Michael Caine He retired from acting. The 91-year-old British actor, who has a career spanning more than 150 films, decided to end his career as a performer. The last escape, which has just been released in Argentina, thus became his last work in front of the cameras. In the film he plays a World War II veteran, who escapes from a nursing home to attend the 70th anniversary celebration of D-Day in France.
“I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I’m doing it now,” she told the BBC. “The only roles I can aspire to now are 90-year-old men. Or maybe 85. Now there are no 90-year-old main characters, they are young and cute boys and girls. So I thought: I better go.”
He also commented that, in fact, he had initially rejected the role of his latest feature film, in which he shared the cast with actress Glenda Jackson, who died a few months before the premiere.
When it premiered Youth (2015), was very clear: “The only alternative to playing old people is playing dead people. So I chose older people. “It’s a better idea.”
“The only alternative to playing old people is to play dead people. So I chose older people. It’s a better idea,” she said. Photos Clarín Archive.
He could have acted much earlier with Glenda Jackson, but he declined to participate in passionate women (1969), which earned the actress her first Oscar. The reason? They asked him to appear naked. “I wouldn’t show up naked alone, much less fighting another naked man. Repulsive! Nothing to do with art or pornography, it’s a purely emotional issue. You can appear naked in front of a camera or you can’t. And I can not. Naked women are very beautiful. Naked men are ridiculous, and ridicule is the actor’s archenemy,” she maintained. The roles went to Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.
Then they did work together, in A romantic Englishwoman (1975), by Joseph Losey.
With respect to The last escape, Caine knows what it’s like to be in a war. He spent one year of his National Service in Germany and one year in Korea (1951-53) as a rifle private in the Royal Fusiliers.
Along with Glenda Jackson in “The Last Escape.” He did not act with her in “Passionate Women” because he had to appear naked.
The youngest will remember him as Alfred, Bruce Wayne’s butler in the trilogy that Christopher Nolan made with Christian Bale as Batman. As of 2022, Caine is the actor with the most appearances in Christopher Nolan films: eight. Are Batman starts (2005), The big trick (2006), Batman: The Dark Knight (2008), The origin (2010), Batman: The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Interstellar (2014), an uncredited voice role in Dunkirk (2017) and Tenet (2020).
Caine, a romantic
Considered one of the great icons of British cinema. Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, born March 14, 1933, in London, has been married to his second wife for 50 years. Romantic, he first saw Shakira Baksh in a 1971 Maxwell House coffee commercial, directed by a then-unknown Ridley Scott. Caine became obsessed with her and called her “the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.” He desperately tried to meet her, even planning a trip to Brazil. A friend of his said she lived in London and gave him her phone number. Caine and Baksh were married at the Algiers Hotel in Las Vegas in 1973.
He did not make much money in the cinema, going from earning 4,000 pounds sterling for his performance in Zuluback in 1964, at a million and a half dollars for the mess that was Jaws 4: Revenge.
Another scene from “The Last Escape”, as a World War II veteran escapes from his asylum.
“I participated in so many movies that are on television at two in the morning that people think I’m dead,” he said ironically. And about the secret of his success he has said: “First of all, I choose the great roles, and if none appear, I choose the mediocre ones, and if they don’t appear, I choose the ones that pay the rent… I have made many films. In fact, I’ve made a lot of horrible movies. You get paid the same for a bad movie as for a good one.”
“My mother told me to be like a duck. Stay calm on the surface and splash like hell underneath. But the most useful advice I’ve ever received about how to act came from my friend John Wayne. ‘He speaks low, slowly and don’t say too much.’”
“I believe in God? Yes I believe. “When you have had a life like mine, you have to believe.”
With his wife Shakira, upon arriving at the Karlovy Vary Festival in 2021. He became obsessed with her when he saw her in an advertisement for an unknown Ridley Scott.
Regarding his friendships, in addition to Wayne and Sean Connery, he said: “I shared a flat with Terence Stamp. I was Peter O’Toole’s understudy. I remember being in Liverpool and going to see a matinee with a young actor no one had heard of called Albert Finney. I met a writer who wanted to write musicals called Lionel Bart, a painter called Francis Bacon…”
He legally changed his name to Michael Caine in 2016. He said in an interview that he had had too many problems at airports traveling with a passport that did not match the name he was recognized by. He had previously asked to be called Michael Scott, but his agent forced him to change it because there was another performer with the same name. The conversation took place in a telephone booth. Caine looked around. Next to it there were some large cinemas where they advertised the film The Caine Mutiny (1954). She liked the name and stuck with it.
