Cary Grant
Cary Grant in a 1941 publicity still
Born	Archibald Alexander Leach (1904-01-18)January 18, 1904 Bristol, England, United Kingdom
Died	November 29, 1986(1986-11-29) (aged 82) Davenport, Iowa, United States
Cause of death	Cerebral hemorrhage
Other names	Archie Leach
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1932–1966
Spouse	Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935) Barbara Hutton (1942–1945) Betsy Drake (1949–1962) Dyan Cannon (1965–1968) Barbara Harris (1981–1986)
Partner	Maureen Donaldson (1973–1977)[1]
Children	Jennifer Grant, born on (1966-02-26) February 26, 1966 (age 46)
Awards	Academy Honorary Award - 1970 For his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with the respect and affection of his colleagues. Kennedy Center Honors - 1981

Archibald Alexander Leach^[2] (January 18, 1904 – November 29, 1986), better known by his stage name Cary Grant, was an English-American actor.^[3] Known for his transatlantic accent, debonair demeanor and "dashing good looks", Grant is considered one of classic Hollywood's definitive leading men.

Grant was named the second Greatest Male Star of All Time by the American Film Institute. Noted particularly for his work in comedy but also for drama, Grant's best-known films include The Awful Truth (1937), Bringing Up Baby (1938), Gunga Din (1939), The Philadelphia Story (1940), His Girl Friday (1940), Arsenic and Old Lace (1944), Notorious (1946), To Catch A Thief (1955), An Affair to Remember (1957), North by Northwest (1959) and Charade (1963).

Nominated twice for the Academy Award for Best Actor, for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), and five times for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Grant was continually passed over, and in 1970 was given an Honorary Oscar at the 42nd Academy Awards. Frank Sinatra presented Grant with the award, "for his unique mastery of the art of screen acting with the respect and affection of his colleagues".^[4][5]

Early life and career[link]

Archibald Alexander Leach was born at 15 Hughenden Road, Horfield, Bristol, England, to Elsie Maria Kingdon (1877–1973) and Elias James Leach (1873–1935).^[6][7] An only child, Leach had an unhappy upbringing, attending Bishop Road Primary School. His mother had suffered from clinical depression since the death of a previous child. Her husband placed her in a mental institution, and told his nine-year-old son only that she had gone away on a "long holiday". Believing she was dead, Grant did not learn otherwise until he was 31 and discovered her alive in a care facility.^[8] When Grant was 10, his father abandoned him after remarrying and having a baby with his new young wife.^[9]

Grant was expelled from the Fairfield Grammar School in Bristol in 1918. After joining the "Bob Pender Stage Troupe", Leach performed as a stilt walker and travelled with the group to the United States in 1920 at the age of 16, on a two-year tour of the country. He was processed at Ellis Island on July 28, 1920.^[10]

When the troupe returned to the UK, he decided to stay in the U.S. and continue his stage career. During this time, he became a part of the vaudeville world and toured with Parker, Rand and Leach. Still using his birth name, he performed on the stage at The Muny in St. Louis, Missouri in such shows as Irene (1931); Music in May (1931); Nina Rosa (1931); Rio Rita (1931); Street Singer (1931); The Three Musketeers (1931); and Wonderful Night (1931). Leach's experience on stage as a stilt walker, acrobat, juggler, and mime taught him "phenomenal physical grace and exquisite comic timing" and the value of teamwork, skills which would benefit him in Hollywood.^[8]

Hollywood stardom[link]

After appearing in several musicals on Broadway under the name "Archie Leach,"^[11] Grant went to Hollywood in 1931.^[8] When told to change his name, he proposed "Cary Lockwood," the name of the character he had played in the Broadway show Nikki, based upon the recent film The Last Flight. He signed with Paramount Pictures, where studio bosses decided that the name "Cary" was acceptable, but that "Lockwood" was too similar to another actor's surname. Paramount gave their new actor a list of surnames to choose from, and he selected "Grant" because the initials C and G had already proved lucky for Clark Gable and Gary Cooper, two of Hollywood's biggest movie stars.

