Michael Caine

At 91 years old, Michael Caine has this physical status:

Military career

Caine was summoned to serve his national service in 1952. He served in the British Army's Royal Fusiliers from 1952 to 1954, first at the British Army's Iserlohn, West Germany, and then in active service in the Korean War.

Caine went into Korea feeling sympathetic to communism, although he did not come from a poor family, but the experience left him permanently disqualified due to the human wave attacks that plagued North Korea and China, which left him with the impression that their governments were not concerned about their citizens. He was in a situation where he felt he was going to die, but the memory of which remained with him and formed his character. "I have lived every bloody moment from the time I wake up to the time I go to sleep" in his 2010 autobiography The Elephant to Hollywood.

Caine has said that he wants to see the revival of national service in the United Kingdom to help combat youth violence, adding, "I'm just saying, put them in the Army for six months." You're here to learn how to protect your country. You are from the United States. "You get a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence when you come out."

Acting career

Caine began his acting career in Horsham, Sussex, aged 20 when he responded to an advertisement in The Stage for an assistant stage manager who would also appear on stage for the Horsham-based Westminster Repertory Company, who were also performing small walk-on parts. In July 1953, Adopting the stage name "Michael White," he appeared as the intoxicated Hindley in the company's production of Wuthering Heights. He joined the Lowestoft Repertory Company in Suffolk when he was 21 years old. Patricia Haines, his first wife, was born here. He has described the first nine years of his career as "very, very brutal" as well as "more like purgatory than paradise." During his time at the Lowestoft Rep. with Jackson Stanley's Standard Players, he appeared in nine plays.

When his career took him to London in 1954 after his provincial apprenticeship, his agent told him that there was already a Michael White playing as an actor in London and that he had to come up with a new name immediately. He walked around for inspiration, discovered that the Caine Mutiny was being displayed at the Odeon Cinema and decided to rename it to "Michael Caine" when he approached his agent from a telephone booth in Leicester Square, London, and decided to change his name to "Michael Caine." On television in 1987, he joked that if there had been a few feet to the left and partially blocking his view, he might have referred to him as "Michael Mutiny." (Humphrey Bogart was his "screen idol," and he'll reprise his role in John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King" later. He also joked in interviews that if he hadn't looked the other way, he might have appeared as "Michael One Hundred and One Dalmatians." In a BBC Television adaptation of the tale, The Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Caine Mutiny Court Martial, Caine played a minor role.

Caine co-star Terence Stampe and Peter O'Toole in Lindsay Anderson's West End production of Willis Hall's The Long and the Tall in 1959, after he was O'Toole's understudy. Caine took over when O'Toole left Lawrence of Arabia and started a four-month tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland.

In George Baker's platoon in the 1956 film A Hill in Korea, Caine's first film role was as one of the privates. Baker, Harry Andrews, Stanley Baker, and Michael Medwin appeared in the film, as did Stephen Boyd and Ronald Lewis; Robert Shaw also appeared in small quantities. Caine has also appeared on television in small roles. He appeared on television for the first time in 1956, when he appeared in Boudousse in the Jean Anouilh's The Lark. Three others appeared in Dixon of Dock Green, 1958, 1959, prisoner-of-war series Escape (1957), and Mister Charlesworth's crime/thriller drama (1958).

Caine continued to appear on television in serials The Golden Girl and No Wreath for the General, but he was later cast in the play The Compartment, written by Johnny Speight, a two-hander also starring Frank Finlay. These were followed by main performances in other scripts, including Bill Naughton's character Tosh in Somewhere for the Night on Sunday 3 December 1, 1961, another two-hander by Johnny Speight, The Playmates, and two versions of BBC shows strand First Night, Funny Noises with Reggie (both 1963). Bill Naughton's Looking for Frankie on the BBC Home Service (1963), and he appeared in radio shows, including Bill Naughton's Looking for Frankie.

When this performance was performed at the New Arts Theatre in London on January 23, 1963, Caine was a big change. He was cast as Meff in James Saunders' Cockney comedy Next Time I'll Sing To You. Scenes from the play's appearance were included in the Theatre World magazine's April 1963 issue.

