Michael Caine life and biography

Michael Caine is one of the film industry's most esteemed actors, with a career spanning over half a century and encompassing more than 100 films and a myriad of acting honors. A two time Academy Award winner, Caine won his first Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters, for which he also received Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations. He took home his second Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Lasse Hallström's The Cider House Rules, also winning a Screen Actors Guild Award and earning Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations.

In addition, Caine has garnered four Oscar nominations for Best Actor, the first coming in 1966 for the title role in Alfie, for which he also received a Golden Globe nomination and a New York Film Critics Award. He earned his second Oscar nod, as well as a Golden Globe nomination and an Evening Standard Award, for the part of Milo Tindle in 1972's Sleuth, opposite Laurence Oliver. His role in Educating Rita brought him his third Oscar nomination, as well as Golden Globe and BAFTA Awards. He gained his latest Oscar, Golden Globe and BAFTA Award nominations for his work in 2002's The Quiet American, for which he also won a London Film Critics Circle Award.

Caine previously won Golden Globe and London Film Critics Circle Awards and received a BAFTA Award nomination, all for Best Supporting Actor, for Little Voice. He won his latest London Film Critics Circle Award for his performance in Christopher Nolan's period drama The Prestige. It was his second film for the director following their collaboration on the 2005 hit Batman Begins, in which Caine played Bruce Wayne's butler and confidant, Alfred. In 2008, he reprised the role of Alfred in Nolan's blockbuster The Dark Knight.

Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite in South London in 1933 and developed an interest in acting at an early age. Upon his discharge from the Queen's Royal Regiment and Royal Fusiliers in 1953, he began pursuing his career. Taking his stage name from the title The Caine Mutiny, he toured Britain in a variety of plays and began appearing in British films and television shows.

In 1964, Caine landed his first major film role as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in Zulu. The following year, he starred in the hit thriller The Ipcress File, earning his first of 37 BAFTA Award nominations for his portrayal of secret agent Harry Palmer. However, it was his Oscar-nominated performance in the seminal sixties film Alfie that catapulted Caine to international stardom. During the late 1960s, he went on to star in 11 films, including The Ipcress File sequels, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain; Gambit, earning a Golden Globe nomination; Hurry Sundown; Woman Times Seven; Deadfall; The Magus; The Italian Job; and Battle of Britain. Over the next two decades, Caine starred in more than 40 films, including Robert Aldrich's Too Late the Hero; X, Y and Zee, opposite Elizabeth Taylor, John Huston's, The Man Who Would Be King; Harry and Walter Go to New York; Richard Attenborough's A Bridge Too Far; the Neil Simon comedy California Suite; Brian De Palma's Dressed to Kill; John Huston's Victory; Sidney Lumet's Deathtrap; Stanley Donen's Blame It on Rio; John Frankenheimer's The Holcroft Covenant; Neil Jordan's Mona Lisa; and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, for which he received a Golden Globe nomination.

Since then, Caine has starred in such films as Noises Off, Blood and Wine, Quills, Miss Congeniality, Austin Powers: Goldmember, and Lasse Hallström's Secondhand Lions. His more recent film work includes Gore Verbinski's The Weather Man, Alfonso Cuaron's Children of Men, the 2007 remake of Sleuth, the title role in the independent film Harry Brown, and reuniting with Christopher Nolan in 2010's smash hit Inception. He also appears in the upcoming Journey 2: Mysterious Island for New Line/Warner Bros.

Also an author, Caine wrote an autobiography entitled What's It All About?, as well as Acting on Film, a book based on a series of lectures he gave on BBC Television. His latest memoir, The Elephant to Hollywood, was published to much acclaim in 2010 by Henry Holt and Co. in the United States.
In the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours, Caine was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (C.B.E.), and eight years later he received a knighthood.

Personal life:
Caine lives near Leatherhead, Surrey, and is patron to the Leatherhead Drama Festival. He has also lived in North Stoke, Oxfordshire, Clewer near Windsor, Berkshire, Lowestoft in Suffolk and Chelsea Harbour in London. In addition, Caine owns a unit at The Apogee in Miami Beach, Florida. He still keeps a small flat near where he grew up in South East London. Caine published a volume of memoirs, What's It All About? in 1992 and told BBC Radio in 2010 he was preparing another, especially for aspiring actors.

He was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1955 to 1958. They had a daughter, Dominique (who was named after the heroine of the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand). He dated Bianca Jagger in 1968. Caine has been married to actress and model Shakira Baksh since 8 January 1973. They met after Caine saw her appearing in a Maxwell House coffee commercial and a friend gave him her telephone number. They have a daughter, Natasha Haleema.

Sometime after his mother died, Caine and his younger brother, Stanley, learned they had an elder half-brother, named David. He suffered from severe epilepsy and had been kept in Cane Hill Mental Hospital his entire life. Although their mother regularly visited her first son in the hospital, even her husband did not know the child existed. David died in 1992.

Trivia books written by Caine include Not Many People Know That!, And Not Many People Know This Either!, Michael Caine's Moving Picture Show and Not A Lot of People Know This is 1988. Proceeds from the books went to the National Playing Fields Association (now Fields In Trust) of which Caine was a prominent supporter.Unlike many actors who adopt their stage name for everyday use, Caine still uses his real name when he is not working.

Caine was called up for national service in the British Army in 1951 when he was aged 18 and was deployed to South Korea to help in the aftermath of the North Korean invasion. He served as part of the Royal Fusiliers. He said he had gone into it feeling sympathetic to communism, coming as he did from a poor family. But he has said the experience left him permanently repelled.

Musical Career:
Caine is a fan of chill-out music and has compiled a mix CD called Cained, which was released in 2007 by UMTV. According to Michael Caine, he met Elton John and was discussing musical tastes, when Caine claimed that he had been creating chillout mix tapes as an amateur for years. Also in music, Caine provided vocal samples for the band Madness for their 1984 hit "Michael Caine" as his daughter was a fan. He has sung in movie roles as well, including for the musical movie, The Muppet Christmas Carol.

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