Portrait: Michael Caine

Michael Caine adds another trophy to his collection: Best Supporting Actor at the 72nd Academy Awards last weekend for his role in The Cider House Rules.

Michael Caine's filmography is an incredible treasure where each role is a gem that shines with a special light.

Born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in March 1933 in London, Michael Caine first went through small jobs before landing parts in unconspicuous British adventure movies. He first attracted attention in the role of a young officer in Cy Endfield's Zulu (1964). Alfie (1966) brought him a wide recognition and his first nomination for Academy Awards as Best Actor.

Joseph Mankiewicz's Sleuth (1972) gave him the opportunity to play opposite brilliant stage performer Laurence Olivier, an experience he recalls with a devastating sense of humour :
"Olivier was one of the greatest theatre actors in the history of theatre. I was kind of fearful of him, because he was such a giant actor. On the first day of working, I realized that we were in MY medium, which is film, not his. Then he was fired from his job at the National Theatre in England ; he started to take valium, so he could not remember his lines for a week until he stopped taking them. So during that time, I took full advantage of this, putting him to the ground as much as possible, and then ducked when he came back at me."
"The greatest compliment I ever received as an actor was one day, during a big scene where we were going at each other - he's really like a whirlwind, a hurricane, he suddenly comes out of nowhere, you're standing in the doorway and the house is gone.
When we finished the scene, he said to me "I thought I had an employee here, I see I have a partner".
And I said: "I can't blow you away, but let me tell you this : you aren't going to blow me away either. I am going to stand here."
And he said: "What a wonderful idea, Michael : you do that."
And we became quite good friends."

In 1973, Michael Caine married Shakira Baksh, an exotic former Miss Guyana finalist who co-starred two years later in The Man Who Would be King.

"I have been married for 27 years to the same woman" he muses. "I realized that if I was ever going to get married, there would have to be someone at home more beautiful than anyone. And the woman I did marry is that. She's not just beautiful in the face, she is also beautiful behind the face, she' s a wonderful person. I feel very fortunate. I am not very beautiful as you can see, and I'm not all nice behind this face. I am quite tough to live with. But she loves me enough to do it, and the miracle is that if I stayed with her for 27 years, it's because SHE stayed with me for 27 years".

With quite a few cult films under his belt, Michael Caine has won over young generations of viewers. Humour guides once again his assessment of the situation.

"There have been a lot of movies over the years in England about gay men, intellectual men, slightly suspicious men, men who are impotent, ice cold. One of the few actors who is continuously playing heterosexual masculinity is... me. There are no doubts about me. They don't look at me and say 'I wonder if he's gay or if he's some kind of pervert'. They trust me. I come from their milieu. The three films that they like are The Italian Job (1969), where we went to Italy and won the football game, so that's pretty good for a young guy. I played Alfie who seduced every woman he ever met in the movie, so that's pretty good for a young guy. And I played Carter who is a gangster. So if you put these three things together, that's all the young men: winning at football, getting the girls and beating up anybody he does not like. And I have represented that to an entire generation of English admirers for 30 years."

But Michael Caine is far more than simply that of course. To movie-goers of all age he is a wonderfully prolific role-catcher, capable of being, for instance, a transvestite killer in Body Double, a cursed amputated writer (The Hand by Oliver Stone), a crime boss (Mona Lisa), a husband in Woody Allen's perturbed family (Hannah and her Sisters), a true-to-life Scrooge (The Muppets' Christmas Carol), a shark hunter (Jaws: the Revenge)...

Although he did not always choose his films for art's sake, Michael Caine always delivered strong and poignant performances which landed him 3 nominations for Academy Awards as Best Actor (Alfie, Sleuth in 1972 and Educating Rita in 1983). He won the Oscar for his supporting role in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) and a Golden Globe for Best Actor in Little Voice (1998).

March 2000 : the role of Wilbur the obstetrician in Lasse Hallstrom's Cider House Rules lands Michael Caine the golden statuette for Best Supporting Role.

For him, this role was tinged by a strong autobiographical vein:
"I started to train for this part unconsciously many years ago when I was a little boy. I was evacuated from London during the war, sent outside into the country. I was sent only for 6 weeks to strangers and I was not treated very well. So I completely understand and have a great compassion for children, and a great abhorrence for any cruelty to children. When I came to play the doctor in this film, I knew exactly what the children expected of me as a kind person because I was still that child anyway. I saw a metaphor in King Kong, the film which they always watch. The grown-up seen as a kind of ugly, dangerous person... But it is wonderful if he loves only you. And that's the way these children saw me: as a kind of 'King Kong'..."