Stanley Baker, one of the four principals of Caine's first film, A Hill in Korea, welcomed him backstage to the part of a Cockney private in his forthcoming film Zulu, which Baker was producing and starring. Baker told Caine that he had come to visit Cy Endfield, who told him that he already had the part to James Booth, a Caine friend, because he "looked more Cockney" than Caine did. After Caine's promise that he could do a posh accent, the 6'2" Caine told him that he did not look like a Cockney but rather like an officer, and that he should do a screen test for the role of a snobbish, upper class officer. Endfield, according to Caine, made him the position of an aristocrat because, being an American, he did not have the endemic British class prejudice. Despite the fact that he performed poorly, Endfield gave him the role that would make him a film actor.

In 1963, a shooting location for Zulu took place in Natal, South Africa. Caine's elephant to Hollywood had signed to a seven-year deal by Joseph E. Levine, whose Embassy Films was distributing Zulu, according to his 2010 autobiography. "I know you're not interested," Levine told him after the film's return to England and its completion, "You gotta accept the fact that you look like a queer on film." Levine left his Zulu co-star James Booth for his Zulu role.

Caine's rep later obtained him cast in the BBC film Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) as Horatio, in favor of Christopher Plummer's Hamlet. Caine's only classical role, who had never received intensive preparation, would ever play Horatio. "I decided that if my on-screen appearance was going to be a concern, I would use it to bring out all Horatio's ambiguous sexuality," Caine wrote.

Caine's roles as effete-seeming aristocrats were to contrast with his forthcoming projects, in which he was to be known for his regional accent rather than the Received Pronunciation which had previously considered appropriate for film actors. His working-class Cockney address stood out to American and British audiences alike, as well as the Beatles' Liverpudlian accents. In The Ipcress File (1965), Zulu was followed by two of Caine's most well-known characters, the rough-edged petty-turned-spy Harry Palmer, and the titular womanizing young Cockney (1966). In a 2016 interview, Caine cited Alfie as his favorite film of his career, "it made me a star in America as well, and it was my first nomination for an Academy Award." He went on to star Harry Palmer in four more films, including Billion Dollar Brain (1966), Bullet to Beijing (1995), and Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1996). After an invitation from Shirley MacLaine to act opposite her in Gambit, Caine made his first film in Hollywood in 1966. While not staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he met John Wayne, a long-time friend, and agent "Swifty" Lazar, among others. Wayne was a fan of Caine's success in Alfie and told Caine, "Speak slow and speak low." Caine was always grateful for her help. Caine appeared in the film The Magus (1968), which, although BAFTA-nominated for Best Cinematography, failed at the box office.

Charlie Croker, the leader of a Cockney criminal gang, was released from prison in Italy with the intention of doing a "good job" in Italy to rob gold bullion from an armoured security truck in the 1969 comedy caper film The Italian Job. In a 2002 survey, Robert Corcorin said "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" was one of his career's most celebrated roles. In a 2003 survey of 1,000 film enthusiasts, he was named the second-funniest line in film (after "He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy" from Monty Python's Life of Brian). The Italian Job has one of the most discussed end scenes in film, with discussions of what happened to a coachload of gold teetering over the edge of a cliff since the film was released decades ago.

Caine played the lead in Get Carter (1971), a British gangster film that was shot on The Italian Job with Nol Coward and Canfield as the RAF pilot squadron commander in Battle of Britain. Caine continued to be successful, including Sleuth (1972) opposite Laurence Olivier and John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) co-starring Sean Connery (1975), which received acclaim. "Michael is one of the most intelligent men among the artists I've encountered," the Times saluted Caine and Connery's "lovefully double act of Caine and Connery, clowning to their doom," Huston said of Caine's performance as an actor. I don't want to throw the ball to an actor and watch him act, but with Michael, it's different. I just let him get to it."

Caine appeared in The Black Windmill in 1974, co-starring Donald Pleasence. Oberst (Colonel) Kurt Steiner, the commander of a Luftwaffe paratroop unit disguised as Polish paratroopers, appeared in Tom Mankiewicz's film adaptation of Jack Higgins' The Eagle Has Landed in 1976, a British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, as the commander of a British paratroop unit disguised as a Polish paratrooper whose task was to kidnap or murderer In A Bridge Too Far (1977), Caine appeared in an all-star cast. Caine appeared in the 1978 Academy Award-winning California Suite as an extension of Paul Erdman's 1974 book of the same name.

