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Drink, drugs, and disastrous auditions: 10 knockout Michael Caine stories

Michael Caine - Getty Creative
Michael Caine - Getty Creative

Happy birthday, Sir Michael Caine. The actor formerly known as Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr turns 85 on March 14. We celebrate his long and eventful life by recounting 10 of our favourite Caine anecdotes.  

1. He was mistaken for a drug dealer

Caine's trademark Cockney accent once made him a suspected drug dealer. At a VIP party in the Philippines, the hostess angrily accused him of selling Class A narcotics to fellow guests. “When I said, ‘No I’m not, why do you ask?’, she replied ‘Then why is everyone calling you My Cocaine?’” Yep, his pronunciation of his own name was what landed him in hot water. 

In reality, Caine’s never had much truck with drugs. He smoked a spliff once at a London party during the Sixties and got the hysterical giggles so badly, no taxi would take him home. He had to walk from Mayfair to Notting Hill and swore he’d never do drugs again. 

2. He once got through 80 cigarettes and two bottles of vodka per day

Caine lived life hard in his Sixties heyday. He chain-smoked four packs of cigarettes daily, until the starry trio of Tony Curtis, Yul Brynner and Alex “Hurricane” Higgins persuaded him to stop. 

Michael and Shakira Caine, in 2003 - Credit: AP
Michael and Shakira Caine, in 2003 Credit: AP

He also admits: “I was a bit of a piss artist and used to drink a bottle of vodka a day, sometimes two. I wasn’t unhappy, but it was stress, You know, ‘Am I going to get another picture? How will I remember all those lines? I’ve got to get up at 6am and I hope the alarm works.” Caine adds: “The best research for playing a drunk is being a British actor for 20 years.

His second wife Shakira, a model who Caine pursued after seeing her on a Maxwell House coffee ad, “calmed him down” after their 1973 marriage. “Without her, I would have been dead long ago,” he says. “I would’ve probably drunk myself to death.” He now only enjoys wine with dinner.

3. Zulu made him boycott South Africa

Caine’s 1964 breakthrough film Zulu was largely shot on location in South Africa. Various incidents on-set brought home the realities of the country’s oppressive apartheid regime. Caine and actor/producer Stanley Baker witnessed one black labourer on the film crew being reprimanded by an Afrikaans foreman with a punch in the face. 

Baker sacked the foreman on the spot and made clear that such behaviour would not be tolerated on-set. Meanwhile, Caine swore never to make another film in South Africa while apartheid was in force and kept to his word.

Zulu
Zulu

Playing against working-class type as blue-blooded Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead, Caine couldn’t ride a horse, so a crew member took his place in the early scene where he crosses a stream on horseback. That’s why the camera pans down on to the horse. B ecause he was playing an officer, he also copied Prince Philip by walking with his hands behind his back. When Paramount saw the first rushes, they sent a telegram saying, “Fire actor playing Bromhead – doesn’t know what to do with hands.”’

4. He lost an entire Sunday with Peter O’Toole

In 1959 play The Long & The Short & The Tall, Caine was understudy for Peter O’Toole. The hard-drinking older actor invited Caine to dinner one Saturday after the show and they sat down to a plate of chips, with a bottle of brandy to wash them down. 

Peter O'Toole in 1965 - Credit: Bob Haswell/Getty
Peter O'Toole in 1965 Credit: Bob Haswell/Getty

The next thing Caine remembered was waking up in a strange flat in Hampstead, fully clothed, in the same bed as O’Toole. It was 5pm and he sighed with relief because there was no performance on Sunday nights - until a girl walked in and calmly informed them it was actually Monday, two days since the chips and brandy. 

Curtain up was at 8pm, so they hot-footed to the Royal Court theatre in Chelsea. "Never ask what you did,” O’Toole told Caine. “It's better not to know.” When O'Toole left the role to film Lawrence of Arabia, Caine took over the role for the play’s remaining months.

