Sir Michael Caine

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

Presenter0:10

For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.

Presenter0:34

My castaway this Christmas is Sir Michael Kane. He is, of course, a British film legend, appearing in more than a hundred pictures and winning two Oscars in a movie career that has, so far, spanned four decades. Alfie, Zulu, Get Carter, The Italian Job, Educating Rita and Hannah and Her Sisters are just a handful of the films he's known for. It is an extraordinary roster, and all the more remarkable because, when he was a child, it seemed that working from dawn in Billingsgate Fish Market was the sum of what life had to offer. Tell a Cockney he's no good, he says, and he'll dedicate his life to proving otherwise. Michael Kane, that quote suggests that you are somebody who will not be defeated.

Sir Michael Caine1:15

Yeah, it was very funny because during a particular hard time of my life, much later.

Sir Michael Caine1:21

I heard the saying by Winston Churchill.

Sir Michael Caine1:24

And it's been my motto ever since. And he said, If you're going through hell, keep going.

Presenter1:32

Tell me about those uh those first moments when you fell in love with cinema. You went to the pictures when you were how old?

Sir Michael Caine1:37

Yeah, I I was three. They took me to the Thrupney Rush, which is the cinema on Saturday morning of the Trumps.

Presenter1:43

For sure.

Sir Michael Caine1:44

The first movie I ever saw, I remember it very clearly, was The Lone Ranger. I saw The Lone Ranger and I decided that's what I wanted to be. I didn't want to be an actor, I didn't know what now I wanted to be The Lone Ranger.

Speaker 31:56

Right.

Sir Michael Caine1:56

And then everything went dark.

Sir Michael Caine1:59

and someone had thrown an overcoat off the balcony. It went over my head. I got that off. We put our feet up to r relax, and the entire row went back because someone had taken the screws out of the floor.

Sir Michael Caine2:13

Everybody behind us suddenly got an entire row of people on their knees, so it was very funny because the entire row behind us suddenly shot straight up.

Presenter2:23

It sounds pretty rough and ready as you describe it. You you now watch uh you watch pictures in a slightly more rarefied atmosphere. You have a home cinema.

Sir Michael Caine2:25

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine2:30

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not it's not sort of designer with straight chairs. You have your own great big thing and the refrigerator in the in the arm with a couple of beers in it and everything. And my cinema is like that, but the projector and everything is the height of technical advancement. If a new projector comes out, I change it. I'd go for the best possible picture I can get the whole time.

Presenter2:52

I know it's a bit vulgar, but can I ask you how much your cinema cost?

Sir Michael Caine2:55

About a hundred and twenty thousand pounds.

Presenter2:58

Money well spent.

Sir Michael Caine2:59

Also, you see, I'm a member of the Academy the Academy uh the Oscar Academy.

Speaker 33:04

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine3:05

Just when it starts to get dark and miserable, we get all the movies that we've got to vote on, and we just sit there all through the winter watching movies, and the cinema is everyone's favorite place.

Presenter3:16

And of course if you're a member of the Academy.

Presenter3:19

You can vote. D is it true that you vote for yourself if you're in a movie?

Sir Michael Caine3:23

Oh, yeah. You always vote Supposing you lost by one, you'd never forgive yourself. Yeah, and I've I've won twice, so it works.

Presenter3:30

It does work.

Sir Michael Caine3:31

Uh

Presenter3:31

We're gonna turn now to the music to your first disc. It's quite a surprising list. We're going to start with.

Sir Michael Caine3:37

I th I think so. Well, you expect an old duffer to come on, you're going to be playing Ann Ziegler and Webster Boove or something, you know, from

Presenter3:44

Hardly.

Sir Michael Caine3:44

But I

Presenter3:45

But I wasn't necessarily expecting this list. Can you tell me about your first disc and why you've chosen it?

Sir Michael Caine3:49

I've always been a big um disco fan, and so anything I choose is liable to have a bit of a beat to it, and I love uh cold play.

Sir Michael Caine3:58

This is a sort of bit of a disco one for me, but I know it's not disco, it's much better than that, but it reminds me because of the beep.

Speaker 34:06

Roman Catholic choirs are singing. Be my mirror, my sword and shield. My missionary's in a far afield. For some reason I can't explain. Once you've done it was never, never all this word. That was when I ruled the world.

Presenter4:34

That was cold play and viva la vida. You you were saying that that had a good uh beat, Michael. Can you like to dance? Do you

Sir Michael Caine4:39

Yeah, I liked it. I was always in disco's. And actually I came upon Regine, who started disco, in Paris. In Paris at that time, they always had these little nightclubs with a quartet or a trio or quintet. And she didn't have enough money for the band, so she played gramophone records. And of course in France you had the cinema tech and the biblioteque and she called it the disco tech. So she that's where the name came from.

