Early Life
The Winters brothers were born in Islington, London to Jewish parents. Mike described the area as one of the toughest in London. "Thieving and violent robbery were commonplace, shootings not infrequent, and the police patrolled always in pairs."
When Bernie was three the Weinstein family moved to a house in Tottenham, across the road from George Marks, who later became Harrison Marks the glamour photographer. Mike recalled that it was with George that he mounted his first 'promotion'. "We would dress up in whatever clothes we had managed to scrounge from our parents and put on shows in our garden." Bernie's friend was Danny Sewell, younger brother of George who went on to star in such shows as Special Branch and UFO. Danny was the local heavy and used to look after Bernie. "If anybody said anything nasty to me, he (Danny) hit them."
Mike attended the City of Oxford High School for Boys and later to the Royal Academy of Music. Bernie moved along the apprenticeship route, getting a job at the Regency Club in London's Soho where he played the ukulele and performed as a stand-up comedian.
Read more about this topic: Mike & Bernie Winters
Famous quotes related to early life:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)