5. His mother was pretty tough too

Born into South London poverty in 1933, Caine describes the Second World War as “the best thing that happened to me. We got bombed out and put in a lovely prefab with an indoor bathroom at the Elephant and Castle. Then I was evacuated from a slum to the country.”

Michael Caine with his mother Ellen Micklewhite - Credit:  Harry Dempster/Hulton
Michael Caine with his mother Ellen Micklewhite Credit: Harry Dempster/Hulton

However, the first family he lived with in Norfolk thrashed him regularly and went away every weekend, locking six-year-old Caine and another evacuee boy in the cupboard under the stairs from Friday to Monday, with just pork pies and water as sustenance. 

When his Cockney charlady mother Ellen found out, Caine recalls, “she was absolutely furious and nearly went to prison because she beat the woman up so badly”.

6. Jack Nicholson rescued him from being a restaurateur 

Caine has long dabbled in the restaurant business and owned five at his peak, including Langan’s Brasserie in Mayfair and South Beach Brasserie in Miami. The sideline took up his time during the Nineties when film roles eluded him and he became disenchanted with Hollywood. One day in South Beach Brasserie, though, his friend Jack Nicholson persuaded him to co-star in noir thriller Blood & Wine. “Jack brought me back to life and restored my faith in the business,” Caine says.

Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine in Blood and Wine
Jack Nicholson and Michael Caine in Blood and Wine

He also tells a story from the making of Blood & Wine: “We were strolling towards the set when suddenly a cry went up: ‘The sun’s going! Hurry up, we’re losing the light!’ Everybody started dashing around, so I broke into a run too - until Jack held me back and said ‘Don’t run because they’ll know it’s us who’s late.’ That sums up his whole character in one line.” 

His advice for a night out with Nicholson? “Wear old clothes and heavy-toed boots, because you’ll get trampled by women trying to get to Jack.”

7. Elton John got him a record deal

In 2007, Caine was having dinner at Elton John's house in Nice. Chillout music was playing in the background and every time a track came on, Caine would name the song, artist and release date, and usually offer a titbit of trivia too. Elton asked him how he knew all this stuff and Caine admitted he was a chillout buff who’d been making his own amateur mixtapes for years. 

cained
cained

"Elton said I should release my own compilation CD and immediately rang up Lucien Grainge, who ran Universal,” Caine recalls. “'I'm going to get you a record deal,' said Elton. And he did. Two minutes later, aged 74, I had a three-album deal.” He promptly released a compilation CD called Cained on the UMTV label.

8. He made his acting debut with flies undone

Caine’s first appearance as a professional actor was in 1952, aged 20. When he stepped on-stage in a Horsham, Sussex theatre, though, he had his trouser flies open. The laughter in the audience this provoked made Caine forget the single line he was supposed to speak: "Come along with me, sir." 

Caine recalls: ”When one of the actors whispered it to me, his voice was so soft, I didn’t hear what he said and I replied, 'What?' in a normal voice." The audience laughter grew even louder, Unfortunately, the play wasn’t a comedy.

9. Quincy Jones is his long-lost twin

Fabled music impresario Quincy Jones also turns 85 on 14 March. He and Caine were born within minutes of each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic - a coincidence they discovered on the set of The Italian Job, after Caine asked Jones to compose the film’s score. 

Quincy Jones - Credit: AP
Quincy Jones Credit: AP

They’ve been friends for the 49 years since and call themselves “celestial twins”. However, Jones admits that Caine shouldn’t play him in a mooted biopic and tips Terrence Howard to get the gig instead.

10. Sean Connery snapped his golf club in fury

Two of Caine’s best pals, actors Sidney Poitier and Sean Connery, are keen golfers. When Caine tried to take up the sport too, it didn’t go well. 

“My lack of ability made Sidney sad,” he says. “But it just made Sean angry. He has a terrible temper and when he tried to teach me golf, he was so incensed by my performance that he grabbed my club and broke it in two. I've never played since.” 

He adds that he never will because “I don’t want to upset two of my best friends. Sean, in particular.”