Presenter4:52

Yeah.

Presenter4:58

Right.

Presenter5:04

How would you have looked as you were cutting a dash on the floor in those right.

Sir Michael Caine5:07

Very long hair, about uh two stone lighter, uh much more energetic.

Presenter5:15

Um these days you still have a big commitment to music. I mean you you you produce music

Sir Michael Caine5:19

Oh yeah, I I make my own records. My kids, my friends, I I stick it on my computer and every now and then everyone comes round to my computer and loads up their iPod. And I even did a little I wasn't successful, but I did a a chill record.

Presenter5:33

But chill music is for when I mean, the idea is that people who might be no stranger to popping pills of an evening and taking a lot to drink, dance and dance and dance, and then the chill music is for when they're coming up and coming down, yeah, yeah. Or if you're on your own.

Sir Michael Caine5:45

Definitely coming down, yeah, yeah. Or if you're on your own.

Sir Michael Caine5:49

Chill music is great music to listen to on your own.

Presenter5:52

Okay.

Sir Michael Caine5:52

Yeah, so we

Presenter5:53

So we wouldn't find you dancing in a cage at Manu Mission. Or you know, I mean, you don't get high before you chill out.

Sir Michael Caine5:58

Oh no, no, no, no, no, I never it's not chill in that sense.

Presenter5:59

None.

Sir Michael Caine6:03

We never get that cold.

Presenter6:05

Okay.

Sir Michael Caine6:05

Okay.

Presenter6:06

We need to talk about acting, we need to talk about the films that established you. I'm thinking about Zulu, Alfie, the Ipcrest Files, the Italian job. They made you a star when you were young, but you

Presenter6:16

It's curious that you had to wait until you were fifty-four to win an Oscar. Did that seem like an important moment even though you had all those films behind you?

Sir Michael Caine6:23

Uh yeah, very important. It was for Hannah and her sisters. Yeah, it was Hannah and her sisters, yeah.

Presenter6:25

It was for Hannah and her sisters.

Sir Michael Caine6:28

It's very difficult to win an Oscar, you know. I mean I I was first nominated for an Oscar for Alfie.

Speaker 36:34

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine6:34

But then I had Paul Schofield in A Man for All Seasons. And Paul Schofield was not only a friend of mine, he was my favorite actor, and I knew so much that Paul would win it that I never went. I then got nominated for sleuth,

Sir Michael Caine6:50

And Marlon Brando came in with the Godfather.

Sir Michael Caine6:54

And that was my second bid at Oscar, where I sort of disappeared very sharply into the background.

Presenter6:59

And when you did win at fifty-four, you weren't there.

Sir Michael Caine7:01

Why did she wear either? Because well, no, I did Hannah and her sisters, and then I'd already agreed to do another picture.

Sir Michael Caine7:08

Bloody Jaws for?

Sir Michael Caine7:11

I had ten days on that and they were the ten days when the when the Oscar was on and I I couldn't get out of it.

Presenter7:18

Tell me about what your second uh

Sir Michael Caine7:19

This is Elbo, I was watching Glastonbury last year.

Sir Michael Caine7:23

As you do when you're an old guy.

Presenter7:24

Hmm.

Sir Michael Caine7:26

And on they came.

Sir Michael Caine7:28

And I thought, who de hell is this?

Sir Michael Caine7:31

And it became my favorite song because I loved to build on it and I loved not just a group, you know, a rock and roll group, but suddenly to add a great big orchestra to it, I thought that was fabulous. It's my favorite song.

Speaker 37:44

So the giant warrior

Speaker 37:50

I'd only know I see the love

Speaker 37:56

And I am with you half away

Speaker 38:02

Oh, anyway It's looking like a here is the day

Presenter8:11

That was elbow and one day like this. So, Michael Kane It's an intriguing and incredible road, then, that you have travelled from being born. You were Maurice Micklewhite, junior. It nineteen thirty three you were born.

Sir Michael Caine8:24

I was born in nineteen thirty three, yeah.

Presenter8:26

And life was not a bed of roses.

Sir Michael Caine8:27

Well, that was the uh depression. I was born in the depression.

Sir Michael Caine8:31

Yeah, it wasn't it wasn't a great time, I suppose, but I had a loving, attentive family. I w I was never hungry, I was never unloved, I was never dirty.

Sir Michael Caine8:42

And so I didn't know that there was any other and I didn't need to know there was any other life. Everything was fine. I had friends, little cockney friends, and everything.

Sir Michael Caine8:51

I remember when I was three we heard a sound with a man shouting out halfeny a cocoanut, halfpenny all nuts, and we looked out the window.

Sir Michael Caine9:01

and there was this big black man with a pram.

