British actor, on-screen from 1956 playing second leads for years before his international appeal was recognized after 1965 and he reached top box-office stardom. He has an effectively mild manner and deliberately unconcealed cockney origins. He performed in such films as “Zulu,” 1963, “Alfie,” “Funeral in Berlin,” and “The Man Who Would be King.” He was awarded an Oscar on 3/30/1987 for Best Supporting Actor in “Hannah and Her Sisters.” The total of his work output by 1991 numbered over 70 films. He also received an Oscar for “Sleuth,” and “Educating Rita.” His most recent Oscar was for Best Supporting Actor in “Cider House Rules,” 3/26/2000.
Caine, who grew up “skinny and ugly,” was born in a slum of the bombed out ruins of post war south London. His father was a porter at Billingsgate fish market and his mother was a cleaning woman. His family lived in a rented apartment with no electricity in one of the filthiest parts of London. When he was six, his father went to fight the war, and his mother took him and his younger brother to Norfolk. At the age of 12, his father returned from the war and moved the family back to the dirty streets of London. Caine received a scholarship to Wilson’s grammar school, where his behavior was unruly and wild. As a teenager, he spent most of his time in the local cinema dreaming of becoming an actor. Dropping out of school at 16, he joined the army two years later to fight the war in Korea. He returned home two years later, taking bit roles in regional theaters while hauling crates in a butter factory, greasing rods in a schoolyard, and performing other jobs that he calls ” soul destroying.”
In 1954, he changed his name, born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, to Michael Caine. He lived in Paris, roaming the streets in a daze with not a cent to his name, before returning to England. After a hard spell, he involved himself at the Lowerstoft reparatory theater, where he met his first wife, Patricia Haines, 1953-1957. She gave birth to their daughter, Dominique, in 1958, but the marriage ended in divorce three years later. It was not until he turned 29 years old and a veteran of dozens of TV and stage plays, that he was given the chance for a major film role. An old friend, British movie star Stanley Baker, invited Caine to test for what could be a starring role in “Zulu,” 1964. Despite his performance in “Zulu,” he did not reach star status until his next film, “Ipcress File,” 1965. Caine then earned raves as the skirt-chaser Alfie Elkins in “Alfie.”
In the ’60s, he dated a string of models and actresses like Edina Rodney, Camilla Sparv and Minda Feliciano, a Filipino beauty queen. In 1971, former Miss Guyana, Shakira Baksh, caught his eye while she was doing a Maxwell House commercial. They began a relationship, living together for a year and a half when Shakira discovered she was pregnant. Caine was drinking up to three bottles of vodka a day, but she helped him kick the habit. Although he had thought he would never remarry, they married in Las Vegas a few weeks later. Shakira gave birth to his second daughter, Natasha, in 1973.
In 1977, Caine considered moving to LA, also learning that his first wife had died of lung cancer that same year. After debating with himself whether to leave, he finally made the move to the USA. Wanting to return to England’s beautiful countryside, Caine and Shakira agreed that if he did not win an Oscar for “Educating Rita,” 1983, then they would move back home. Although he did receive an Oscar, they left in 1985. Caine’s mother died of natural causes at age 89, but not before revealing to him that he has a half brother, David, who has epilepsy and lives in a mental hospital. She had been secretly visiting him for many years, but the news of his existence went public in 1991.
In 1989, he signed a 1.5 million-dollar contract with Random House to write his autobiography. Caine worked in solitude at Oxfordshire, where he and his wife reside nine months of the year, finishing “What’s It All About?” the next summer.” He experienced difficulty writing about his personal traumas in the autobiography. For example, the death of his hard-drinking father, who died at age 56 from liver cancer, as well as the premature birth of his second daughter, Natasha, spending her two weeks in an incubator. He filmed “Blue Ice,” with Sean Young in 1992. (Caine finally achieved his Oscar for “The Cider House Rules,” receiving “Best Supporting Actor,” 3/26/2000.)
Caine remains close to his wife and two daughters. Natasha attends Manchester University, and Dominique is a horse farmer. He did not learn to drive or play tennis until he was 50 years old, and he is proud that his daughter was the first of his family to attend a university. Caine has opened six restaurants in 16 years, and is researching his next book, a police thriller.
Link to Wikipedia biography