Grant appeared as a leading man opposite Marlene Dietrich in Blonde Venus (1932), and his stardom was given a further boost by Mae West when she chose him for her leading man in two of her most successful films, She Done Him Wrong and I'm No Angel (both 1933).^[12] I'm No Angel was a tremendous financial success and, along with She Done Him Wrong, which was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture, saved Paramount from bankruptcy. Paramount put Grant in a series of unsuccessful films until 1936, when he signed with Columbia Pictures. His first major comedy hit was when he was loaned to Hal Roach's studio for the 1937 Topper (which was distributed by MGM).

in The Philadelphia Story (1940)

The Awful Truth (1937) was a pivotal film in Grant's career, establishing for him a screen persona as a sophisticated light comedy leading man. As Grant later wrote, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point." Grant is said to have based his characterization in The Awful Truth on the mannerisms and intonations of the film's director, Leo McCarey, whom he resembled physically. As writer/director Peter Bogdanovich notes, "After The Awful Truth, when it came to light comedy, there was Cary Grant and then everyone else was an also-ran."

With Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946)

The Awful Truth began "what would be the most spectacular run ever for an actor in American pictures."^[8] During the next four years, Grant appeared in several classic romantic comedies and screwball comedies, including Holiday (1938), Bringing Up Baby (1939), and The Philadelphia Story (1940) with Katharine Hepburn; His Girl Friday(1940) with Rosalind Russell; and My Favorite Wife (1940), which reunited him with Irene Dunne, his co-star in The Awful Truth. During this time he also made the adventure films Gunga Din and Only Angels Have Wings (both 1939) and dramas Penny Serenade (1941, also with Dunne) and Suspicion (1941, the first of Grant's four collaborations with Alfred Hitchcock).

Grant remained one of Hollywood's top box-office attractions for almost 30 years.^[8] Howard Hawks said that Grant was "so far the best that there isn't anybody to be compared to him".^[13] David Thomson called him "the best and most important actor in the history of the cinema".^[8]

as John Robie in Alfred Hitchcock's
To Catch a Thief (1955)

Grant was a favorite of Hitchcock, who called him "the only actor I ever loved in my whole life".^[14] Besides Suspicion, Grant appeared in the Hitchcock classics Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955) and North by Northwest (1959). Biographer Patrick McGilligan wrote that, in 1965, Hitchcock asked Grant to star in Torn Curtain (1966), only to learn that Grant had decided to retire after making one more film, Walk, Don't Run (1966); Paul Newman was cast instead, opposite Julie Andrews.^[15]

In the mid-1950s, Grant formed his own production company, Granart Productions, and produced a number of movies distributed by Universal, such as Operation Petticoat (1959), Indiscreet (1958), That Touch of Mink (co-starring with Doris Day, 1962), and Father Goose (1964). In 1963, he appeared opposite Audrey Hepburn in Charade. His last feature film was Walk, Don't Run three years later, with Samantha Eggar and Jim Hutton.

In Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959)

Grant was the first actor to "go independent" by not renewing his studio contract, effectively leaving the studio system,^[8] which almost completely controlled what an actor could or could not do. In this way, Grant was able to control every aspect of his career, at the risk of not working because no particular studio had an interest in his career long term. He decided which movies he was going to appear in, he often had personal choice of the directors and his co-stars and at times even negotiated a share of the gross revenue, something uncommon at the time. Grant received more than $700,000 for his 10% of the gross for To Catch a Thief, while Hitchcock received less than $50,000 for directing and producing it.^[16]

Grant was nominated for two Academy Awards, for Penny Serenade (1941) and None But the Lonely Heart (1944), but never won a competitive Oscar; he received a special Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1970. Accepting the Best Original Screenplay Oscar in 1965, Father Goose co-writer Peter Stone had quipped, "My thanks to Cary Grant, who keeps winning these things for other people." In 1981, Grant was accorded the Kennedy Center Honors.

Never self-absorbed, Grant poked fun at himself with statements such as, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant—even I want to be Cary Grant,"^[17] sometimes elaborating, "I pretended to be somebody I wanted to be and I finally became that person. Or he became me. Or we met at some point." He poked fun at himself in ad-lib lines - such as in the film "His Girl Friday", saying, "I never had so much fun since Archie Leach died" and in "Arsenic and Old Lace" a gravestone is seen bearing the name Archie Leach. According to an extremely famous story now believed to be apocryphal, after seeing a telegram from a magazine editor to his agent asking "How old Cary Grant?" Grant reportedly responded with "Old Cary Grant fine. How you?"^[18][19]

Retirement and death[link]