Sir Michael Caine9:03

Full of bags.

Sir Michael Caine9:05

of shredded coconut.

Presenter9:06

Did you feel as a little three-year-old that was a kind of taste of another world? Did it seem very exhausting to you?

Sir Michael Caine9:09

Yeah, and he was black. I've never seen a black man, you know, and it was fantastic. I thought it was fabulous.

Presenter9:16

And I I've read that it was the case that your your father was a billing escape fish porter, but he came from sort of generations of people who'd done that job. Is that right?

Sir Michael Caine9:23

Was that a bad thing? And and it was it was a very good job to have, very well paid. And so you always followed your father into it, but I I didn't want to do that at all. What I'd done is as I grew up, I joined an amateur dramatic society. There was a re man called Reverend Butterworth who was scraping all the villains off the streets and getting them into clubs and, you know, being good and all that. And I was like, yeah, well, I was at the Elephant the Elephant Castle by then, which is a rough area.

Presenter9:46

Where are you a bit of a challenge?

Sir Michael Caine9:51

And then I joined the club. But on the way up to the gym,

Sir Michael Caine9:56

You pass by this place where the Amateur Dramatic Society was.

Sir Michael Caine10:01

And all the prettiest girls in the club were in there.

Sir Michael Caine10:04

And I had heard that they couldn't get any boys to join the Dramatic Society because it was sissy.

Sir Michael Caine10:12

So I thought, now here's my chance. You know, I might get to kiss a girl. I was 14.

Sir Michael Caine10:17

And there was a girl in there that I liked very much, a very pretty girl.

Sir Michael Caine10:21

So I joined the Amateur Dramatic Society, and that's how I started.

Presenter10:25

And did you get to kiss her?

Sir Michael Caine10:26

Yeah.

Presenter10:28

Let's have some music, tell me what's next.

Sir Michael Caine10:30

Uh oh, the next is not very romantic. This is me as a very patriotic Englishman. I'm I'm very English, very patriotic about the whole country. And uh i if I'm on a a record show and I want to put across music that represents how I feel about my country, it would be Nimrod from Elgar's Enigma Variations.

Presenter11:22

Nimrod, the ninth of Elgar's Enigma variations, played by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Sir Charles MacKerris. Your father went away to war, Sir Michael Kane. Had you been prepared, as little boys, for the fact that your father would be gone?

Sir Michael Caine11:34

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine11:38

He was going off to fight for his country and save us all.

Sir Michael Caine11:43

I was probably six and a half seven, my brother was three.

Sir Michael Caine11:47

My mother said a thing which defined the two of us for the rest of our lives. She said to us

Sir Michael Caine11:53

Your father has gone now you two have got to look after me.

Sir Michael Caine11:57

And we went right, mum.

Sir Michael Caine11:59

We became little men, did you? And we've been like that ever since I I'm still responsible for everybody. You know, I I do it all the time. I control stuff. I'm not a control freak, if you like

Presenter12:10

I take

Sir Michael Caine12:12

I take responsibility, but I'm not a control figure. If you want to take any responsibility, you can have some.

Presenter12:18

But your your mother, as much as she wanted you to to rise to the challenge and to step up, you and your brother, your your mum was a tough cookie. I mean, she worked hard all her life. Tell tell me about your mother's uh working life.

Sir Michael Caine12:26

Top ta

Sir Michael Caine12:28

Well, my mother was a cleaning lady. Eventually I became a movie actor, you know, sort of wealthy.

Sir Michael Caine12:36

And I said, You're cleaning?

Sir Michael Caine12:38

Do you know what the press'll do if they get hold of this?

Sir Michael Caine12:41

You're cleaning floors while I'm I was

Presenter12:43

Yeah. Living in a high life, yeah.

Sir Michael Caine12:44

Oh yeah. And she said a funny thing to me. She said, Well, how much do you earn for a film?

Sir Michael Caine12:50

I said, Ma'am, I earn a million pounds for a film.

Sir Michael Caine12:54

And she thought for a while, and she said, How much is that?

Sir Michael Caine12:57

And I said, You never have to work again, you never have to worry, you never have to do anything except enjoy your life. So will you please do that, and stop trying to get me in the papers for not supporting my mother.

Presenter13:08

Do you think that was the only way you could sort of persuade her that it was time to stop?

Sir Michael Caine13:10

Oh yeah, I said I had to show that I was in danger and it was detrimental to me, otherwise she wo she said, Well, it's company, all my friends are there, you know.

Presenter13:13

Yeah.

Presenter13:19

And we mentioned your father. We should say he was something of a hero. He did have a very distinguished war record.

Sir Michael Caine13:25

Yeah, he did, yeah. But he never ever spoke about it, did he not?

