He is a prolific, if nondiscriminating, Cockney actor who has appeared in an inordinate number of bad movies but who has been in many more better ones. His versatility has been the key to his success; he can play charming villains and rogues, flawed action heroes, romantic leads, and comic characters, all with equal ease—and always with a realistic, human touch. Caine is an international movie star who has come to be seen by movie audiences in the United States as “our” Englishman in much the same way David Niven, Ronald Colman, and Leslie Howard were adopted by American movie fans.
Born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite to a poor family at the height of the Great Depression, Caine struggled through his youth, eventually going to war in a British combat unit assigned to the United Nations forces in Korea in the early 1950s. After returning to England, he changed his name to Michael Scott when he began his acting career as a bit player in English repertory theaters. Later, when he took on an agent and began to appear in small roles in English films, he was forced to change his name yet again because there already was a Michael Scott in British Equity. The lifelong Humphrey Bogart fan noticed The Caine Mutiny playing at a local theater and chose the name Caine.
His first noticeable part in the movies was in A Hill in Korea (1956). Between 1956 and 1963 Caine had small roles in 30 films and appeared on the BBC no less than 125 times in various shows, but not until he had a major supporting role in Zulu (1963) did his career begin to take off. It is generally assumed that Alfie (1966) was his first major hit, but he actually starred the year before as Harry Palmer in the Ipcress File and made a considerable impression, playing the first movie hero (comedians aside) to wear glasses. His glasses have since become his trademark.
As Alfie, however, Caine established himself as a sex symbol, thanks to his sympathetic portrayal of a self-centered cad, which received an Academy Award nomination and gave a substantial boost to his career in the bargain. His first American movie was made that same year when he was a surprise choice to play a southerner in Otto Preminger’s Hurry Sundown, a movie that bombed but showed his range as an actor to good effect.
Despite the box-office failure of an unusually high percentage of his films, Caine is almost always universally praised by critics; the usual line goes something like, “His performance is far better than this movie deserves.” The actor’s ability to rise above his material has allowed him to continue to receive excellent roles in a variety of films.
Despite good personal reviews, however, it appeared as if his star was dimming in the early 1970s after a particularly long spell of losers—until he costarred with Laurence Olivier in the hit mystery Sleuth (1972), stealing the notices and winning his second Oscar nomination.
Four years of flops followed, but he ended the skid with his wonderful performance in John Huston’s much admired The Man Who Would Be King (1976). After another four years of dismal films, he played the psychiatrist/killer in Brian De Palma’s smash hit Dressed to Kill (1980). For the most part, he appeared in better movies during the 1980s, such as Death Trap (1982), Educating Rita (1983), Sweet Liberty (1986), and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988). But it was typical of the actor’s career that he was filming the trashy Jaws IV (1987) at the time of his winning a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance in Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986). By the end of the century, Michael Caine had appeared in more than 100 movies, some of the best released during the 1990s and beyond.
A few of these films were fun, such as A Muppet Christmas Carol (1993), Austin Powers: Goldmember (2002), and Miss Congeniality (2000). There were nostalgic cameos, such as his appearance in the remake of Get Carter (2000), with a relatively inarticulate Sylvester Stallone in the original Caine role.
Caine’s more important “serious” roles included Bob Rafelson’s Blood and Wine (1997), Little Voice (1998), Cider House Rules (1999, for which he won his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Phil Kaufman’s Quills (2000, playing the villainous Royer-Collard who runs the asylum in the film that featured Geoffrey Rush as the marquis de Sade), the adaptation of Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders (2001), and his portrayal of Graham Greene’s cynical journalist, Thomas Fowler, in the Philip Noyce adaptation of The Quiet American (2002), which earned Caine an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
In the year 2000, Michael Caine was knighted in recognition of his stellar career.
Our website is not responsible for the information contained by this article. Webworldarticles.com is a free articles resource thus practically any visitor can submit an article. However if you notice any copyrighted material, please contact us and we will remove the article(s) in discussion right away.
This article was sent to us by:
Stacey B. Wattson at
04182010
1. Robert Aldrich produced many social and political movies
All articles in this directory are property of their respective authors. Additionally, read our Privacy Policy
© 2010 WebWorldarticles.com - All Rights Reserved.