Statue of Cary Grant in Millennium Square, Bristol, England

Cary Grant retired from the screen at 62 when his daughter Jennifer was born, in order to focus on raising her and to provide a sense of permanency and stability in her life. While raising his daughter, he archived artifacts of her childhood and adolescence in a (bank quality) room sized vault he had installed in the house. His daughter attributed this meticulous collection to the fact that artifacts of his own childhood had been destroyed during the bombing of Bristol in World War II (an event that also claimed the lives of his uncle, aunt and cousin as well as the cousin's husband and grandson) and he may have wanted to prevent her from experiencing a similar loss.^[20]

Although Grant had retired from the screen, he remained active in other areas. In the late 1960s, he accepted a position on the board of directors at Fabergé. By all accounts this position was not honorary, as some had assumed; Grant regularly attended meetings and his mere appearance at a product launch would almost certainly guarantee its success. The position also permitted use of a private plane, which Grant could use to fly to see his daughter wherever her mother, Dyan Cannon, was working. He later joined the boards of Hollywood Park^{[disambiguation needed ]}, The Academy of Magical Arts (The Magic Castle, Hollywood, CA) Western Airlines (now Delta Air Lines), and MGM.^[21]

In the last few years of his life, Grant undertook tours of the United States in a one-man show, A Conversation with Cary Grant, in which he would show clips from his films and answer audience questions. Grant was preparing for a performance at the Adler Theater in Davenport, Iowa on the afternoon of November 29, 1986 when he sustained a cerebral hemorrhage (he had previously suffered a stroke in October 1984). He died at 11:22 pm^[21] in St. Luke's Hospital at the age of 82. The bulk of his estate, worth millions of dollars, went to his fifth wife Barbara Harris and his daughter Jennifer Grant.^[22]

In 2001 a statue of Grant was erected in Millennium Square, a regenerated area next to the harbour in his city of birth, Bristol, England.

In November 2005, Grant came in first in the "The 50 Greatest Movie Stars of All Time" list by Premiere Magazine.^[23] Richard Schickel, the film critic, said about Grant: "He's the best star actor there ever was in the movies."^[24]

Personal life[link]

Second wife Barbara Hutton

Grant was married five times. He wed Virginia Cherrill on February 10, 1934. She divorced him on March 26, 1935, following charges that Grant had hit her. In 1942 he married Barbara Hutton, one of the wealthiest women in the world, and became a father figure to her son, Lance Reventlow. The couple was derisively nicknamed "Cash and Cary", although in an extensive prenuptial agreement Grant refused any financial settlement in the event of a divorce.^{[citation needed]} After divorcing in 1945, they remained lifelong friends. Grant always bristled at the accusation that he married for money: "I may not have married for very sound reasons, but money was never one of them."^{[citation needed]}

Wife Betsy Drake in trailer of her film with Grant, Every Girl Should Be Married (1948)

On December 25, 1949, Grant married Betsy Drake. He appeared with her in two films. This would prove to be his longest marriage, ending on August 14, 1962. Drake introduced Grant to LSD, and in the early 1960s he related how treatment with the hallucinogenic drug — legal at the time — at a prestigious California clinic had finally brought him inner peace after yoga, hypnotism and mysticism had proved ineffective.^[25][26][27] Grant and Drake divorced in 1962.

He eloped with Dyan Cannon on July 22, 1965, in Las Vegas. Their daughter, Jennifer Grant, was born prematurely on February 26, 1966. He frequently called her his "best production" and regretted that he had not had children sooner. The marriage was troubled from the beginning, and Cannon left him in December 1966, claiming that Grant flew into frequent rages and spanked her when she "disobeyed" him. The divorce, finalized in 1968, was bitter and public, and custody fights over their daughter went on for nearly ten years.