Presenter13:29

Did he not

Sir Michael Caine13:30

But it was very funny because my father was a big horse racing gambler. He died of cancer when I was, ooh, twenty six.

Sir Michael Caine13:39

And I was on my butt, you know, I wasn't a successful actor, I was nothing. You know, I mean, when I said I was going to be an actor, that meant to him, from his background, that I was gay anyway. Right. You know, so I I got married shortly after that to prove that I wasn't, and had a baby.

Sir Michael Caine13:55

But years later.

Sir Michael Caine13:57

I bought at a mill house at Windsor, next to Windsor race track.

Sir Michael Caine14:02

And we had our own private gate.

Sir Michael Caine14:05

to the race track.

Presenter14:06

Wouldn't he have loved that?

Sir Michael Caine14:07

And I thought to myself, this was there for him. And it was funny because I had about five, six acres there, right on the edge of the Thames, and the Queen had a right to go through privately through that gate in a path round the back of my garden.

Sir Michael Caine14:23

And so it was quite extraordinary, you know, one day I'd be gardening, I'd look up, and the Queen'd go by in a Range Rover.

Presenter14:29

Did you ever have a chat?

Sir Michael Caine14:30

No, which you just waved.

Presenter14:32

Let's stop for some music then. Tell me about your fourth track today. What have you chosen, Michael?

Sir Michael Caine14:36

It's by a group called Chicane, and it's No Ordinary Morning. And this is the first of two Chill records that I played. Chill music was started by Claude Schei in the Buddha by Paris.

Presenter14:46

I feel so old.

Sir Michael Caine14:47

Do you?

Presenter14:48

I'm just about following this.

Sir Michael Caine14:49

Corned, very romantic song, but a bit of a beat to it.

Speaker 315:07

You said nothing of what you will do.

Speaker 315:11

But there was just a thing in your eyes

Speaker 315:15

Let me help myself.

Presenter15:19

That was Chicane and no ordinary mourning. So, Michael Kane, like your father, you saw active service too. You were in Korea after your national service.

Sir Michael Caine15:29

Yeah, I spent a year in Germany as an occupation force in a regiment called the Queen's Royal Regiment, and then I was transferred to the London Regiment, the Royal Fusiliers, and I was sent to Korea.

Presenter15:29

Uh

Sir Michael Caine15:41

I think they took all the troublemakers from the Queens, put em in the Royal Fusiliers, sent them to Korea to get rid of'em, hoping we wouldn't come back.

Presenter15:49

Where, I mean, that's twice that you've mentioned that, sort of, you know, being taken off the streets and going to the drama club and going to Korea. Where are you something? I mean, could you look after yourself? You'll get handy.

Sir Michael Caine15:54

Yeah, yeah.

Sir Michael Caine15:57

You have

Sir Michael Caine15:58

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Presenter15:59

Well

Sir Michael Caine16:00

Yeah, I was always a big fella, you know. But I'm a very peaceful man. I never look for trouble anywhere. I can talk my way out of trouble. I always did.

Presenter16:02

Yeah.

Presenter16:09

You've said of that period in Korea that it defined much of the rest of your life.

Sir Michael Caine16:13

Yeah, there are moments in your life. There is a moment

Sir Michael Caine16:17

In Korea, when I thought I was going to die, I don't want to go into this in the but I just thought I was going to die.

Sir Michael Caine16:24

And you always wonder if you're a young man, am I a coward or not? And I proved to myself I wasn't a coward, and that was it, that was done.

Presenter16:33

And it's that very thing, do you think, that then defines you laterally? Because whenever you come up against things, you think, well, I've been that far.

Sir Michael Caine16:36

Whenever you come up against things, you think, well, I've been that far. I've done that. I've done that. I know how to deal with this.

Presenter16:43

That's there's an interesting link there to to your your most recent and very powerful uh role that you've played on film was the role of Harry Brown. And it's a very violent, visceral movie, and it is about what our politicians like to call broken Britain.

Sir Michael Caine16:51

And it is.

Sir Michael Caine16:55

I just

Sir Michael Caine16:57

And from the point of view of like Harry Brown was like Broken Britain and you know, this is a man living.

Presenter17:01

This is a man living on an estate that is

Sir Michael Caine17:03

On an estate who who from my own personal experience on it, I was back where I come from, uh and the estate where we shot that at the Elephant Castle, there is a mural on the wall with me on it.

Presenter17:14

Really?

Sir Michael Caine17:14

For me, I met these young men and talked to them for two months I was there.

Presenter17:14

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine17:19

at night, and and I met these young men and talked to them.

Sir Michael Caine17:23

And every one

Sir Michael Caine17:25

felt that they had never been given a chance.

Sir Michael Caine17:28

And so I came away from there, thinking

Sir Michael Caine17:31

that they need re-educating and given a second chance.

