Nothing less than 90 years old turns this March 14 the extraordinary actor Michael Caine. Of these, he has spent 76 being an actor and filling with talent the 150 films in which he has participated. But another 50 years he has spent with his second and final wife, who coincidentally is called Shakira. She is the mother of his second daughter, and who is permanently by his side to take care of him with the hard and painful health problems that the actor has gone through in recent years, but that have not stopped him from time to continue working. The last film in which he has participated, Medievalhas been shot during the past year 2022. A British legend of cine that never disappoints.
This Tuesday Michael Caine turns 90 intense years. Intense because his life is full of content. The boy born with the name of Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in the suburbs of London, in the bosom of a humble family, of a father who unloaded fish in the port, spent his childhood in a miserable house without a bathroom and without hot water, he worked as a young man as a dishwasher, plumber or in a laundry, and it was his activity in a theater group that changed his life.
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As an amateur, he gradually learned the trade and landed very small roles under the name of Michael Scott, which was easier to remember than the one he inherited from his father. When he discovered that another actor with that name already existed, and already had an agent, when he saw the film The Caine Mutiny he settled on his current stage name forever.
Caine began working in 1946 and from that date until last year he has appeared in 154 films of all kinds of genres, from comedy to drama, and has represented roles as a policeman, as a thief, as a man from any historical period, with a very peculiar diction because he never reneged on the initial accent cockneysomething like the current neighborhood “kani”, typical of those who come from the humble area where he grew up.
Caine studied Drama and always appeared with an impeccable demeanor, as if he had been a real fan from the cradle. gentlemen English, for his attire and his exquisite manners. At first, his participation in important roles as a tough and even evil man almost pigeonholed him as a cold and calculating guy; just remember the flirt of Alfiethe criminal of the relentless killerthe upstart lover in The footprint or the spy in the fourth protocol.
Married 50 years with Shakira
However, he has not been a tough man at all in his personal life. He married in 1955 with also an actress Patricia Haineshis first wife, with whom he had his eldest daughter, Dominique. After seven years of living together, they broke up, partly because he had a certain rivalry with her as an artist, because he was doing very well in the theater and in the movies, and Michael did not like seeing himself as a keeper. Alcohol and bad mood ended the relationship.
He met his second wife through a coffee ad he saw on television. Shakira was an exotic beauty working in London and Caine went out of his way to track her down. It was very difficult for him to get the girl to give him a first date, because she did not trust an already famous actor and known as a womanizer. Finally Shakira, from a Muslim family and with Indian blood, who had been Miss Guayaba and was 12 years younger than her husband, married Caine in 1973, and immediately after the wedding, was born Natashathe only daughter of the marriage.
This winner of two Oscars as a supporting actor for Hannah and her sisters y The rules of the Cider HouseIt could have ended very badly because he had a time when alcoholism and smoking dominated him, but precisely his wife, with special patience, managed to save him from disaster.
In addition to the films, the actor has written two books with some sales success and has accumulated a comfortable financial situation, with a fortune that stands at seventy million euros. He has the title of Sir granted in his day by the Queen isabel II, spoke in favor of Brexit, and continues to celebrate his birthday despite the fact that he has gone through cancer and a significant and painful back condition that has reduced his mobility. He may be logical at his age, but he is also severely affected psychologically by a terrifying fear of death.