On April 11, 1981, Grant married long-time companion Barbara Harris, a British hotel public relations agent, who was 47 years his junior. They renewed their vows on their fifth wedding anniversary. (Fifteen years after Grant's death, Harris married former Kansas Jayhawks All-American quarterback David Jaynes in 2001.)^[28]

Some, including Hedda Hopper^[29] and screenwriter Arthur Laurents, have said that Grant was bisexual, the latter writing that Grant "told me he threw pebbles at my window one night but was luckless".^[30] Grant allegedly was involved with costume designer Orry-Kelly when he first moved to Manhattan,^[31] and lived with actor Randolph Scott off and on for twelve years. Richard Blackwell wrote that Grant and Scott were "deeply, madly in love",^[32] and alleged eyewitness accounts of their physical affection have been published.^[31] Alexander D'Arcy, who appeared with Grant in The Awful Truth, said he knew that Grant and Scott "lived together as a gay couple", adding: "I think Cary knew that people were saying things about him. I don't think he tried to hide it."^[31] The two men frequently accompanied each other to parties and premieres and were unconcerned when photographs of them cozily preparing dinner together at home were published in fan magazines.^[31]

Barbara, Grant's widow, has disputed that there was a relationship with Scott.^[21] When Chevy Chase joked about Grant being gay in a television interview Grant sued him for slander; they settled out of court.^[33] However, Grant did admit in an interview that his first two wives had accused him of being homosexual.^[33] Betsy Drake commented: "Why would I believe that Cary was homosexual when we were busy fucking?"^[21]

Politics[link]

Cary Grant

Grant did not think movie stars should publicly make political declarations.^[34] Grant described his politics and his reticence about them this way:

"I'm opposed to actors taking sides in public and spouting spontaneously about love, religion, or politics. We aren't experts on these subjects. Personally I'm a mass of inconsistencies when it comes to politics. My opinions are constantly changing. That's why I don't ever take a public stand on issues."^[35]

Throughout his life, Grant maintained personal friendships with colleagues of varying political stripes, and his few political activities seemed to be shaped by personal friendships. Repulsed by the human costs to many in Hollywood, Grant publicly condemned McCarthyism in 1953, and when his friend Charlie Chaplin was blacklisted, Grant insisted that the actor's artistic value outweighed political concerns.^[35] Grant was also a friend of the Kennedy brothers and Robert Kennedy's press secretary Frank Mankiewicz. He hosted one of Robert Kennedy's first political fundraisers at his home. He made one of his rare statements on public issues following the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, calling for gun control.^[35]

In 1976, after his retirement from movies, Grant made his one overtly partisan appearance, introducing his friend Betty Ford, the First Lady, at the Republican National Convention,^[34] but even in this he maintained some distance from partisanship, speaking of "your" party, rather than "ours" in his remarks.^[35]

Filmography[link]

References[link]

Notes[link]

Bibliography of cited references[link]

External links[link]

Biography portal

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Cary Grant

• Media related to Cary Grant at Wikimedia Commons
• Cary Grant at the Internet Movie Database
• Cary Grant at AllRovi
• Cary Grant at the TCM Movie Database
• Cary Grant at the Internet Broadway Database
• Becoming Cary Grant (in Atlantic Magazine)
• Cary Grant's christening record, and his appearance in the 1911 England/Wales Census, 1920 US immigration, and Social Security Death index in 1986

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Sir Michael Caine
Caine in 2008
Born	Maurice Joseph Micklewhite (1933-03-14) 14 March 1933 (age 79) Southwark, London, England, UK
Occupation	Actor, author
Years active	1953–present
Spouse	Patricia Haines (m. 1955–1962; divorced) Shakira Baksh (m. 1973–present)
Children	Dominique Caine (b. 1956) Natasha Caine (b. 1973)
Relatives	Stanley Caine (brother)
Website
www.michaelcaine.com

Sir Michael Caine, CBE (born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor.

Caine is one of two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s, the other one being Jack Nicholson. In 2000, Caine was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to cinema.

Early life[link]

Caine was born in St Olave's Hospital, Rotherhithe, Southwark^[1] in South East London, the son of Ellen Frances Marie (née Burchell; 1900-1989), a cook and charwoman, and Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, a fish market porter.^[2] His father was of English, Irish, and, reportedly, Irish Traveller ancestry.^[3][4][5] Caine was brought up in his mother's Protestant religion (his father was Catholic).^[6]

Caine grew up in Southwark, South London, and during the Second World War he was evacuated to North Runcton near King's Lynn in Norfolk.^[7] After the war, when his father was demobilised, the family was rehoused by the council in Marshall Gardens at the Elephant and Castle in a pre-fabricated house made in Canada,^[8] as much of London's housing stock had been damaged during the Blitz in 1940-41.