For more than forty years, Caine’s mother, Ellen Maria Burchell, periodically visited a “cousin” in a mental hospital. When she died in 1989, Caine learned that the cousin was actually his older brother, David.
In “Dressed to Kill”, by Brian De Palma.
Now that he is no longer dedicated to acting, he did not sit idly by. He writes books and owns seven restaurants: six in London and one in Miami.
He once said that he knew he had made it as an actor when he started receiving scripts that no longer had coffee stains on them (meaning he was the first choice for the role).
He has been nominated for an Oscar at least once in five consecutive decades (1960-2000). Educating Rita (1983) is his favorite film and the performance of which he is most proud.
At a resort in the Alps. Caine and Harvey Keitel in “Youth”, by Paolo Sorrentino.
His favorite actor of all time, his inspiration to become an actor and his hero is Humphrey Bogart. During the 1960s, by his own estimate, he drank two bottles of vodka and smoked at least eighty cigarettes a day. He gave up smoking cigarettes after a stern sermon from Tony Curtis at a party in 1971, and finally gave up smoking cigars shortly before his 70th birthday in 2003.
He was not present at the Oscar ceremony when he won the award for best supporting actor for Hannah and her sisters (1986), because I was filming Jaws 4: Revenge (1987), for which he was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor at the following year’s Razzie Awards.
Four of his most memorable films –alfie (1966), Italian style workeither The Italian Job (1969), Carter, relentless killer (1971) and Deadly game (1972) – have had their remakes.
Caine voiced Finn McMissile in “Cars 2.”
He was considered for the lead role in Tootsie (1982), which went to Dustin Hoffman. Also, to be Grandpa Joe in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), played by David Kelly. Before, for Casanova (1976), which went to Donald Sutherland. And he turned down the role of Captain Edward J. Smith in Titanic (1997), which went to Bernard Hill.
And he said no to Alfred Hitchcock, who wanted him for the police thriller Frenzy (1972). He thought the character (a serial killer) was disgusting and said, “I don’t want to be associated with the role.” In his memoir he tells how Hitchcock completely ignored him when they met in a hotel a few years later.
Of the six performers who have won an Oscar for their performances in films directed by Woody Allen, he is the only man. The others are Diane Keaton, Dianne Wiest (twice), Mira Sorvino, Penelope Cruz and Cate Blanchett.
In “Hannah and Her Sisters”, with Mia Farrow, the film for which he won his first Oscar. She said that she would not work with Woody Allen again.
When he took the tests for Zulu (1964), Cy Endfield told him it was the worst test he had ever seen. But since they couldn’t find a suitable actor, he got the role.
Caine has been very open about his political opinions. He left the UK in 1979 for tax reasons and did not return until 1987, when Margaret Thatcher had reduced the top rate of income tax.
He revealed in his autobiography that he also read for Doctor Yuri Zhivago in Doctor Zhivago (1965) and participated in test shoots with Julie Christie, but (after seeing the results with David Lean) it was he who suggested Omar Sharif.
Along with Julie Walters in “Educating Rita”, his favorite movie.
And he stated that the worst films he made were The magician (1968), The swarm (1978) and Ashanti (1979).
A Chelsea FC supporter and cricket fanatic, he did not learn to drive until he was over 50 years old. Caine said that when he was unknown he couldn’t afford to pay for driving lessons, and then the film studios always provided him with a car with a driver. When he appeared driving in the movies, he did so in a trailer.
Caine walks away with two Oscars for best supporting actor for Hannah and her sisters (Woody Allen, 1987) and The rules of life (Lasse Hallstrom, 1999). In total he was nominated to win the statuette on four other occasions.
With the Order of Honor given to him by Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace. “I’ve been in so many movies that are on TV at two in the morning that people think I’m dead.”
He had already ruled out working with Allen again after acknowledging that the accusations from Allen’s adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow, left him “flabbergasted.”
“I am a patron of the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) and have very strong views on pedophilia. I couldn’t accept the accusation, because I loved Woody and I had a great time with him. I don’t regret having worked with him, which I did with complete innocence; “But I wouldn’t do it again.”
In 2010, Caine already confessed to Daily Telegraph his hostility towards pedophiles, even talking about the death penalty: “I am quite radical towards pedophilia. If you want to hang them, I’m your man. “I’m going to pull the lever.”
With his second Oscar, for “The Rules of Life.” She didn’t get the first one (for “Hannah and Her Sisters”) because she was filming “Jaws 4″…
Caine was such a flexible performer to work on Dressed to killby Brian De Palma, and also in a great mess like The island, almost at the same time. In order not to miss it, you have to go see it at the cinema. Come on, it’s a long weekend.
