The Michael Caine Picture Pages
Billion Dollar Brain
Background:
"My career is going better now than when I was younger. It used to be that I'd  get the girl but not the part. Now I get the part but not the girl." Michael  Caine
One of Britainï¿½s leading action stars during the late 1960s and early 1970s,  Michael Caine first came to the spotlight with his portrayal of sly spy Harry  Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965) and its sequels: Funeral in Berlin (1966),  Billion Dollar Brain (1967), Bullet to Beijing (1995, Showtime original) and  Midnight in St. Petersburg (1996). The talented actor, whose trademarks are his  glasses (rare for 1960s leading actors) and cockney accent, was nominated for an  Academy Award for his roles in Alfie (1966), Sleuth (1972), Educating Rita  (1983) and The Quiet American (2002). He won double Best Supporting Actor  Academy Awards for his outstanding performances in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)  and The Cider House Rules (1999), and won a Golden Globe for Little Voice  (1998).
An actor since the 1950s, Caine has made more than 80 films and was awarded the  British Variety Club Award for Best Film Actor in 1987 and was listed on Empire  (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" (October 1997) as well as  the Orange 2001ï¿½s ï¿½Film Survey of Greatest British Actors.ï¿½ He also received  honor in his native country when he was awarded the CBE (Commander Of The Most  Excellent Order Of The British Empire) in 1993 and Knighthood on the Queen's  Birthday Honors List (June 17, 2000), for his contribution to the performing  arts.
As for his film projects, Caine recently played Alfred in Batman Begins and  Nigel Bigelow in Bewitched. He just completed the soon-to-be-released film The  Weather Man and is set to reprise his role of Alfred in an Untitled Batman  Begins Sequel (slated for a 2008 release).
Maurice Joseph
Childhood and Family:
ï¿½I had been out of work for so long and I was amazed people wanted me. I had a  lot of debts and a family and I went out and I made masses of pictures." Michael  Caine
Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr., who would later be famous as Michael Caine, was  born on March 14, 1933, in Rotherhithe, London, UK to a fish-porter father  (Maurice Micklewhite; died in 1957 of liver cancer) and Ellen Maria Micklewhite  (died in 1989). He has two brothers: Stanley Micklewhite (born in 1936) and  David Burchell (half-brother; born in 1925; died in March 1992 of pneumonia). He  left school at 15 and served two years with the National Service in the Army  where he was sent to active duty in Korea.
In 1955, Michael Caine married actress Patricia Haines. Their daughter Dominique  Caine was born in 1956, just two years before the couple divorced in 1958. On  January 8, 1973, Caine exchanged wedding vows with actress/jewelry  designer/model Shakira Baksh Caine (born in 1948; Miss Guyana finalist). Their  daughter Natasha was born in July of 1973.
The Ipcress File
Career:
"The cinema is my stage; I love the buzz, the adrenaline. The theatre is as  hazardous as ice-skatingï¿½ why do it if you don't have to? Both activities are  high risk and low reward. Anyway, there is more money in making films and more  enjoyment." Michael Caine
Having begun an acting apprenticeship while still in grammar school, 16-year-old  Michael Caine found himself working on the set of British film Morning  Departure, in 1949. Two years later, he joined the National Service and spent  each year in West Berlin and the Royal Fusiliers in combat in Korea. Returning  to England, Caine took night drama classes and changed his name from Maurice  Joseph Micklewhite Jr. to Michael Caine, after seeing The Caine Mutiny  Court-Martial (1954). He also got first theater job as an assistant stage  manager at Westminster Repertory Theatre and later with Lowestoft Repertory  Theater.
In the mid 1950s (1954-1956), Caine performed in such repertories as the Theatre  Workshop in Stratford East, London, Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop, Sam  Wanamaker's company in Liverpool and began appearing regularly on television. He  later landed on his early big screen appearance with small parts in 1956's  Sailor Beware (a.k.a. Panic in the Parlor), A Hill in Korea (a.k.a. Hell in  Korea), 1957's How to Murder a Rich Uncle (a.k.a. Uncle George) and The Steel  Bayonet. From the end of the 1950s to the early 1960s, Caine continued to play  roles in films like A Woman of Mystery, The Two-Headed Spy, Passport to Shame,  Blind Spot, The Key, Carve Her Name with Pride, Danger Within (a.k.a. Breakout),  The Bulldog Breed, Foxhole in Cairo, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Solo for  Sparrow and The Wrong Arm of the Law. During this time, Caine was also spotted  as a guest in TV shows and appeared in several made-for-TV movies.
