On a live television broadcast in 1962 (on BBCTV's
That Was the Week That Was (1962)), he punched the drama critic Bernard Levin because the latter had given a bad review to his wife, Agnes Bernelle. Levin refused to press charges against him, and the producer of the show, Ned Sherrin, claimed, years later, that he had subsequently seen the two men having a convivial drink together.