Acting in Film

with a small group of actors. An invited audience observes the evolution of the work and has the opportunity to ask questions. Videos of the Acting Series Programs are available and are intended to be consulted either separately or together with the books.
    Thanks must first go to Michael Caine, the master of Acting in Film and the class he led. The class included the talented British actors Simon Cutter, Celia Imrie, Mark Jefferies, Ian Redford, and Shirin Taylor. The producers for Dramatis Personae were myself and Nathan Silver, my partner. Our BBC co-producer and the program's director, providing every skill we lacked, was David G. Croft. Special thanks to National Film Archive London, Theo Cowan, and Jerry Pam. Glenn Young of Applause Theatre Books, our publisher, had the vision to see that the series ought to be done in individual books/videos and gave invaluable editing advice.
Maria Aitken

    01991 Touchstone/ Amblin
    NOISES OFF
    Directed by Peter Bogdanovich. Touchstone/Amblin 1991

    Michael Caine was born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite in South London on March 14. His father was a Billingsgate Fish Market Porter, and his mother a charwoman. They were poor, living in a gas-lit, two-room flat until the Blitz forced his evacuation with his younger brother, Stanley, to the safety of a farm in Norfolk. After the war, when he was 12, the family moved into a `prefab' in London's East End.
    He refused to accept his family's expectation that he become a fish porter. Leaving school at 16, he worked in numerous menial jobs until National Service with the Royal Fusiliers took him to Korea. On his discharge, he spent his days in manual work but used his evenings to study acting. His first job in the theatre was as assistant stage manager in Horsham, Sussex and he was soon able to move to the Lowestoft Repertory Theatre in Suffolk as juvenile lead. Here, he married the leading lady, Patricia Haines, but parted after 2 years. Patricia Haines has since died. They had a daughter, Dominique (known as Niki), now married, with whom he enjoys a close relationship.
    Self-confidence and a name change to Michael Caine (his nickname plus one word from The Caine Mutiny which caught his eye on a cinema marquee) encouraged him to move to London where he acted with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. He played a minor role in the film A Hill In Korea and obtained bit parts in other movies and walk-on roles in a couple of West End plays.

    MONA LISA
    Directed by Neil Jordan. Island Pictures, 1986
    Pictured with Cathy Tyson

    01986 Island Pictures, All Rights Reserved

    Touring Britain with one repertory company after another, he developed a relaxed stage presence and perfected a vast range of accents. In the next five years, he played more than 100 television dramas and became a familiar but nameless face to millions. They were threadbare years shared with flatmates Terence Stamp and composer John Barry.
    He went on to understudy Peter O'Toole in the role of Private Bamforth in the London stage hit, The Long, The Short And The Tall, and when O'Toole dropped out, Caine took over the part and toured the Provinces for six months. Following this, his television and film parts grew more substantial.
    The turning point in his film career came at the age of 30 in 1963 when he was given the role of effete, aristocratic Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in the Joseph E. Levine Production Zulu. The part was written as a complete ass, but he played it straight down the line as a man who was weak but at least thought he was strong. He turned this supporting role into a starring one and, in the opinion of the critics, stole the show.
    Passing forever out of the ranks of anonymity, he next played Marry Palmer, hip but plodding anti-hero of the espionage thriller, The Ipcress File which exceeded all expectations at the box office. His low-key acting style was again lauded by the critics.

    Alfie in 1966 catapulted him to super-stardom playing a womanizing Cockney wastrel with innocence and impudent humor. In the annual British film critics' poll, it was voted Best Picture of the Year. Alfie also gave him his first Academy Award nomination and the New York Critic's Prize for Best Actor. In the late sixties he completed Gambit with Shirley Maclaine; Funeral In Berlin; Billion Dollar Brain; Hur7y Sundown directed by Otto Promingot; Woman Times Seven for Vittoria De Sica; Deadfall; The Italian job and The Battle of Britain. He took a starring role in Robert