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Candid Caine

Broadcast Date: April 29, 1969

"I like being a star because you have a tremendous amount of freedom. And tremendous amounts of money, which is marvellous. I like money," says Michael Caine in this 1969 CBC-TV interview. The up-an-coming movie star is surprisingly frank as he discusses his working-class upbringing, criticizes so-called "art films" and explains why he drinks but won't take drugs. He also shares his extremely traditional views on gender roles. On the subject of liberated women, he says, "Every guy wants to take them out, but who's going to marry them?"

Candid Caine

• Michael Caine was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite Jr. on March 14, 1933, in London.

• He is one of only two actors who has been nominated for an Academy Award for acting (either supporting or leading) in every decade so far since the 1960s. The other actor is Jack Nicholson.

• Although he never mentions it when discussing his views on marriage in this 1969 interview, Caine was actually married in his early 20s (from 1955 to 1958) to an actress named Patricia Hanes.

• He later married model/actress Shakira Baksh in 1973. Caine had seen Baksh in a Maxwell House coffee commercial and thought she was so beautiful, he became determined to track her down. He did, and they were soon married. They had one daughter, Natasha, and the couple is still married.

• When the couple first got together, Caine says he was drinking two or three bottles of vodka a day. The actor credits Baksh for helping him cut back on his excessive drinking.

• Caine was scheduled to appear at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival to promote the film Anybody There? The movie, set in seaside England in the 1980s, is about a 10-year-old boy growing up in a senior citizens' home owned by his parents. Caine plays a retired magician who reluctantly moves into the home and befriends the little boy.

Candid Caine

Medium: Television

Program: Take 30

Broadcast Date: April 29, 1969

Guest(s): Michael Caine

Host: Adrienne Clarkson
Interviewer: Paul Soles

Duration: 22:32

Last updated:
Sept. 9, 2009