The prefabs, as they were known, were intended to be temporary homes while London was rebuilt, but we ended up living there for eighteen years and for us, after a cramped flat with an outside toilet, it was luxury.^[9]

In 1944, he passed his eleven plus exam, winning a scholarship to Hackney Downs Grocers' School.^[10] After a year there he moved to Wilson's Grammar School in Camberwell (now Wilson's School in Wallington, South London), which he left at sixteen after gaining a School Certificate in six subjects. He then worked briefly as a filing clerk and messenger for a film company in Victoria Street and the film producer Jay Lewis in Wardour Street.^[11] From 1952, when he was called up to do his national service, until 1954, he served in the British Army's Royal Fusiliers, first at the BAOR HQ in Iserlohn, Germany and then on active service during the Korean War. Caine has said he would like to see the return of national service to help combat youth violence, stating: "I'm just saying, put them in the Army for six months. You're there to learn how to defend your country. You belong to the country. Then when you come out, you have a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence."^[12]

Career[link]

1950s[link]

Caine's acting career began at the age of 20 in Horsham, Sussex when he responded to an advertisement in The Stage for an assistant stage manager who would also perform small walk-on parts for the Horsham-based Westminster Repertory Company who were performed at the Carfax Electric Theatre.^[13] Adopting the stage name "Michael Scott", In July 1953 he was cast as the drunkard Hindley in the Company's production of Wuthering Heights.^[14] He moved to the Lowestoft Repertory Company in Suffolk for a year when he was 22. It was here that he met his first wife.^[15] He has described the first nine years of his career as "really, really brutal." ^[16]

When his career took him to London after his provincial apprenticeship, his agent informed him that there was already a Michael Scott treading the boards in London and that he had to come up with a new name immediately. Speaking to his agent from a telephone box in Leicester Square, London, he looked around for inspiration, noted that The Caine Mutiny was being shown at the Odeon Cinema, and decided to change his name to "Michael Caine". (Humphrey Bogart was his "screen idol" and he would later play a part originally intended for Bogie in John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King.^[17]) He has joked in interviews that had he looked the other way, he would have ended up as "Michael One Hundred and One Dalmatians".^[18] In 1959, he was Peter O'Toole's understudy in Lindsay Anderson's West End staging of Willis Hall's The Long and the Short and the Tall. He took over the role when O'Toole left to make Lawrence of Arabia (1960) and went on to a four-month tour of Britain and Ireland. He was cast in the 1956 movie A Hill in Korea partly because of his Korean War experience, to serve as both actor and technical adviser. His co-stars included Stanley Baker and Robert Shaw.

1960s[link]

A big break came for Caine when he was cast as Meff in James Saunders' Cockney comedy Next Time I'll Sing To You, when this play was presented at the New Arts Theatre in London on 23 January 1963.^[19][20] Scenes from the play's performance were featured in the April 1963 issue of Theatre World magazine.^[21]

When this play moved to the Criterion in Piccadilly with Michael Codron directing, he was visited backstage by Stanley Baker, his co-star in A Hill In Korea, who told him about the part of a Cockney corporal in his upcoming film Zulu, a film Baker was producing and starring in. Baker told Caine to visit the director, Cy Endfield, who informed him that he already had given the part that Baker had tipped Caine for to James Booth, a fellow Cockney who was Caine's friend, because he looked more Cockney than Caine did. Endfield then told the 6'2" Caine that he did not look like a Cockney but like an officer, and offered him a screen test for the role of a snobbish, upper class officer after Caine assured him that he could do a posh accent. Caine believes Enfield offered him, a Cockney, the role of an aristocrat as, being American, he did not have the endemic British class prejudice. Though he tested poorly, Endfield gave him the part that would make him a film star.^[22]

Location shooting for Zulu took place 14 weeks in Natal, South Africa in 1963.^[23][24][25] According to his 2011 autobiography The Elephant to Hollywood, Caine had been signed to a seven-year contract by Joseph E. Levine, whose Embassy Films was distributing Zulu. After the return of the cast to England and the completion of the film, Levine released him from the contract, telling him, "I know you're not, but you gotta face the fact that you look like a queer on screen." Levine gave his contract to his Zulu co-star James Booth.^[26]

Subsequently, Caine's agent got him cast in the BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) as Horatio in support of Christopher Plummer's Hamlet. Horatio was the only classical role Caine, who had never received dramatic training, would ever play.

