Michael Caine

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"I just keep going and I don't blink..."
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

Sir Michael Caine CBE (born 1933) is a British actor with over a hundred films ranging from Zulu to the The Dark Knight. Willing to do parts for the money, or for art. He's an elder statesman of acting being nominated for an Academy Award every decade since the 1960s, sharing the honor only with Jack Nicholson. He won twice for Best Supporting Actor for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and The Cider House Rules (1999), and has been nominated for leading roles several times over. Often the source of imitation by many comedians because of his distinct Cockney accent.

Filmography:


Michael Caine provides examples of the following tropes:

I was friends with Stan Getz, and Lionel Bart, who wrote Oliver! The painter Francis Bacon lived next door. He always tried to get me into his studio to paint me, but he was very gay and I thought, “I’m not going up there.” An actor called David Baron said he was going to write a play, and I said I’d act in it. He called it The Room and he did it under his real name, Harold Pinter. In the sixties, everyone you knew became famous. My flatmate was Terence Stamp. My barber was Vidal Sassoon. David Hockney did the menu in a restaurant I went to. I didn’t know anyone unknown who didn’t become famous.

  • Rags to Riches. Grew up in poverty during The Great Depression in the same London area he would film Harry Brown sixty years later.
  • Rule of Sean Connery: Especially later in his career, he tends to have a memorable scene or character worth watching. He even gets a billing in Inception despite having only three minutes of screen time in a 140-minute film. For his review of that film, Roger Ebert noted how quickly Caine can show up in any movie and immediately look and feel like the wisest character in the movie just from the way he carries himself.
  • Stage Names: Michael Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite. It got laughs in the audience when his first credit appeared on a film so he took the stage name "Michael Scott". His agent told him over the phone he had to change it again because it was already taken. (Steve Carell hadn't even been born yet.) Looking around the public pay phone in Leicester Square he saw a marquee of a theater playing The Caine Mutiny, and decided to be called Michael Caine. He would joke later that if he looked the other way his name would now be "Michael 101 Dalmatians"!
  • Star-Making Role: The title role of Alfie made him well known internationally.

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