Whether or not you saw the special report on actor Michael Caine last Sunday on ”60 Minutes,” you might be interested to know that his publicists had been working for 18 months to get the story aired.
But the timing by the CBS News team couldn`t have been better because 1986 might be called The Year of Michael Caine.
He has appeared in five films in the United States this year, a sixth is scheduled for release in England in early January, and he is currently shooting a seventh–”Surrender,” a comic love story about a writer who has been divorced so many times he vows never to fall in love again . . . until he meets a character played by Sally Field.
Caine, 53, is on a creative tear right now, unlike such reclusive American stars as Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford, who seem to work once every three years. By contrast, Caine has completed 58 films, 57 in the last 22 years, and his pace is accelerating.
What`s more, he has been very good in each of his recent films, including ”Hannah and Her Sisters,” ”Mona Lisa” and the just-released ”Half Moon Street.” He also gave the only good performance in Alan Alda`s disastrous
”Sweet Liberty” and was quite effective in another flop called ”Water.”
What makes Michael run?
Speaking from his Los Angeles home during a break from filming
”Surrender,” he offered a lively analysis.
”I`m in a different position from those stars who work every three years,” he said. ”For one thing I was brought up in repertory theater in England, which meant doing 52 plays a year.
”Also, I`m not in their league financially. Some of them earn $5 million to $15 million a picture, so there`s no reason for them to work more often
–there`s no incentive.
”Me, I`m sort of a `jobbing` actor, always going around looking for work. I do have a non-British stardom of sorts. I am sort of known in America. But I`m not a full-fledged star like some of the others. In Hollywood I often hear, `Your pictures won`t play in Iowa, but Clint`s will.`
”I think I`m really just a leading character actor,” Caine said, ”and not a `star.` And I`m a different sort of actor than some of the Americans. I love to play lots of different roles, and I love to work. The only one who comes to mind who seems to experiment the way I do is Robert De Niro, who did do a bit part in `Brazil.` ”
Before you begin to think that Caine is a candidate for cinematic sainthood, do realize that he is a highly-paid actor, earning, he indicated, between $1 million and $2 million for a full-scale role.
What distinguishes Caine, however, is that he also is willing to work for much, much less when the project captures his fancy.
”I was paid $75,000 for `Mona Lisa,` ” he said, speaking of his superb villainous role in one of the year`s best love stories and thrillers. ”I did it out of respect for (the film`s star) Bob Hoskins, who is a longtime friend, and out of respect for the director Neil Jordan, who is just beginning and whose previous two films I`ve greatly admired.”
Caine became involved in ”Mona Lisa” after receiving a somewhat desperate phone call; he`s known for coming through for his friends.
”Bob called me a few weeks before shooting was to begin and said they needed someone to play the villain. And they needed someone strong, not a cameo player who would be nervous coming in for a five-day shoot.
”So I said all right, knowing that my being in the picture would help get it made and would also intrigue the bit of the audience that does follow my work. They`d wonder, `Why`d he do it?` and they might be tempted to go see it.”
And go they did, as ”Mona Lisa,” playing as long as six months in some cities, has become a financial success and is likely to earn Hoskins his first Oscar nomination.
”Yes, I think he`ll get one,” Caine said, ”but he won`t win. Nobody is going to beat Paul Newman (`The Color of Money`) this year.”
Caine considers himself a winner, too, for having done ”Mona Lisa.”
”My character is sort of like Fortinbras in `Hamlet.` He comes in and takes over the action; he`s a very powerful figure, a pure villain. Well, that was a change of pace for me–to play a pure scum like this chap (a porno theater operator and pimp).
”Typically when you`re the star of the picture your character has to have some redeeming qualities. In this case I didn`t have any, and it was a pleasure. I really enjoyed myself.”
In talking about himself and his career Caine sounded confident and serene, quite different from the many intense and uptight American leading men who live in Los Angeles. Caine lives there with his second wife, Shakira Baksh, a beautiful Guyanese woman who finished third in the Miss World contest, and their 13-year-old daughter, Natasha. He has an older daughter by a previous marriage.
”I suppose my serenity–because that`s what I really feel I have–comes from the fact it`s been a long, hard struggle on my part.
”I didn`t explode because I was formed as a personality long before I was formed as an actor. My first success (in `Zulu,` 1964) occurred when I was 31 years old. Success did not come easy. I had worked very hard. So, looking back, I think it didn`t change me because there already was a `me,` if you understand what I mean.
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”That`s why it will be interesting to follow the history of these young American `Brat Pack` actors (such as Rob Lowe and Judd Nelson) as they go along, their success coming much earlier without as much training.
”You see,” Caine continued, ”what I`m doing now with my career may be different from American actors, but there is a great tradition in England for working this often, for taking big and small roles. John Gielgud does it all the time.”
Working as much as he does, Caine also is following the tradition of classic American movie stars, who routinely did three or four pictures a year during the era of the studios.
”Right,” Caine said. ”I treat myself the way Jack Warner used to treat his contract actors.”
Caine also argued that his method of constantly working helps him with his craft.
”Experience is a safety belt,” he said. ”Some of these actors who haven`t worked in a couple of years can be quite the terror in the first few days when they show up on the set. It has to be an odd feeling for them, and they can make everyone`s life a bit miserable. Me, after 58 pictures, I`m used to working with a lot of crazies.”
He also has worked with some masters of the cinema, notably director John Huston on ”The Man Who Would Be King” and, earlier this year, on Woody Allen`s ”Hannah and Her Sisters.”
