay Weldon claims Winner showed her doctored version of the scene to dupe her into siding with him against the BBFC
She says: ‘@placeholder sent me a video of the film prior to its release and I remember thinking it was on the verge of being exploitative but I didn’t think there was anything that should be cut.