Caine's choice of roles in the late 1970s was often criticized, including self-deprecating remarks about receiving portions solely for the money. He produced two films a year, but these included The Swarm (1978) (although critically panned for Best Costume Design), Ashanti (1979) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979).

Caine appeared in The Island (1981), The Hand (1981), and he had a reunion with his Sleuth co-star Laurence Olivier in The Jigsaw Man (1982).

Caine's name was revived in 1980s films and awards recognition. In Educating Rita (1983), he co-starred with Julie Walters, for which he received a BAFTA and a Golden Globe Award. In Woody Allen's ensemble comedy Hannah and Her Sisters, starring Barbara Hershey, Dianne Wiest, and Mia Farrow, Elliot appeared in 1986. He received his first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role. In the crime comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), directed by Frank Oz, Caine played a suave English conman opposite a clumsy American played by Steve Martin. He received a Golden Globe Award nomination for his film.

Caine's other hit films (whether financially or financially) were the 1980 Golden Globe-nominated slasher film Dressed to Kill, the 1981 war film Escape to Victory starring Sylvester Stallone and footballers from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as Academy Award-nominated Mona Lisa (1986), which includes Pelé and Bobby Moore. Caine narrated Hero, the 1986 FIFA World Cup's official film. He appeared in 1988 as Chief Insp. Frederick Abberline co-starred Jane Seymour in Jack the Ripper, a two-part television drama set in Victorian London to mark the 100th anniversary of the notorious Jack the Ripper murder spree.

Despite his fame in the 1980s, Caine appeared in many poorly received films, including Blame It on Rio (1984), the Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais comedy Water (1985), and Without a Clue (1988). Caine's dedication to filming Jaws: The Revenge in the Bahamas meant he was unable to receive his Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters in person, but Dianne Wiest accepted it on behalf of his brother. Jaws: Caine said, "I've never seen the movie, but by all accounts it was awful." However, I have been to the house that it was built, and it is stunning."

Caine found good parts in the 1990s to be a little difficult. In 1989, Mike, the enigmatic bartender in Mr. Destiny, met with Roger Moore in Bullseye. (1990) a.k.a. In The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), he made a good point when he played Ebenezer Scrooge. "I'm going to play this film like I'm working with the Royal Shakespeare Company," Caine said. I would never wink, and I would never do anything Muppety. I am going to play Scrooge as if it is a completely different role, and there are no puppets around me." In the film version of Noises Off (1992), he played the beleaguered stage director Lloyd Fellowes. In the Steven Seagal film On Deadly Ground (1994), he appeared as a villain. He appeared in two straight to video Harry Palmer sequels as well as a few television films. However, Caine's fame as a pop celebrity had remained strong in films like The Italian Job and Get Carter. His appearance in Little Voice (1998) was seen as a return to form, winning him a Golden Globe Award. The Cider House Rules (1999), which earned him his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, were among the improved parts that followed.

Caine appeared on Miss Congeniality (2000) as the sophisticated pageant coach opposite Sandra Bullock as the undercover FBI agent in the 2000s. The film was a big box office hit, and Caine was lauded for his comedic role. Caine appeared in Philip Kaufman's award-winning film Quills (2000) as Dr. Royer-Collard, opposite Geoffrey Rush, Kate Winslet, and Joaquin Phoenix. Caine appeared in the ensemble dramedy Last Orders film starring Helen Mirren, Bob Hoskins, and Tom Courtenay in 2001. Caine's latest film The Quiet American (2002) received acclaim in terms of critical acclaim, earning him his sixth Academy Award nomination. Caine also received a Golden Globe Award and the British Academy Film Award for his work.

Several of Caine's classic films have been remade, including The Italian Job, Get Carter, Alfie, and Sleuth. Caine took over the role Laurence Olivier played in the 1972 version of Sleuth, while Jude Law played Caine's original role. Caine is one of the few actors to have appeared in two iterations of the same film. In a CNN interview, Law expressed his admiration for Caine: "I learned so much more than just from monitoring his appearance, but also how little he has to do." He's a master technician, and there were times when he was doing things I didn't recognize, I couldn't register. I'd go back and watch it on the monitor, and it's like, 'Oh my God, the amount of variety he's included in there is astounding.'