Presenter17:35

Tell me about your next piece of music.

Sir Michael Caine17:37

Oh, my next piece of music is I always get very, very confused when I tell people it is, because I I'm not quite sure myself. It's either called Swollen by Bent,

Sir Michael Caine17:48

Or bent by swollen. Well, I suddenly thought if they ever went and did a record with elbow, it would be a swollen bent elbow, you know?

Presenter17:55

There's a remix away to get away from the

Sir Michael Caine17:56

Yeah, there's a remix what is it? Is it swallowed by beds?

Presenter17:58

Swollen by bent swollen by bent. I'm not sure.

Sir Michael Caine18:00

Swollen five bench.

Presenter18:01

I'm informed.

Sir Michael Caine18:02

It's well on my bed, okay.

Speaker 318:06

And no more than one

Speaker 318:10

More useful is just made.

Speaker 318:14

Don't need anything else to make me feel alive

Presenter18:30

That was swollen and bent. And you're quite right it was Sir Michael Keynes's fifth choice on Christmas Desert Island discs. Not entirely expected. Um let's talk about sharing a flat in the sixties with Town Stamp. I'm imagining you sort of cutting a swathe through London night life.

Sir Michael Caine18:45

Did he yeah we did cut we there was quite a lot of activity going on when we turned up.

Presenter18:50

Productivity reads what? Well I think I know what you mean.

Sir Michael Caine18:52

Uh

Sir Michael Caine18:53

Yeah, well, I mean, no, we we were young single males, we were both famous, both had money, so, you know, we could get in anywhere and change the atmosphere, put it that way.

Presenter19:02

I've got you. And you had was it almost ten long years of of of sort of struggling and really not managing to make much money and and taking d do you think that you just had a certainty that you had the talent to break through?

Sir Michael Caine19:11

Sure.

Sir Michael Caine19:15

Yeah, yeah. And I you have to remember also, I was the first generation of people who became actors who their first actor they saw was a movie, not a not a stage actor.

Sir Michael Caine19:27

And I was fascinated by movie. I used to go to the cinema seven days a week.

Sir Michael Caine19:32

I was always fascinated by the cinema, and the theatre was a sort of sprat to catch a mackerel, actually.

Sir Michael Caine19:39

But it took a long time.

Presenter19:41

Menu

Sir Michael Caine19:41

I couldn't find that in Mackerel for nine years.

Presenter19:44

You also, as you mentioned, you were married and you had a child. And through those struggling years, that must have been a fantastically difficult situation to support.

Sir Michael Caine19:47

And then she

Sir Michael Caine19:51

Oh, that was that was a nightmare, yeah. Then the marriage broke up and everything, yeah.

Presenter19:56

And so you arrived it almost seemed fully formed on the scene as a superstar in I know Zulu obviously was your big breakthrough movie, but in Alfie,

Speaker 220:04

Uh

Presenter20:06

When I watch it again, I've seen it a few times, you're a star in it. You you occupy the screen as though you're a very famous person.

Sir Michael Caine20:12

Yeah, well I'd done a lot of work and I'd done a lot of television.

Presenter20:17

Right.

Sir Michael Caine20:18

A lot of television.

Presenter20:19

I

Sir Michael Caine20:20

I did the longest live play ever done by I T V to this day.

Sir Michael Caine20:24

It was two and a half hours. It's called The Other Man. I was very skinny at that time'cause I'd been starving for years. And it was very good because at one point I wore two suits, two sets of clothing, because I had to go into prison, come out, and it was so quick. I had the suit Velcroed on, and as I walked by, they whipped the suit off and I was dressed in something else and walked into the next scene.

Sir Michael Caine20:45

and I did two and a half hours.

Sir Michael Caine20:48

And I never flapped a line.

Sir Michael Caine20:50

You know, it was all those years in rep.

Presenter20:52

Yes.

Sir Michael Caine20:53

That was amazing.

Presenter20:55

Let's take a break for some music now. Tell me about your next track. What have we got? It's.

Sir Michael Caine20:58

The next track is Phyllis Nelson Move Closer.

Presenter21:01

And why have you cho this is a very romantic track. Why have you chosen this?

Sir Michael Caine21:03

Have you just gotten it?

Sir Michael Caine21:05

that they always did in discetic. When it came to the end

Sir Michael Caine21:10

At the evening.

Sir Michael Caine21:12

They sort of gave everyone a little romantic chance before they went off into the night.

Sir Michael Caine21:18

And they always played Phyllis Nelson move closer.

Presenter21:22

And you d you do talk. Well, we'll hear it in just a second, but y you know, you you come across, obviously, in a lot of your roles as this big, tough, pooch guy. I think you're quite romantic, really.