Caine eventually received his breakthrough performance after director Cy  Endfield cast him to play the lead role of Lt. Gonville Bromhead, an effete and  aristocratic officer, in the star-studded adventure epic Zulu (1964, alongside  Jack Hawkins, Stanley Baker, James Booth and Ulla Jacobsson). The film is a  retell of a historic 19th-century battle in South Africa between British  soldiers and Zulu natives, narrated by Richard Burton. He followed it up with  the next yearï¿½s role of reluctant British spy Harry Palmer in Sidney J Furie's  adaptation of Len Deightonï¿½s novel, The Ipcress File. The role instantly  launched his name toward stardom and Caine later reprised his role in its  sequels: Funeral in Berlin (1966), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), Bullet to  Beijing (1995, Showtime original) and Midnight in St. Petersburg (1996).
The title role of a womanizing London lothario, in producer-director Lewis  Gilbert's film version of Bill Naughton's novel Alfie (1966, with Shelley  Winters, Julia Foster, Jane Asher and Shirley Ann Field) tossed Caine toward  international recognition. The role earned Caine his first Best Actor Academy  Award nomination and won a Golden Globe Award. That same year, Caine made his  first Hollywood film in Ronald Neame's crime comedy Gambit, playing a bumbling  but debonair English cat burglar, opposite Shirley MacLaine. In the rest of the  1960s, Caine played roles in Hurry Sundown, Play Dirty, Deadfall, The Magus and  Battle of Britain. He also portrayed the lead role of mastermind thief Charlie  Croker in the British cult favorite, Peter Collinson's The Italian Job (1969).
Caine added to his acting resume such films as Too Late the Hero, The Last  Valley, Get Carter, Pulp, and Zee and Co. He also received his second Best Actor  Academy Award nomination for his turn as a nice young British hairdresser, who  is having an affair with the neglected wife of Laurence Olivierï¿½s character, in  Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth (1972), adopted from the play by British  playwright Anthony Shaffer. In the subsequent years, Caine costarred with Sean  Connery in John Huston's Academy Award-nominated epic adventure The Man Who  Would Be King (1975, inspired by the 1889 short story by Rudyard Kipling) and  joined costars Alan Alda, Bill Cosby, Jane Fonda and Walter Matthau in Neil  Simon's bittersweet comedy, adopted from the Broadway hit, Herbert Ross-directed  California Suite (1978), playing Maggie Smith's gay husband. He then starred as  psychiatrist Doctor Robert Elliott in writer-director Brian De Palma's Dressed  to Kill (1980, alongside Angie Dickinson).
Reuniting with Alfie (1966) director Lewis Gilbert, Caine nabbed the next Best  Actor Academy Award nomination, thanks to the portrayal of Dr. Frank Bryant, an  alcoholic university professor who mentors Julie Walters' character, in the  drama comedy Educating Rita (1983). Afterward, he could be seen in The Honorary  Consul, Blame It on Rio, Water and The Holcroft Covenant. In 1986, Caine took  home a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for his turn as the cheating husband  of Mia Farrowï¿½s character in actor-writer-director Woody Allen's masterwork  Hannah and Her Sisters (also with Dianne Wiest and Barbara Hershey). In the next  year, Caine made his debut as executive producer in The Fourth Protocol (he also  acted).
"I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen  the house that it built, and it is terrific." Michael Caine (about starring in  Jaws: The Revenge).
The rest of the 1980s saw Caine in Joseph Sargent's disappointing Jaws: the  Revenge (1987, with Lorraine Gary and Lance Guest, Caine was nominated for Worst  Supporting Actor at the Razzie awards) and starred in the 1988 features Without  A Clue and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (costarred with Steve Martin as scheming con  artists). During the 1990s, Caine was no less prolific and his career began to  stagger with a series of dreary films. He turned up on the small screen,  debuting in the US in the CBSï¿½ Jack the Ripper (1988) and followed it up with  the 1993 HBO spy drama Blue Ice (also co-produced). He also appeared in the 1994  NBC miniseries World War II: When Lions Roared (as Joseph Stalin).
