Michael Caine retires from acting aged 90
LONDON: British actor and two-time Oscar winner Michael Caine has said he will retire from acting aged 90, following the release of his latest film.
“I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well I am now,” Caine told BBC radio in an interview. “I’ve figured I’ve had a picture where I’ve played the lead and had incredible reviews… What am I going to do that will beat this? I’ve got wonderful reviews. What am I going to do to beat this?”
Caine stars in “The Great Escaper” opposite Glenda Jackson, who died in June shortly after completing her part in the film. The film is based on the true story of a World War Two veteran who escapes from a care home to attend D-Day anniversary celebrations in France.
“The only parts I’m liable to get now are 90-year-old men. Or maybe 85,” Caine told the BBC. “So I thought, I might as well leave with all this.”
Caine began his acting career on the stage in the early 1950s, before making his movie debut in 1956. Originally called Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, Jr., he adopted the screen name Caine taken from the 1954 film “The Caine Mutiny.”
Caine has played secret agents, playboys, adventurers, schoolteachers and killers. He portrayed the British spy Harry Palmer in five films, with fame coming after his first stint in the role, in the 1965 drama thriller “The Ipcress File.” His next big break came a year later, when he starred as a promiscuous chauffeur in the 1966 romantic comedy “Alfie.”
Caine received his first Academy Award for his supporting role in the 1986 Woody Allen film “Hannah and Her Sisters,” and the second for another supporting role, in the 1999 film “The Cider House Rules.”
He starred alongside Sean Connery in John Huston’s 1975 adventure movie “The Man Who Would Be King;” played a journalist in Vietnam in the 2002 Graham Greene adaptation “The Quiet American” and portrayed butler Alfred Pennyworth in the 2008 film “The Dark Knight.”
Caine was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1993, and he was knighted in 2000.