Sir Michael Caine21:31

Oh, me, yeah. I'm not a bit like the characters I play. Everybody think I'm Jack Carter or something. It's a slaughter the life out of everybody.

Presenter21:38

'Cause you've been how long have you been married to Shakira?

Sir Michael Caine21:41

Thirty thir eight y thirty six, thirty seven years, somebody like that.

Presenter21:45

And a notably strong marriage and something of an exception in Hollywood.

Sir Michael Caine21:47

Something of an exception in Holocaust. No, we we are a completely intertwined couple. You couldn't get us apart with a hand grenade.

Speaker 322:11

So

Speaker 322:15

Move your body, real part

Speaker 322:22

Feel like we're really

Presenter22:28

That was Phyllis Nelson and move closer. Michael Caney, people might know, but.

Presenter22:33

It still remains a fabulous story. Can you tell me how you well, you didn't really meet Shakira the first time. How did you encounter him? No.

Sir Michael Caine22:38

No, I I encountered her. My best friend at at that time was a guy called Paul, who who eventually died of multiple sclerosis, but we we were

Sir Michael Caine22:48

out there and, you know, drinking a lot and going nuts and

Sir Michael Caine22:53

One night we were very tired and I said, I'll tell you what, we'll stay in tonight and I'll cook and I'm a very good cook, so Paul and I decided to stay in. We did something we'd never done. We sat and watched television.

Sir Michael Caine23:05

It was a black and white.

Sir Michael Caine23:06

television and I I hardly knew how to turn the thing on. But a commercial came on for Maxwell House Coffee with a girl shaking miracles like Brazilian coffee beans and all that.

Sir Michael Caine23:17

And I saw this girl.

Sir Michael Caine23:20

And I went absolutely nuts. I don't know why. I just went, That's that's it, that's her, that's the one.

Sir Michael Caine23:27

She's so beautiful, I've got to find out.

Presenter23:30

And you got her number and it

Sir Michael Caine23:31

I managed to get her number and then she wouldn't come out with me. But it's very funny.

Sir Michael Caine23:37

I phoned her ten or eleven times, and she wouldn't come out.

Sir Michael Caine23:41

And on the last time I found her.

Sir Michael Caine23:44

I went I am never going to phone this girl again.

Sir Michael Caine23:47

And she said yes.

Sir Michael Caine23:49

And that was the love of my life.

Sir Michael Caine23:51

It's little things like that are so scary in life, you know.

Presenter23:54

I noticed that she uh she's only ever appeared great beauty that she continues to be in one film. It was was it the man who would be

Sir Michael Caine24:01

The man who would be king, yeah. She was an actress for a month.

Sir Michael Caine24:06

Being an actor is a very difficult life. You know, the hours and this and that and the other.

Sir Michael Caine24:11

And I have a wife who has done my job.

Sir Michael Caine24:15

That's part of the success of our marriage, and the other suck part is two bathrooms.

Sir Michael Caine24:21

Never share a bathroom with a woman, there's never any room. You get the little corner with the toothpaste and the razor, and the rest is taken up by stuff.

Presenter24:29

And your daughter, Natasha, would have been very small when that was filmed. How did you manage to combine as you went filming everywhere?

Sir Michael Caine24:34

We we always took her with us. Did you? She was there with she was two, I think, uh during The Man Who Would Be King.

Presenter24:41

How do you pass unnoticed? Do you ever pass unnoticed through life?

Sir Michael Caine24:44

Yes, yes. I have uh glasses and I have my baseball cap which comes straight down over my eyes.

Presenter24:51

Right. If you have to say, Can I have a newspaper please, or excuse me, people must instantly know who you are. I mean, there can be few voices.

Sir Michael Caine24:57

The minute I speak, everyone knows who I am because I seem to have a very individual voice.

Sir Michael Caine25:03

I can't see it myself, but I

Presenter25:06

Let's have some music. Tell me about I can't believe it's the seventh disc already. What's disc number seven?

Sir Michael Caine25:10

Shirley MacLean was a big star and she had the right to choose her own leading man, and she saw Ibcresfile and she brought me to Hollywood for the first time, and then she gave a party to introduce me to Hollywood.

Sir Michael Caine25:23

and the first person to come in was Gloria Swanson.

Sir Michael Caine25:27

who is shorter than you think, a tiny little bit, about five feet tall. And the second person to come in was Frank Sinatra, who was a great friend of Shirley. They didn't come for me. Nobody knew who the hell I was or or cared. And I met my idol, Frank Sinatra. I loved Frank Sinatra.

Presenter25:44

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine25:44

But the strangest part was is that many years earlier I was in Paris and I was friends with a a singer called Claude Francois.

Presenter25:47

Earlier

Sir Michael Caine25:54

and Claude Francois,

Sir Michael Caine25:56

Recorded this song called Comm d'Abitude, as usual, many, many years later.

