Celebrity Biographies
Michael Caine
He has taken part in more than a hundred films. He is a specialist in losing roles. Two of them have given him the Oscar. In truth, before us we have the “loser winner”.
The first time Michael Caine set foot in the US, he met John Wayne at his hotel . He would never forget the veteran actor’s advice to a newcomer to Hollywood: “Speak quietly, enunciate slowly and don’t say too much.”
Michael Caine (born Maurice Micklewhite, London, 1933) is a professional, so in love with his job as an interpreter, that in 1997 he even published a book for young aspirants to succeed on the screen: “Acting for the cinema”. But all the way to the top, including the Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules , Caine worked hard. Nobody gives anything away, and because he didn’t have it, the budding actor didn’t even have higher education. Of course, he read a lot, and had various occupations (laundryman, road worker, hotel porter, dishwasher…). And what he never lacked was a determined will to achieve his goal of being an actor, at the cost of a thousand sacrifices.
In 1956, Caine had his first screen appearance, but he didn’t even have a presence in the credits. For six years he was labeled the “cockney” actor, ideal for small roles of low-class characters. He tries to make an image for himself, though: he goes to parties wearing glasses and smoking a cigar, and ends up being known as “that cigar-smoking, glasses-wearing, easy-to-work-with-working-class actor.” He until he managed to change the stereotype with Zulu (1964). He was scheduled to audition for “the usual role,” but since there was no one to audition for the role of a dastardly aristocratic officer, Caine got his chance. And he took advantage of it: he made the character his own.
From here, the offers multiply. Caine has a certain air of a loser and a depraved type, which makes him perfect for embodying confused and ambiguous men or cold-blooded assassins. Hence his success in Ipcress (1965), Alfie (1965) and Funeral in Berlin (1966). The actor, who was a soldier in Korea, plays military roles, as well as in Zulu , in The Battle of Britain (1969), Commando in the China Sea (1970), The Last Valley (1971), The Eagle Has Arrived ( 1976) and A Bridge Too Far (1977). And of course, in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), with John Hustonand Sean Connery . In the film, her wife Shakira acted, required ‘in extremis’ by Huston due to her Indian origin.
Caine’s versatility is amazing, and he has acted with legendary directors such as Joseph L. Mankiewicz ( The Footprint , 1972, opposite Laurence Olivier ), Joseph Losey ( A Romantic Englishwoman , 1975), Stanley Donen ( Trouble in the River , 1984) or Woody Allen ( Hannah and her sisters , 1986). Each job is taken with a professionalism that escapes the most attentive scholar. For Raising Rita ( Lewis Gilbert , 1983) he took Emil Jannigs in The Blue Angel as a reference., “the sad figure who gets nowhere with the girl.” Her last big roles have been in Little Voice (1998), The Rules… (1999), Shiner (2000), Last Orders (2001) and The Impassive American (2002). Although he doesn’t fall for ‘fooling around’ with light characters, like Austin Powers’ father.
It does not stop filming, but Caine is very clear: “My family is the most important thing. I have a wonderful wife and two daughters. We are a very close family, and it is what sustains me outside of work. You must have something that lights you up outside of work, because if your only light is work, then you will end up going crazy.