Celebrate Michael Caine’s 86th Birthday With a Look Back at His Memorable Movies and Famous Roles (Exclusive)

The Reinvention of England and the Introduction of Michael Caine

“Britain was obviously wounded by World War II, so it took 10 years to really recover from that,” says Matthew. “And all of a sudden, it was almost like Britain went from black and white into color. It became this completely new, fresh place with a new generation of kids coming through. Everything suddenly was becoming possible. London was the place to be, and it was through Michael Caine’s generation that it did come alive. Everything became a bit more loose. Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll hit London, and Michael Caine was right at the heart of that. All of a sudden, many of those actors like Terence Stamp, Albert Finney and Michael Caine came through when people fell in love with working class heroes. They were writing films about working class heroes, and working class heroes became stars.

“Although Caine’s first major role was in Zulu it wasn’t one of those parts, but it put him on the map,” the author elaborates. “Remember, he wasn’t the star of that film. It was really Stanley Baker that was the star of that film; Caine had a supporting role, but it brought him to the attention of everybody.”

‘The Ipcress File’

Author Len Deighton’s spy Harry Palmer was the role that truly put Michael Caine on the map as the actor played the part five times beginning with 1965’s The Ipcress File. “Harry Palmer came after James Bond,” Matthew points out. “Palmer was a real secret agent; he was somebody that you saw in the supermarket pushing a shopping cart around. Also, Caine loved those films and that character, because they allowed him to wear glasses — no leading man wore glasses in a film before. And people were really nervous about it, because they said, ‘Well, hold on a second. Everyone’s going to think he’s gay!’ Which is obviously such a narrow-minded view in the ‘60s, but was probably quite true. But Harry Palmer was a completely different type of spy than we’d seen before. Director Sidney J. Furie shot it in a really interesting way. He shot fight sequences through a phone booth, through car windows, and used a whole host of other obscure and gimmicky camera angles. Look, the film wasn’t a big box office blockbuster by any means, but people just seem to remember it.”

The Ipcress File would inspire the theatrical sequels Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967) as well as TV movies Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in St. Petersburg (1996).

The ’60s Greatest Hits

Very quickly, Michael Caine found himself starring in a number of films in Britain and America that secured his reputation. Alfie (1966), in which he played an unrepentant ladies man who comes to realize there are consequences for his way of life, scored him his first Academy Award nomination. That same year’s comedy thriller Gambit (produced in America) teamed him up with Shirley MacLaine and saw him playing a cat burglar who needs the help of a Eurasian dancer to pull off the ultimate heist. The Italian Job (1969) cast him as a crook intent on robbing gold ingots in Italy and doing so by using a computer expert to create the ultimate traffic jam.

“You look at those films, and you realize that he epitomized the ‘60s,” Matthew emphasizes. “He was what the new Britain was all about, and he fit in so well and was a great international export. I mean, America loved him, too. What’s funny is that a lot of those movies very quickly became iconic and are so well remembered today.”

1970s: ‘Sleuth,’ ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ and More

The decade of the 1970s was odd for Michael in the sense that things started off with him very much still trying intriguing roles and projects, from Get Carter (1971), which cast him as a gangster investigating the death of his brother’s mysterious death, to the mystery Sleuth, that saw him playing opposite Sir Laurence Olivier, and John Huston’s wonderful adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975), which saw him co-starring alongside Sean Connery. But there would definitely be a shift in the choices of projects he made.

Reflects Matthew, “In the first part of the ‘70s, he did some very interesting things. Michael Caine was very nervous about being in Sleuth with Laurence Olivier, because it’s literally a two-hander; just Olivier and Caine. And after the first two or three days, Olivier turned around to Caine and said, ‘I realize I have a partner,’ which Caine said was one of the nicest things an actor has ever said to him. Olivier was recognizing how great he was. And then there’s The Man Who Would Be King — an incredible partnership with Sean Connery, and he just loved working with John Huston. Caine once said, ‘If anybody could hear God speak, he would sound like John Huston.’”

Disaster Movies — In More Ways Than One

There was definitely a shift in the quality of projects that the actor chose as the 1970s wore on and turned into the 1980s. Disaster films like The Swarm (1978) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), forgettable horror efforts like The Hand (1981) or the sex comedy Blame It On Rio (1984), and the one people turn to particularly to drive home the notion of commerce over quality: Jaws: The Revenge (1987).

“After The Man Who Would Be King, I think Caine lost his way,” Matthew proposes. “He was fed up with the amount he was paying in taxes in the U.K. and became a tax exile in California. And upon his arrival, he indulged himself in a string of big budget disaster movies, which is what Hollywood was doing at the time. I mean, they were really disasters in every sense of the word. But he once said, ‘First of all, I pick the good roles, and when those don’t come along, I pick the ones that pay the rent.’ I think the famous one for Jaws: The Revenge is once he was on a TV show and they asked him why he did that film. Caine very casually said, ‘Well, I haven’t seen Jaws: The Revenge, but I have seen the house it’s built and it is terrific.’ Which I thought was a brilliant line.”