Caine wrote, "...I decided that if my on-screen appearance was going to be an issue, then I would use it to bring out all Horatio's ambiguous sexuality."^[27]

After dozens of minor TV roles, Caine finally entered the public eye as the upper class British Army officer Gonville Bromhead in Zulu. This proved paradoxical, as Caine was to become notable for using a regional accent, rather than the Received Pronunciation hitherto considered proper for film actors. At the time, Caine's working class Cockney, just as with the Beatles' Liverpudlian accents, stood out to American and British audiences alike.

Zulu was closely followed by two of his best-known roles: the spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965), and the womanising title character in Alfie (1966). He went on to play Palmer in a further four films, Funeral in Berlin (1966), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1995). Caine made his first film in the United States in 1966, after an invitation from Shirley MacLaine to play opposite her in Gambit. During the first two weeks, whilst staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he met long term friends John Wayne and agent "Swifty" Lazar.^[28]

1970s[link]

After working on The Italian Job with Noël Coward, and a solid role as RAF fighter pilot Squadron Leader Canfield in the all-star cast of Battle of Britain (both 1969), Caine played the lead in Get Carter (1971), a British gangster film. Caine was busy with successes including Sleuth (1972) opposite Laurence Olivier, and The Man Who Would Be King (1975) co-starring Sean Connery and directed by John Huston (which he has stated will be the film he wishes to be remembered for after his death). In 1976 he appeared in the screen adaptation by Tom Mankiewicz of the Jack Higgins novel The Eagle Has Landed as Oberst (Colonel) Kurt Steiner, the commander of a Luftwaffe paratroop brigade disguised as Polish paratroopers, whose mission was to kidnap or kill the then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, alongside co-stars Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasence. Subsequently in 1978, he starred in The Silver Bears, an adaptation of Paul Erdman's (1974) novel of the same name. Caine also was part of an all-star cast in A Bridge Too Far (1977).

1980s[link]

By the end of the decade, he had moved to the United States, but his choice of roles was often criticised — he admitted to and has since made many self-deprecating comments about taking parts, strictly for the money, in numerous films he knew to be bad, despite working with Hollywood's highly regarded directors such as Irwin Allen, Richard Fleischer, Michael Ritchie and Oliver Stone. Caine was averaging two films a year, but these included such failures as the BAFTA Award-nominated The Magus (1968), the Academy Award-nominated The Swarm (1978), Ashanti (1979) (which he claimed were the worst three films of all the other worst films he ever made), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), The Island (1980), The Hand (1981) and a reunion with his Sleuth co-star Laurence Olivier in The Jigsaw Man (1982).

Although Caine also took better roles, including a BAFTA-winning turn in Educating Rita (1983), and an Oscar-winning one in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and a Golden Globe-nominated one in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), he continued to appear in notorious duds like the thinly veiled skin flick Blame It on Rio, the Dick Clement and Ian Le Frenais comedy Water and the critical-commercial flop Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (in which he had mixed feelings about the production and the final cut) and Bullseye! (1990); his appearing in so many films that did not meet with critical or box office acclaim made him the butt of numerous jokes on the subject. Of the former, Caine famously said (primarily about Jaws: The Revenge) "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."^[29] All these film failures later became cult films among his fans today. His other successful films (critically and/or financially) were the 1978 Academy Award-winning California Suite, the 1980 Golden Globe-nominated slasher film Dressed to Kill, the 1981 war film Escape to Victory, the 1982 film Deathtrap, and the 1986 Academy Award-nominated Mona Lisa. He also starred in Without a Clue, portraying Sherlock Holmes.

1990s[link]

The 1990s were a lean time for Caine, as he found good parts harder to come by. A high point came when he played Ebenezer Scrooge in the critically acclaimed The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), which he considers to be one of his most memorable roles.^{[citation needed]} He played the beleaguered stage director Lloyd Dallas in the film adaptation of Noises Off (1992). He also played a villain in the Steven Seagal film On Deadly Ground (1994). He was in two straight to video Harry Palmer sequels and a few television films. However, Caine's reputation as a pop icon was still intact, thanks to his roles in films such as The Italian Job and Get Carter. His performance in 1998's Little Voice was seen as something of a return to form, and won him a Golden Globe Award. Better parts followed, including The Cider House Rules (1999), for which he won his second Oscar.

