Debbie Arnold and Cindy Marshall-Day discuss ‘boob loving’ film director
Soap actresses Debbie Arnold and Cindy Marshall-Day have spoken out about the late film director Michael Winner.
Debbie and Cindy on This Morning
In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, Debbie Arnold who has appeared in Emmerdale, Hollyoaks and EastEnders was joined by EastEnders, Hardwicke House and Crossroads actress Cindy Marshall-Day. The pair opened up on ITV’s This Morning for the first time about their experiences with the two actresses accusing Winner of demanding to see their breasts.
Left: Cindy appears in Crossroads as Tracey Booth (2003), Right: Debbie features in EastEnders as April (1996)
“As a young actress he was a very, very big director. [The audition] was through my agent. It was a proper audition. It was such a shock to be talked to in that way. I was invited to his house, that wasn’t unusual. Then I was taken by someone to an office and he said, ‘Right go over by the window I need to see you by the light. Now I’d like you to take off your top, take off your bra and massage your breasts.’ I thought, ‘Sorry’! I thought it was a joke. I didn’t expect this. He said it three times. I went over to his desk and I was very rude to him. He said he would report me to my agent and to Equity.” – Debbie Arnold
Cindy (far left) with the other hostesses on ITV Central’s The Price Is Right, hosted by the late Leslie Crowther (centre)
She ran straight to the nearest phone booth to call her mother, who was also her agent at the time. Debbie – who has also appeared in Coronation Street – noted how Winner, had by the time she’d reached the phone box already called her mother and said she’d ‘done a fabulous audition’ and ‘he wanted me to come straight back’. ‘I was furious’ she continued, adding, ‘I wasn’t ashamed, I was so angry. I told this story to everyone.’
Cindy Marshall-Day, who was also a hostess on the original The Price Is Right alongside Leslie Crowther as well as hosting her own series on Sky in more recent times, said she decided to speak out about Winner after reading comments made by Debbie.
Debbie (right) in EastEnders as April.
“This is how it all came out. She [Debbie] wrote about the ‘horrible man by the window’ and I knew who it was. It was a modus operandi. He asked me to take my top off.” – Cindy Marshall-Day
Cindy said her incident occurred in the mid-1980s just before her stint as a hostess on Central Television’s game show, The Price Is Right. It’s reported she refused to expose her bosom to Winner and ended the meeting, leaving his home of her own accord. She has also noted another un-named producer harassed her at a later time. Cindy was, until her marriage, known as Cindy Day.
His widow, who was contacted by ITV Studios, said she did not wish to comment.
“This man was a bully. He bullied young girls into doing this.” – Debbie Arnold
