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His name is Michael Caine and he is a screen legend.
It was a chance glimpse of the The Caine Mutiny (1954) starring his idol Humphrey Bogart that gave the young Maurice Micklewight his screen name â€" one that would legendary.
In a career crossing seven decades, Michael Caine has gone on to star in classic of the silver screen on both sides of the Atlantic. Taking in all manner of genres from dream bending science-fiction to bee swarming horror and crime capers, he is one of the few actors to create so many memorable film appearances while remaining utterly his iconic self.
Winning awards while creating a diverse Ipcress File of unforgettable characters, Caine has not only managed to work with many of his screen idols and up-and-coming stars through the decades, but also some Muppets.
Just as he learned from the best in his formative years, Caine continues to bring his support to you ng directors and actors to this day.
Happy 80th birthday, Michael Caine.
Spears and Glasses
Southwark-born Caine started acting in the 1950s, treading the boards regionally and in London before understudying and then succeeding Peter O'Toole in a stage play, when the older actor left to film Lawrence of Arabia (1962).
However it was three years earlier that Caine burst onto the screen. Well, sauntered rather, officially onto the screen, playing the role of Sailor in Sailor Beware (1956) and Private Lockyer in A Hill in Korea (1956).
Caine would then battle through 17 or so films and countless TV roles into the early 60s when a meeting with actor Stanley Baker put him on the road to success, spears and one of his most famous misquotes.
Zulu (1964) not only gifted Caine with a definitive role and real breakthrough, but also set brought his famous accent to the fore.
Initially tipped for the role of a cockney soldier, the film’s American director Cy Enfield thought Caine looked more like an officer. When Caine said he could play with a posh accent, the part of Lt. Gonville Bromhead was his.
When he didn’t quite hit the received pronunciation he perhaps should, Caine's famous regional accent was at last heard in a leading role in a big budget film.
The Swinging Sixties
In the late 1960s into the early 1970s, Caine was consistently one of Britain's highest ranking box office actors.
The peak was 1966 when he portrayed legendary womanizer Alfie. Darker than most usually credit it as being, the film cemented him as a figurehead of London in the swinging sixties.
While the accent remained the same, Caine had also proved his versatility the year before when he took on the role of Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965).
Another definitive Caine role, the film was established by Bond producer Harry Saltzman as a franchise to run concurrent to his other slightly suaver British superspy. And run it did. Caine appeared in three Palmer films in three years, doing no end of ambassadorial work for NHS specs.
As the Sixties continued to swing, they served up a slew of classic Caine quotes, perhaps none more so than 1969's The Italian Job.
Co-starring Noel Coward, Benny Hill, a young Robert Powell and three fast cars, the crime caper came cemented his iconic Sixties status while foisting no end of British crime films on the world.
With classic scenes, memorable lines, national pride and a showcase of British car production â€" not to mention that ending - it was inevitable that the later Hollywood remake would not live up to its namesake.
Not just an icon in Britain, 1966 was also the year when Caine’s status was picked up by America - that year Gambit became his first Hollywood film.
1970s grit and sleuthing
Caine wound the 1960s out with a return to war in The Battle of Britain, easily fitting into the ensemble piece. The 1970s would find him diversifying even further.
The gritty crime revenge thriller Get Carter was another classic destined to be Hollywood-ised later on by Sylvester Stallone, but this at least saw Caine making a cameo appearance. The grit of the role would remain with Caine throughout his career.
His no nonsense delivery, heavy screen presence and iconic brandishing of a shotgun would pop up again, most recently in 2009’s Harry Brown - a title that surely also references his iconic Harry Palmer turn while bringing him roundly back to the streets of London.
While excelling as the archetypal British gangster, Caine also found time to star in more theatrical fare. 1972’s saw him square off against Sir Laurence Olivier in Anthony Shaffer’s twisty two-hander Sleuth.
Ever with a mind to the cycles of his career, Caine long wanted to remake the film, getting his wish in 2007 when he took on Olivier’s role and another one-time Alfie, Jude Law, took on the role Caine had originated.
Starring two fine British actors, directed by Kenneth Branagh and with a script adapted by Harold Pinter the remake was interesting development of the original but with a cold and clinical touch that melts against the stylish charm of the original.
Comedy Caine
Alongside his dramatic roles, Caine also fondly remembered for his comedy turns.
It was a natural fit when the icon of sixties film and original Harry Palmer guested as Austin Power’s father in Goldmember. Also, who can forget his spivingly devilish turn opposite Steve Martin in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988)?
Special mention must also go to The Muppet' s Christmas Carol (1992). A role equivalent to Hamlet for rudely-awakened, night gown wearing actors of a certain age, Caine took on the Scrooge role brilliantly.... against a bunch of Muppets.
Caine even sings while skipping past a Victorian old curiosity shop called Micklewight's. Legendary.
The New Swimming pool
You never catch Michael Caine just shouting in a role by telephone, even when adrift in a rudderless film.
At the onset of the 1980s, Caine started receiving some criticism for his choice of films as he increasingly spent more time in America. But it’s actually water that seems to be the key problem.
In the 1979 he took on the role of lead antihero in Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. That film’s interesting for having a plot that runs concurrent to its blockbuster prequel, but... little else.
Perhaps most well known, is Caine’s appearance in Jaws: The Revenge. It was a surprising piece of casting: Hoagie, the ex-pat pilot, unflappable British relief and probably the only man who can escape a great white shark when it eats his plane.
Just think how bad those films would be without him!
But it’s not just the water onscreen. When asked why he had taken a role in the shark fourquel, Caine reportedly replied "it paid for a nice swimming pool". Who can blame him? If you ever think Caine occasionally lacks quality control, just look how he deftly avoided the late 90s run of Brit gangster films.
The Award grabbing
Caine was away filming Jaws: The Revenge and unable to attend the ceremony when he won a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986. That shows diversity, if nothing else. But this proved to be just one of many nominations and prizes.
Caine had first been nominated for Best Actor BAFTAs for The Ipcress File and Alfie in two successive years in the 1960s, the latter also landing him a nod at the Academy Awards.
He would later win large at BAFTA and the Golden Globes for his role as the grizzled and alcoholic professor Frank Bryant in Educating Rita (1983), opposite a very Scouse Julie Walters.
But perhaps his greatest prize was the 1999 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Cider House Rules. Not making the same mistake twice, when Caine accepted the prize for his role as the orphanage director Walter Larch he took to the stage in scintillating style, making one of the greatest Oscar acceptance speeches of all time.
The Bat and Beyond
It was a little surprising when Caine was cast as the Dark Knight's stalwart Alfred Pennyworth in Warner Brother's 2005 Batman reboot Batman Begins (2005).
Again his cockney gravitas was being called on to play a character previously associated with RP. But unlike Zulu, Caine wasn’t cast by an American director who the actor suspected may know little of the nuances of the British class system, but Brit Christopher Nolan.
 Undoubtedly there were class barriers that Caine had to transcend in the 1960s, but by the 21st century, times had caught up with his trailblazing.
It was excellent casting, adding gravitas and further Brit talent to the new harder style of comic book adaptation. The role was also to spark a long term relationship, with Caine not only appearing in the whole box office behemoth of the Dark Knight trilogy but also taking redemptive roles in Nolan's brilliant Inception (2008) and sublime The Prestige (2006).
Still relevant, still working with young directors, still diversifying in and out of the Hollywood system â€" it looks like there’s plenty more of Sir Maurice Micklewhite to come.
And lots of people know that.
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