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Michael Caine

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 twotime 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 Olivier. 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.


Note: This profile was written in or before 2011.
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Michael Caine Facts

Birth NameMaurice Joseph Micklewhite
OccupationActor
BirthdayMarch 14, 1933 (91)
SignPisces
BirthplaceLondon, England, United Kingdom
Height6' 2" (1m88)  How tall is Michael Caine compared to you?
Awards2001 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role (for Erin Brockovich)
2000 Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor (for The Cider House Rules)
2000 Screen Actors Guild Awards: Best Male Actor in a Supporting Role (for The Cider House Rules)
1999 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical (for Little Voice)
1989 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor in a Mini-Series or a TV Film (for Jack the Ripper)
1987 Academy Awards: Best Supporting Actor (for Hannah and Her Sisters)
1984 Golden Globe Awards: Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical (for Educating Rita)

Selected Filmography

Interstellar
The Last Witch Hunter
Now You See Me 2
Cars 2
Kingsman: The Secret Service
The Holcroft Covenant
The Dark Knight
Inception
Now You See Me
The Dark Knight Rises
Continue » Find more details on the Michael Caine Movies page