Sir Michael Caine26:03

I was watching the show and

Sir Michael Caine26:06

Sinatra starts singing, and I'm sitting there thinking, I know this song. And Paul Anker, who's a friend of mine, is there with us.

Sir Michael Caine26:13

He said

Sir Michael Caine26:14

I wrote this lyric.

Sir Michael Caine26:17

I said, have I heard this song before? He said, Yes.

Sir Michael Caine26:20

He said it was a song, a French song, and I thought, Claude Francois I said, was it called Com Dabitude? and he said, Yes. So this is Paul Lanker's fantastic lyric.

Sir Michael Caine26:32

to Comdabitude, but also it's called my way.

Presenter26:37

Ah yes.

Sir Michael Caine26:37

And if you listen to this lyric.

Sir Michael Caine26:40

It could be meat dog.

Speaker 226:44

I plan

Speaker 226:46

Each jot a course.

Speaker 226:49

Each careful step

Speaker 226:53

Along the byway

Speaker 226:57

More

Speaker 226:59

Much more than this.

Speaker 227:02

I did it.

Presenter27:07

That was Frank Sinatra and My Way. Michael Kane, your your mother died exactly twenty years ago. She lived to be the ripe old age of eighty nine.

Sir Michael Caine27:15

Yes, she did, yeah.

Presenter27:16

She saw your great successful.

Sir Michael Caine27:18

Oh yeah.

Presenter27:18

What did she make of it?

Sir Michael Caine27:20

Oh, she loved it. She always played it down when she was with me. Did she? But she always mentioned it to her.

Presenter27:26

She visited you for an extended period in Beverly Hills. What did she make of Beverly Hills?

Sir Michael Caine27:30

Beverly Hills.

Sir Michael Caine27:32

My mother was a sort of misses Malaprop in a funny way, and and we were driving through Beverley Hills and and she said, Oh, I think it's lovely, she said, look at the flowers.

Sir Michael Caine27:41

All that hysteria growing up the walls.

Sir Michael Caine27:45

And I never corrected her and I I said, Mum, you got it absolutely right here.

Presenter27:53

Um it was only after your mother died that y you learned a remarkable thing, which was that you had a brother that you never knew about.

Sir Michael Caine27:59

Yeah, I I had a half brother.

Sir Michael Caine28:02

Who my father obviously i illegitimate he was away in the army in India and obviously she fell by the wayside.

Sir Michael Caine28:09

and we had this half brother who had been an epileptic.

Sir Michael Caine28:14

And they had put him in a home with stone floors, and of course he battered himself into

Sir Michael Caine28:19

Not insanity, to idiocy.

Sir Michael Caine28:23

Eventually,

Sir Michael Caine28:25

I went to see him. Did you? Yeah, and I couldn't understand what he said, but the nurse knew what he said, and I talked to him.

Presenter28:32

And your mother had been to visit him every week.

Sir Michael Caine28:34

Oh, she used to go and see him every Monday.

Sir Michael Caine28:37

The only time of course she never went to see him was during the war. But she saw him every Monday, the nurse told me, and she had she took a Bible.

Sir Michael Caine28:46

Every time there was a new nurse she took a Bible and made him swear on the Bible that he would never reveal who he was because she thought that it would harm my career.

Sir Michael Caine28:55

That's how protective of me she was.

Presenter28:58

What did it give you I mean, you were incredibly close to your mother. It must have given you pause for thought to learn that this enormous part of her life had been so personal and so secret. What did it make you feel?

Sir Michael Caine29:10

I was very proud of her.

Sir Michael Caine29:12

inasmuch as she had taken care of everybody.

Presenter29:16

Yes.

Sir Michael Caine29:17

Which was her. I suppose I've inherited that from myself. Precisely so. She took the responsibility for everybody.

Presenter29:22

The tea.

Presenter29:23

You you now are a grandfather. How many grandchildren do you have?

Sir Michael Caine29:27

Well like fourteen months ago I didn't have any. Now I've got three. I've got my youngest daughter.

Sir Michael Caine29:34

had a grandson last year and this year she had twins. Goodness me. So I've got three now and I love'em. I the role of grandfather suits me perfectly.

Presenter29:44

Will they be coming for Christmas?

Sir Michael Caine29:45

Oh yeah, oh yeah. I I grew up during the war so there was no Christmas and so it's psychological with me. I over produce Christmas like Sam Goldwyn, you know what I mean?

Presenter29:57

Give me a picture of Christmas Day.

Sir Michael Caine29:58

The whole place the whole place is full of decorations, Christmas carols going on all day, the Queen's speech goes on, everything that is traditional goes on in my house, and the food I always get too much. I always get too much.