2000s[link]

Michael Caine at the European premiere of The Dark Knight, 2008

In the 2000s, Caine appeared in Miss Congeniality (2000), Last Orders (2001), The Quiet American (2002), for which he was Oscar-nominated, and others that helped rehabilitate his reputation. Several of Caine's classic films have been remade, including The Italian Job, Get Carter, Alfie and Sleuth. In the 2007 remake of Sleuth, Caine took over the role Laurence Olivier played in the 1972 version and Jude Law played Caine's original role. Caine also starred in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) as Austin's father and in 2003 he co-starred with Robert Duvall in Secondhand Lions. In 2005, he was cast as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth in the first production of the new Batman film series. In 2006, he appeared in the films Children of Men and The Prestige. In 2007 he appeared in Flawless, while in 2008 he reprised his role as Alfred in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Batman sequel, The Dark Knight as well as starring in the British drama Is Anybody There?, which explores the final days of life.

It was reported by Empire magazine that Caine had said that Harry Brown (released on 13 November 2009) would be his last lead role.^[30] Caine later declared (in the Daily Mirror) that he had been misquoted by the magazine.^[31]

2010s[link]

Caine had a cameo appearance in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller, Inception. He voiced Finn McMissile in Pixar's 2011 film Cars 2 and also voiced a supporting role in the animation, Gnomeo and Juliet. He also starred in the 2012 film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, as Josh Hutcherson's character's grandfather; the film also featured Dwayne Johnson and Vanessa Hudgens. Caine will reprise his role as Alfred Pennyworth in the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, due for release in mid 2012. Filming has begun at Wollaton Hall, Wollaton, Nottinghamshire, England.

Awards and honours[link]

Caine has been Oscar-nominated six times, winning his first Academy Award for the 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters, and his second in 1999 for The Cider House Rules, in both cases as a supporting actor.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours,^[32] and in the 2000 New Year Honours he was knighted as Sir Maurice Micklewhite CBE.^[33][34] On 5 January 2011, he was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand.^[35]

In 2008, he was awarded the prize for Outstanding Contribution to Showbusiness at the Variety Club Awards.^[36]

In popular culture[link]

Caine is a popular subject for impressionists and mimics, having a voice and manner of speaking that are distinctive, yet fairly easy to imitate. Most Caine impressions include the catchphrase "Not a lot of people know that." Peter Sellers initiated this when he appeared on BBC1's Parkinson show on 28 October 1972 and said: "Not many people know that. This is my Michael Caine impression. You see, Mike's always quoting from the Guinness Book of Records. At the drop of a hat he'll trot one out. 'Did you know that it takes a man in a tweed suit five and a half seconds to fall from the top of Big Ben to the ground?' Now there's not many people who know that!". The line had been used earlier in Spike Milligan's script for The Last Goon Show of All, performed on 5 October 1972.^[37] In 1983, Caine was given the line to say as an in-joke in the film Educating Rita. The line has also been parodied, along with its impression, in the British sketch comedy show, Harry Enfield's Television Programme, with Paul Whitehouse as a stalking neighbourhood character called Michael Paine, who introduced himself with the line "My name is Michael Paine, and I am a nosy neighbour."^{[clarification needed]} Caine himself parodied the phenomenon in an interview with Michael Parkinson, imitating others' impressions of him and including the catchphrase.^[38]

Personal life[link]

Caine with Scarlett Johansson at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert 2008

Caine lives in Leatherhead, Surrey, and is patron to the Leatherhead Drama Festival.^[39] He has also lived in North Stoke, Oxfordshire, Clewer near Windsor, Berkshire, Lowestoft in Suffolk and Chelsea Harbour in London. In addition, Caine owns a unit at the Apogee in Miami Beach, Florida. He still keeps a small flat near where he grew up in South East London.^[40] Caine has published two volumes of memoirs, What's It All About? in 1992 and "The Elephant to Hollywood" in 2010.^[41]

He was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1955 to 1958. They had a daughter, Dominique (who was named after the heroine of the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand).^[42] He dated Bianca Jagger in 1968. Caine has been married to actress and model Shakira Baksh since 8 January 1973. They met after Caine saw her appearing in a Maxwell House coffee commercial and a friend gave him her telephone number. They have a daughter, Natasha Haleema.^[43][44]

Some time after his mother died, Caine and his younger brother, Stanley, learned they had an elder half-brother, named David. He suffered from severe epilepsy and had been kept in Cane Hill Mental Hospital his entire life. Although their mother regularly visited her first son in the hospital, even her husband did not know the child existed. David died in 1992.^[45]

Trivia books written by Caine include Not Many People Know That!, And Not Many People Know This Either!, Michael Caine's Moving Picture Show and Not A Lot of People Know This is 1988. Proceeds from the books went to the National Playing Fields Association (now Fields In Trust) of which Caine was a prominent supporter.

