Legendary English film star Michael Caine, known for his often-imitated Cockney accent and starring roles in major motion pictures going back to the 1960s, said Saturday that his most recent film credit will be his last.
Interviewed for a BBC Radio podcast, Caine, 90, said he felt the time had come for him to leave the business, according to CNN.
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“I keep saying I’m going to retire,” he said. “Well, I am now.”
Caine noted that the only parts he can now play are written for nonagenarians like himself. He played just that in his most recent and final film, The Great Escaper, which depicts the exploits of a World War II Royal Navy veteran who “breaks out” of his nursing home to attend the 70th-anniversary commemorations of the D-Day invasion in France. The film was released this month in the United Kingdom.
“I’ve played the lead and it’s got incredible reviews,” Caine told BBC Radio. “The only parts I’m going to get now are old men — 90-year-old men, or maybe 85, you know. And I thought, well, I might as well leave with all this. I’ve got wonderful reviews. What am I going to do to beat this?”
The two-time Oscar winner has appeared in over 160 films. He made his big screen debut in 1950 with a walk-on role in Roy Ward Baker’s Morning Departure and rose to fame over a decade later with starring roles in the war film Zulu, the spy thriller The Ipcress File, and the comedy caper The Italian Job. Often cast as tough guys and secret agents, he became the personification of British “cool” and was a fixture in Swinging Sixties London, together with fellow stars and friends Terrence Stamp and Peter O’Toole. He deliberately kept his Cockney accent at a time when most English actors went out of their way to sound upper-class.
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Caine appeared in two to three films per year for much of the 1970s and 1980s; his mixed reception in some roles led to criticism that he was not discerning in his choice of projects and was acting purely for the paycheck, allegations he did little to deny and sometimes winked at in interviews. He appeared in titles such as Blame It on Rio, Jaws: The Revenge, and The Muppet Christmas Carol. Still, he picked up an Oscar for best supporting actor in the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters in 1986, an accomplishment he would repeat in 1999 with The Cider House Rules.
Caine saw his career revived in the 2000s and 2010s as he became a favorite of British director Christopher Nolan, who cast Caine in Inception, The Prestige, and the critically acclaimed Batman trilogy. Other late-career highlights came with appearances in Bewitched, Harry Brown, Miss Congeniality, Youth, and the Austin Powers films, in which Caine parodied the 1960s excesses he had once been closely associated with.