That film was exceptional for Caine in that his character was presented not as an Englishman in New York, but simply as a man. His character wasn`t given a ”back story” about, say, his being a visiting Cambridge professor.
”That was different,” Caine said. ”I think the reason Woody used me in that natural way is that he knows me very well. I spend a lot of time in New York, and we see each other regularly at Elaine`s (restaurant) or the Russian Tea Room.
”I`m very happy in New York, so I think when he sees me he thinks of me as a New Yorker. He didn`t feel the need to have it explained they way they usually do it–that my mother was a GI`s bride.”
Allen, Caine said, is the most meticulous director he has ever worked with. ”The atmosphere on his set is almost that of a religious establishment. It`s very quiet, and he`s very demanding. He notices everything.
”For example, I had a speech to deliver, and on the second take he said to me, `Why didn`t you pause in the middle of that sentence like you did the first time?` I didn`t even realize that I had paused at all. So we did it again, and I paused.
”A lot of people,” Caine continued, ”probably assume because of his humor that Woody`s films are improvised. They`re not. He works very, very hard to achieve absolute naturalism. He`s open to anything . . . after you do it his way. He`s definitely the master of his set.
”For example, there`s another scene in `Hannah` where I`m alone talking on the phone, and he had me walk in and out of the frame for a long time. It was quite different because there were plenty of moments when there was no one on the screen. I wasn`t sure it would work, but it did.”
In Caine`s latest film, the political thriller and love story ”Half Moon Street,” he plays Lord Bulbeck, a high-ranking diplomat with a sexual skeleton in his closet: He likes to spend time with call girls.
Caine comes from a humble English background: His father was a porter in a London fish market, his mother a charwoman. He was asked how he researched the role of one of England`s upper crust.
”I didn`t have to do any research,” he said, ”because I know so many lords. I`ve mixed in that society. And the British aristocracy is very weird, as portrayed in this picture. I think their sexual fetishes come from their emphasis on potty training, the use of a nanny, and on the boarding school system.
”Just when these boys are at the height of the sexual powers, they`re taken away from the company of women and shoved into a school with a load of boys. I don`t think it`s healthy.”
Caine`s upbringing was decidedly different, coming from a long line of fish porters. But after he won an acting prize at 10 for some pantomine, he knew there was another way. He quit school at 16, working odd jobs and acting occasionally in a local youth club. A depressing stint in the army in Korea encouraged him to look for a different kind of a life back in London.
After working in a butter factory, he took a job as a stage manager in Sussex and wound up on stage himself, performing all sorts of juvenile leads. It was there he met his first wife, actress Patrician Haines, and together they pursued their careers in London, until Caine got his big break in film after years on television and the London stage.
Emotionally, however, Caine`s life was more focused, he said, by his father`s death from cancer when Caine (original name: Maurice Micklewhite) was only 24 years old.
”I think I became my father. Those who knew him say that I`m just like him. And ever since my success I took the responsibility of caring for my family, which includes my mother, who is 86 years old and lives in London.”
Caine`s fatherly self-image also extends to his professional life, he said.
”I`m a sort of godfather figure to a lot of actors and directors, and I enjoy the role. That`s why, in addition to seeing my mum, I always spend three months each year in England. I like to work on English films and help them get made. Last year was English Film Year, and I was one of a number of people who came back to make a film in England.”
Some of the films that Caine has made this year that you haven`t seen are ”The Whistle Blower,” a contemporary spy thriller, and ”The Fourth Protocol,” based on a Frederick Forsythe novel, with Caine trying to foil a terrorist plot to explode a nuclear weapon.
These new thrillers mark a return to the genre that made Caine an international star with his role as a journeyman spy in ”The Ipcress File”
(1965).
”But in `Ipcress File,` ” Caine said with a laugh, ”I played Woody Allen; in `The Fourth Protocol,` I play Clint Eastwood.”
Obviously at peace with himself and thoroughly enjoying his increasing acclaim, Caine was asked to give some advice to young actors who might want to learn from his success.
One thing he said is that he was lucky to have avoided the disease that crippled the careers of many of his fellow British actors–alcoholism.
”I never got involved in that, frankly, because I couldn`t afford it. I was literally trying to make enough money to eat during my early years as an actor. I didn`t have money to spend on drinking.
”I was lucky, because I saw it kill dear Richard Burton as well as a wonderful old English actor named Wilford Lawson. And it certainly hurt Peter O`Toole and Richard Harris.
”What I drink now is wine, and I`ve become a bit of a connoisseur. In fact I like wine so much I wouldn`t think of abusing it to the point that I couldn`t drink any more of it. Phillipe Rothschild was just told that he can`t drink anymore. Can you imagine that: You own Chateau Mouton Rothschild and you can`t drink any of it!”
Regarding acting itself, Caine`s professional advice is just as practical.
”I often have people tell me that they always wanted to become an actor. And I always tell them, `No you didn`t, because if you did you would have become one.`
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”I believe that acting, like writing or painting, isn`t something that you choose as a career. It`s something that you must do.
”So my advice to someone just starting out is not to let anyone talk you out of it. That way, like me, you can go to your grave regretting only the things you have done, not the things that you haven`t done.”
In other words, Caine was saying there was no other profession that he would have liked to have pursued.
”Oh, I`ve always said that I wanted to be a writer like Eugene O`Neill. But I don`t envy the way he had to wrestle with life.
”No,” said Michael Caine with finality, now at the height of his career, ”I think I`ve found my niche, and I`m enjoying it.”