"The only roles I can get now are for 90-year-old men. Or maybe 85. So, it's better that I go." These were the words that the 90-year-old actor Michael Caine uttered just a couple of months ago to announce that he was retiring from acting. He was promoting what was to be his last film, The Great Escape.
Now, and taking into account what some British media are publishing, it seems that the English artist, who will be 91 in March, has reconsidered his retirement. Not many details are known, as everything is shrouded in secrecy, but it could soon lead a Netflix production. According to The Sun, it is a series and filming will begin in January, although no further information has been provided at the moment: neither who else is involved in the project, nor the title, nor the weight of Michael's role Caine, who at his age feels he can no longer offer the acting skills he once did.
At the moment, neither the representatives of the actor nor Netflix have spoken on the subject. If confirmed, it would be an interesting decision in the career of the two-time Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner, first for Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986 and then for The Cider House Rules in 1999.
With a career spanning seven decades, Caine has starred in more than 170 films, including titles such as Alfie, Zulu, The Italian Job and, most recently, Interstellar and The Dark Knight, with Christian Bale.
The actor recently revealed in an interview with The Mail on Sunday's You Magazine that the secret to a long and happy life is to marry a younger woman, stop eating between meals and use stomachs. "And be careful not to fall", he added. It was precisely a fall on the ice and subsequent spinal surgery that led him to have to use a cane.
He has been married to Shakira Caine for 50 years. He fell in love with her after seeing her in a TV commercial and tracking her down. She was 26, and he, 40. He is convinced that Shakira saved his life, as he describes in the book Blowing the Bloody Doors Off: And Other Lessons in Life (2018): “I thought that a little vodka with the breakfast was not a cause for concern and in the early seventies I was already drinking two bottles a day", he wrote. "By an immense stroke of fortune, Shakira came into my life just in time. The feeling of emptiness disappeared, she took care of it. In addition, she became pregnant, I was once again faced with another opportunity to be a father and I soon straightened my course". They have a daughter, Natasha, and three grandchildren, who, he says, also help him stay young. "You want to live forever to see what they do with their lives," he once said.
She wasn't the first woman he walked down the aisle with, before he went there with fellow actress Patricia Haines, whom he met sharing a poster with her in a play and before he started to succeed in cinema. They married in 1954, just after he completed his mandatory military service in the British Army and was sent to the Korean War. They had a daughter, Dominique, in 1957. A year later they signed divorce papers.