Unlike many actors who adopt their stage name for everyday use, Caine still uses his real name when he is not working.^{[citation needed]}

Caine was called up for national service in the British Army in 1951 when he was aged 18 and was deployed to South Korea to help in the aftermath of the North Korean invasion. He served as part of the Royal Fusiliers. He said he had gone into it feeling sympathetic to communism, coming as he did from a poor family. But he has said the experience left him permanently repelled.^[46]

Politics[link]

Caine has been open about his political views. He left Britain in the 1970s, citing the 82% tax levied on top earners by the Labour government of the time, but returned to Britain several years later when taxes were lowered:

"I decided not to become a tax exile, so I stayed in Britain, but they kept putting the tax up, so I'd do any old thing every now and then to pay the tax, that was my tax exile money. I realised that's not a socialist country, it's a communist country without a dictator, so I left and I was never going to come back. Maggie Thatcher came in and put the taxes back down and in the end, you know, you don't mind paying tax. What am I going to do? Not pay tax and drive around in a Rolls Royce, with cripples begging on the street like you see in some countries?"^[47]

"I voted for Maggie Thatcher because I thought we needed a change from that long period of socialism; I voted for Tony Blair because we had a great long period of Conservatism." ^[48]

In 2009, Caine openly criticised the Labour government's proposed new 50% tax on top earners:

"The Government has taken tax up to 50 per cent and if it goes to 51 I will be back in America. They have reached their limit with me and that's what will happen to a lot of people. You know how much they made out of that high taxation all those years ago? Nothing. But they sent a mass of incredible brains to America. We've got 3.5 million layabouts laying about on benefits, and I'm 76, getting up at 6 am to go to work to keep them. Let's get everybody back to work so we can save a couple of billion and cut tax, not keep sticking it on."^[49]

"You're saying to poor people, 'let's tax those rich gits' and I understand that. You slice up the cake, give everyone a chance, but don't destroy the people that are making the bloody cake! I really believe about taking care of people, I don't mind paying tax. It's how the government spends my tax that I detest, really detest, because I see the waste. More money than all our income tax is spent on benefits. Now you tell me there is nothing wrong with that system."^[50]

Caine also stated in 2009 that he was likely to vote for the Conservatives again:

"I'll probably vote Conservative. I mean, we're in a terrible state whichever way you look at it, socially, financially and politically, so just give the other guy a chance. I don't know what Cameron's going to do, but in the end you vote out of desperation. You just have to have someone new and see what happens."^[48]

Following the launch of his film Harry Brown, Caine called for the reintroduction of national service in the UK to give young people "a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence".^[51]

During the run up to the 2010 General Election, Caine publicly endorsed the Conservative Party, despite claiming to have supported New Labour in 1997. ^[52] He appeared with David Cameron for the Conservative leader's launch of a civilian non-compulsory 'National Service' for teenagers.^[53]

Musical career[link]

Caine is a fan of chill-out music and has compiled a mix CD called Cained, which was released in 2007 by UMTV.^[54] According to Michael Caine, he met Elton John and was discussing musical tastes, when Caine claimed that he had been creating chillout mix tapes as an amateur for years.^[55] Also in music, Caine provided vocal samples for the band Madness for their 1984 hit "Michael Caine" as his daughter was a fan. He has sung in film roles as well, including for the musical film, The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Filmography, awards and nominations[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Michael Caine

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Michael Caine

• Official website
• Michael Caine at the Internet Movie Database
• Michael Caine at the British Film Institute's Screenonline
• Michael Caine on National Public Radio in 2010
• Michael Caine on Charlie Rose
• "The Films of Michael Caine" compilation of film clips, 4 minutes
• PLAY DIRTY/Caine Special on Location in Spain
• Martyn Palmer, "Double act: Michael Caine and Jude Law (lunch and discussion)", The Times, 17 November 2007
• Charlie Rose video interview 3 February 2003
• IGN.com interview 18 March 2003
• 200 years of Michael Caine's family tree