Caine appeared in many comedies during this period, including in Austin Powers (2002). He co-starred with Robert Duvall and Haley Joel Osment in the family comedy Secondhand Lions in 2003. In the 2004 film Around the Bend, Caine played family elder Henry Lair. He appeared in Bewitched (Nicole Kidman) in 2005 alongside Will Ferrell and Shirley MacLaine.

In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth's first film in the upcoming Batman film series The Dark Knight Trilogy, he appeared in 2005. Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale appeared in Alfonso Cuaron's acclaimed dystopian drama Children of Men, starring Clive Owen and Julianne Moore, as well as Nolan's mystery thriller The Prestige starring Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale in 2006. He appeared in Flawless in 2007, and in 2008 and 2012, he reprised his role as Alfred in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Batman sequels The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, as well as starring in the British drama Is Anybody There?, which follows the final days of life.

Caine had announced that Harry Brown (released on November 13, 2009) would be his last lead role, according to Empire magazine. Caine later stated that he had no intention of retiring, adding that "You don't retire in this industry; the company retires you."

Caine appeared in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller Inception as Prof. Stephen Miles, Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) mentor and father-in-law. The film was a commercial and critical success, earning eight Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture. Finn McMissile appeared in Pixar's 2011 film Cars 2 as Finn McMissile, and he also played a supporting role in the animated film Gnomeo & Juliet. Josh Hutcherson's grandfather appeared in Journey 2: The Mysterious Island in 2012; the film also stars Dwayne Johnson and Vanessa Hudgens.

Caine reprised his role as Alfred Pennyworth in the Batman sequel The Dark Knight Rises, which was first published in July 2012. "One of the finest things I have done in my life," Caine later described The Dark Knight Trilogy. Caine appeared in the heist thriller Now You See Me starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, and Morgan Freeman. Arthur Tressler, an insurance magnate and the Four Horsemen's sponsor, appeared in Caine's role. Despite mixed reviews from critics, the film was a commercial success at the box office and inspired a sequel, Now You See Me 2 (2016).

Professor Brand, a high-ranking NASA scientist, ideator of Plan A, former Cooper and father of Amelia, appeared in Nolan's 2014 science-fiction film Interstellar as Professor Brand, a no. 26-year-old NASA scientist, father of Amelia. Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain appeared in the film. Caine co-starred in Matthew Vaughn's action spy comedy Kingsman: The Secret Service starring Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, and Samuel L. Jackson in 2015. He appeared in Brighton Keitel's Italian comedy-drama film Youth alongside Harvey Keitel, Rachel Weisz, Paul Dano, and Jane Fonda in May 2015. Caine appeared in the lead role of late composer Fred Ballinger, where the film and its director received acclaim at its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Caine received the Best Actor of the Year Award in London for his role. Caine read Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Clause and Big Claus" for the children's fairytales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, alongside Sir Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, Dame Joan Collins, Charlotte Rampling, and Paul McKenna.

Caine appeared in a spoken cameo role in Christopher Nolan's action-thriller Dunkirk (2017), based on World War II's evacuation as a Royal Air Force Spitfire pilot, as a tribute to his service as a RAF fighter pilot Squadron Leader Canfield in Battle of Britain (1969). Caine starred in King of Thieves, which was based on the Hatton Garden safe deposit burglary of 2015.

In Christopher Nolan's Tenet, Caine was cast as Sir Michael Crosby, a British Intelligence officer, in May 2019. John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Kenneth Branagh appeared in the film. Despite receiving positive feedback, the film was released during the COVID-19 pandemic in September 2020 and became a box office disappointment. Angelina Jolie, David Oyelowo, and Guine Mbatha-Raw also appeared in the children's fantasy film Come Away (2020), starring Angelina Jolie, David Oyelowo, and Guine Mbatha-Raw. Critics praised the film's presentation and lavish production design at the Sundance Film Festival, with critics lauding its performances and lavish production design. Caine plays Fagin in the 2021 film Twist, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist set in the present day. Caine said in interviews supporting the 2021 film Best Sellers that he would not make another film, citing the difficulty of walking and his new interest in novel-writing that were both exacerbated during the COVID-19 lockdowns. However, his reps told Variety that he was not resigning from acting.

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