In 1998, Caine revived and gathered critical praise for his portrayal of the  disastrous dead-end talent scout Ray Say in Mark Herman adaptation of the  Olivier Award-winning London play, Little Voice (starring Jane Horrocks). He  then won a second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the role of  orphanage director Dr. Wilbur Larch in Lasse Hallstrom's romantic drama,  inspired by the best-selling novel by John Irving, The Cider House Rules (1999,  with Tobey Maguire and Charlize Theron).
Roles continued to roll in during the new millennium. Caine costarred in Evy  Quaid's comedy The Debtors, teamed with Jeffrey Rush and Kate Winslet in the  critically acclaimed Quills and appeared in the Sandra Bullock vehicle, Miss  Congeniality. He also starred as a dead butcher whose last orders are to cast  his ashes off the Margate Pier, in Fred Schepisi's adaptation of Graham Swift's  novel, Last Orders (2001, with Ray Winstone, Bob Hoskins and Tom Courtenay).  Director Jay Roach then gave Caine the role Nigel Powers, Austin's beloved  father and England's most renowned spy, in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002,  with Beyonce Knowles and Mike Myers).
ï¿½When I was offered the part of Nigel, I already had a feeling that Austin  Powers was based on my character Harry Palmer from The Ipcress File from ï¿½65 and  Funeral In Berlin from ï¿½66. Then Mike (Myers) wrote me a letter saying it was.  As I was a creative father of Austin Powers, I thought Iï¿½d better be the real  one." Michael Caine
Also in 2002, Caine starred as an opium-addicted British reporter who falls in  love with a young Vietnamese woman (played by Do Thi Hai Yen) in Phillip Noyce's  screen version of Graham Greene's novel, The Quiet American. His outstanding  performance earned leading role nominations at the Golden Globes, BAFTA and  Academy Awards. The following year, Caine could be seen as Pierre Brossard, a  former Nazi executioner, in Norman Jewison's adaptation of Brian Moore's novel,  the drama thriller The Statement (alongside Tilda Swinton). He then portrayed  Henry Lair, Josh Lucas' ailing grandfather and a former archaeologist close to  death, in writer-director Jordan Roberts' Around the Bend (also with Christopher  Walken, Jonah Bobo and Glenne Headly).
Recently, in 2005, director Christopher Nolan handed Caine the role of Alfred in  Batman Begins, which stars Christian Bale. He also played supporting roles in  writer-director Nora Ephron's big screen version of the '60s classic TV comedy  Bewitched (starring Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell) and Gore Verbinski's  soon-to-be-released drama comedy The Weather Man (as Nicolas Cage's father).  Caine will also reportedly reprise his role in the upcoming Batman Begins  Sequel, which is slated for 2008 release.
Off screen, Caine, who released the autobiography ï¿½What's It All Aboutï¿½ in 1992,  is an astute businessman. He owns a Film Production company, seven restaurants  (six in London, one in Miami) and co-owns the top London restaurant Langan's  Brasserie. He also reportedly opened his first Indian restaurant, Deya, in  Central London.
ï¿½I only do what I want, work-wise. Itï¿½s the fun of it. Iï¿½m too old to get up and  be with people who I donï¿½t want to be with just for the money.ï¿½ Michael Caine
Awards:
Bangkok International Film Festival: Best Actor, The Quiet American,   2003
London Critics Circle Film: Actor of the Year, The Quiet American, 2003
Golden Satellite: Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture -   Drama, The Quiet American, 2003
San Francisco Film Critics Circle: Best Actor, The Quiet American, 2002
San Sebastiï¿½n International Film Festival: Donostia Lifetime Achievement   Award, 2000
London Critics Circle Film: British Supporting Actor of the Year, Little   Voice, 2000
Empire: Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000
Screen Actors Guild: Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Theatrical Motion   Picture), The Cider House Rules, 1999
Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor, The Cider House Rules, 1999
National Board of Review Career Achievement, 1998
Golden Globe: Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy), Little   Voice, 1998
San Sebastian Film Festival: Best Actor, Blood and Wine, 1996
Golden Globe: Best Actor in a Miniseries or Made-for-Television Movie,   Jack the Ripper; tied with Stacy Keach, 1989
New York Film and Television Festival Gold: Best Special-Feature Show,   The Trouble with Michael Caine, 1989
Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor, Hannah and Her Sisters, 1986
Golden Globe: Best Actor in a Motion Picture (Musical or Comedy),   Educating Rita, 1983
BAFTA: Best Actor, Educating Rita, 1983
National Society of Film Critics: Best Actor, Alfie, 1966