“Maybe it goes back to his working class roots when he didn’t have any money,” he adds, “and so the opportunity of earning a couple of hundred thousand dollars for a picture in the mid-70s, why would you not do it? That’s kind of the attitude he had, but I think he always wanted to tap into those big blockbuster movies, which I don’t think he did particularly well.”

‘Twas Art Amongst the Schlock

That period truly was an odd one in terms of Michael’s career. Even with what seems to have been one terrible choice after another (new house notwithstanding), he still managed quality projects. Educating Rita (1983) saw him as a middle-aged alcoholic professor whose love for teaching is rekindled when he encounters a student who genuinely wants to learn; Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), directed by Woody Allen, has him playing the husband of the title character (Mia Farrow) who falls in love with his sister-in-law, Lee (Barbara Hershey); and his co-starring with Bob Hoskins in Mona Lisa (1986) and Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988).

“Educating Rita was firm evidence of Caine’s acting ability,” Matthew points out, “because it was so completely different to anything that he’d done before. He put on weight, he grew a beard and I think it really tested him as an actor. Plus, he got another Oscar nomination for that and won the BAFTA. So that was him really coming back and was one of his best performances. Then he got the Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters although, funnily enough, he didn’t go to the Oscars for Hannah because he was filming Jaws: The Revenge. So that kind of puts it into perspective for you, doesn’t it? But the early ‘90s was a bad time for him. He pretty much gave everything up; he’d grown dissatisfied with making films. That’s when he took some time off and wrote his autobiography and opened a string of restaurants.

“But in 1998 he made Little Voice, which was a great film that put him back on the map. When that came out he said, ‘I’ve made a lot of crap and a lot of money, which means I can afford to be artistic now.’ He followed that with another strong one, [1999’s]The Cider House Rules.”

In the U.K., the ’90s Were Transformative for Michael Caine

When considering that Michael was worked consistently over the past more than 60 years, Matthew believes part of that has to do with a late ‘90s period in the U.K. that was dubbed “Brit Pop,” where everything from the 1960s became fashionable again.

“Austin Powers was in the birth of all that,” he points out. “British pop music was suddenly popular again, and it was all a fantastic export. James Bond came back with Pierce Brosnan in GoldenEye, the mini-car was in vogue again. Michael Caine was a symbol of the ‘60s and, so, was discovered by a whole new generation; he wasn’t seen as a geezer. He was seen as a really cool guy that people could look up to. As a result, he became this hero to a whole new generation of kids, hence he had this role in Austin Powers in Goldmember [2002] and I think Christopher Nolan discovered him in about 2004 when he joined Batman Begins [2005] as Alfred. So he had this iconic rebirth in the U.K. in the late ‘90s, which Sean Connery and Roger Moore never had.

“Then, of course, he got the second Oscar in 2000 for The Cider House Rules, and that was the gentlest character he’d ever played. I thought he was terrific in that. And then literally within a couple of years he got another nomination for The Quiet American. So he became really busy in the early 2000s. Now he is doing less movies, but he has done pretty much everything Christopher Nolan has directed since Batman Begins, he did Going in Style with Morgan Freeman a couple of years ago, so he’s still working with big movie stars. It’s not like he’s come back to the UK and is making small quirky movies with actors you’ve never heard of, like what happens to a lot of big actors. He’s still right at the top of his game, doing big movies and working with really interesting directors.”

An Actor’s Legacy

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Michael has worked continuously, either in small parts, character roles, voiceovers and, again, in pretty much everything Christopher Nolan does (he’s even heard at one point in Dunkirk). Last year he starred in King of Thieves, this year will see the release of Medieval, and he’ll be back in 2020 with Four Kids and It and Come Away. Obviously the man has no intention of retiring, and we’re all the better off for it.

“When I think about his legacy,” says Matthew, “I’d say he represents probably the most important decade of popular culture in Britain: the ‘60s. But his legacy is the fact that he’s grown up on screen. We’ve seen a 30-year-old Michael Caine, we’ve seen a 50-year-old Michael Caine, we’ve seen an 80-year-old Michael Caine, and probably in a couple of years we’re going to see a 90-year-old Michael Caine on screen. What’s incredible is most actors these days have a shelf life or career of maybe 10, 15, 20 years when they stay at the top of their game. But, most importantly, he’s still relevant. If you show a 21-year-old a picture of Michael Caine, they know exactly who it is. Dare I say, if you showed them a picture of another actor of that generation, they probably wouldn’t be able to tell you. And I don’t think it’s them being ignorant, it just doesn’t sit with them. Whereas Michael Caine does.

“He’s a man who’s going to have been at the top of his game for 60 years, and I can’t think of any other actor that has actually done that. Who have carried on working in A-list movies and characters, from Alfie to Alfred.”