Presenter30:12

I would

Presenter30:14

On Christmas Day in your house are you cooking?

Sir Michael Caine30:16

Yes, I cook. I don't do veg. My wife's a vegetarian, so she's fantastic at veg. Oh, I do do veg. I do the best roast potatoes in the world, according to Michael Winner.

Presenter30:26

Right, what's your tip?

Sir Michael Caine30:27

My tip is pre-cook them.

Presenter30:29

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine30:30

and put'em in cold fat, not hot fat.

Presenter30:32

In Coldfer.

Sir Michael Caine30:32

cold fat so it soaks in. Get them absolutely dry, let them steam and go dry, put the lid back on, shake'em so they go all fluffy, and then put them in cold olive oil with rosemary.

Sir Michael Caine30:46

and sage in it.

Presenter30:47

Michael I do

Sir Michael Caine30:48

The olive oil.

Presenter30:49

I don't know if you understand the sheer importance of what you've just said, because everybody at this very moment is probably peeling their potatoes. I'm guessing

Sir Michael Caine30:54

If the whole of the nation needs to be gotta boil them first, otherwise it'd be no good.

Presenter30:58

Whole of the nation needs to be

Presenter31:00

Otherwise

Presenter31:02

Please write to Sir Michael Kane and not to me if your spuds don't turn out just as they should.

Sir Michael Caine31:06

They do, they all write to me. My badge didn't turn out right.

Presenter31:09

What is the moment that you would say is your favorite moment of Christmas Dave?

Sir Michael Caine31:14

At the end of lunch, just before we have the Christmas pudding, we we open a bottle of champagne and we all wish each other the best. That's the best moment for me.

Presenter31:25

Let's have your final disc then, tell me what you've chosen.

Sir Michael Caine31:27

My fi my final one,'Christmas Day' is a Carol. It's by John Lennon, who I liked I knew and liked very much. We were both at the Cannes Film Festival, drinking a little too much, and so w I got to sort of know him like that there. And I noticed he always introduced himself to anyone as John Lemmon.

Sir Michael Caine31:46

Anyway, we won't go into that story.

Presenter31:48

Can I just briefly ask you, is it true you used to drink two bottles of vodka a day just as

Sir Michael Caine31:52

As a one.

Presenter31:53

One.

Presenter31:55

But that's true, isn't it?

Sir Michael Caine31:56

Yeah.

Presenter31:56

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine31:56

Yeah.

Sir Michael Caine31:57

Yeah, until I met my wife and then she stopped all that. I think my wife saved my life, you know. Uh, anyway, it's John Lennon, and his Christmas Carol is called Happy Christmas. And

Sir Michael Caine32:07

There is a little brackets after it,'cause it's the other line is War is over.

Sir Michael Caine32:13

Unfortunately it isn't.

Sir Michael Caine32:15

But we all wish it was.

Speaker 332:17

Some of this is Christmas

Speaker 332:21

A winking fall storm.

Speaker 332:26

The rich and the poor ones The world is so long

Speaker 332:36

And so Happy Christmas!

Speaker 332:41

Fall back and for a while

Presenter32:46

That was John Lennon, not John Lennon, and Happy Christmas War is Over. It's a very optimistic song. Are you ultimately an optimistic person?

Sir Michael Caine32:54

I am the world's ultimate optimist. I think everything is going to be all right.

Presenter32:56

I

Presenter32:59

Well, I'm going to cast you away to this island. I will give you the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can take your own book. What's your book going to be?

Sir Michael Caine33:07

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

Presenter33:10

And why are you choosing that?

Sir Michael Caine33:11

The character was an architect who built sort of modern buildings.

Sir Michael Caine33:18

He had a girlfriend called Dominique Francon, my oldest daughter is called Dominique, after Dominique Francon.

Sir Michael Caine33:25

If I hadn't been an actor, I would have wanted to be an architect.

Presenter33:30

Tell me also what luxury you would choose Michael Kane to take on to your island.

Sir Michael Caine33:35

Uh, well, I would take a great bed. When we furnished our homes at first, we lived in luxury hotels, you know, and they always make a study of

Sir Michael Caine33:45

And any mattress we have anywhere is based on a a name of a mattress we found in a hotel. And the pillows would be fifty percent goose down and fifty percent feathers,'cause that's the right thing for me.

Presenter33:57

But

Presenter33:58

Okay, that's all yours. And if I were to force you, as I'm about to do, to choose just one from the eight discs, which one would you choose?

Sir Michael Caine34:06

Sinatra, my way.

Presenter34:09

Michael Kane, Sir Michael Kane, Merry Christmas and thank you very much for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Sir Michael Caine34:13

Thank you.

Presenter35:00

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio Four website bbc. co dot uk slash radio four.