Editorial Review Product Description The original autobiography of one of the most versatile, enduring and beloved British actors of our time.
Michael Caine is the best-loved film actor Britain has ever produced. Here, for the first time, he reveals the truth about his childhood, his family and his hard-fought journey from London to Hollywood, bringing to life the lean years and the triumphs with astonishing candour. And with typical charm and humour he talks about the movies, about his relationships -- on and off the screen -- with other actors and directors, and about the memorable screen presence which is his hallmark. ... Read more Customer Reviews (18)
Authentic, interesting, and informative
I have never read a show biz autobiography unless you count Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, and more "artiste" type figures of the performing arts. But this book is terrific for its genre.The tone is extremely personal, personable, and authentic. I only HOPE that Michael Caine truly wrote it, and not a ghostwriter.
Caine spent his years up until about 30 as the ultimate anti-hero: born to a struggling family (his mother was a 'charwoman,' he also had a number of physical problems as a child - it seems he was the only person in his humble neighborhood (think lower class London during WW II, who went and graduated from high school. His early acting efforts were disasterous, and he lived at a time when he couldn't simply take out a student loan, enroll in an on-line college and major in finance as a back up.He treats acting as a craft, a career, and even an art.He presents himself as very task-oriented, whether it's filming in the tropics or living in Hollywood.His story is told in a bit of a melancholy tone. Perhaps it's because he hasn't been trained in assuming that phony rah-rah enthusiasm many Americans have, or it could be that he learned very early in life that even if you tackle one problem the best you can, there will always be another challenge up ahead. If he had been thrust into the world of the "rat pack," for example, they would have probably thought he was from another planet.That could be true.And it's a better one.
The audio is what it's all about
I recently had rented Billion Dollar Brain, renewing my interest in the Harry Palmer series and then while watching Funeral In Berlin I noticed, near the tv, atop a stack of magazines, books and dvd's, the 2 cassette edition of the Michael Caine read "What's It All About", so I pulled it out.
I had bought this cassette edition some years before at a second hand shop and having never really listened to it I brought it with me in the car.
I placed the first cassette into the car player(yes I still have a cassette/cd/radio player in my car in the year 2010) but after about 5 minutes the tape became defective (probably why it had landed at a second hand shop)and would not continue, neither on that side nor the other.
This is why, I now remembered, I had given up trying to listen to it, and had placed it among that stack near the tv.
But this time, I now removed cassette #2 from its sleeve and pushed that into the player.
Cassette 2 begins during the filming of the movie Zulu, Michael's first important movie role. Actually this was fine with me because I was eager to hear about his subsequent roles in Ipcress File, Funeral and Brain.
But as happens with a great speaker who lures the listener in when the subject wouldn't normally interest them, by the time Michael had completed speaking of the Zulu project, I wanted to see the movie, previously having zero interest in doing so.
Michael speaks with such ease and perfectly timed humor that this cassette was pure joy to listen to.
Often while listening, I actually felt bad for the people who instead, had chosen to read the book that these audio cassettes are culled from because they would not have the pleasure of listening to Michael tell his story in his own voice with his own inflections, emphasing certains words and points that the reader might not get.
As it turns out however, and as Michael himself makes clear, this audio edition is an overview of the book itself which goes into greater detail so, for instance, when it did come time to hear of his tales of Harry Palmer, all the audio edition provides is just Michael's experience for the Ipcress File movie but nothing regarding the 2nd and 3rd installment in the Len Deighton saga.
Hmmmm, makes me want to seek out the BOOK book now, now that I think of it!
Listening to this audio cassette in the car on the way to work in the morning completely brightened up what normally is a very dull drive with ugly thoughts of the impending day that lay ahead at the shop (ha).
That first morning, having driven to work listening to Michael's tales of film and movie people and his personal struggles and triumphs, I walked into work on a cloud with a smile for everyone and a wonderful attitude-something that does not come often (again, ha)
Two days later, I have now finished listening to cassette #2 which brings the listener to the year 1992 and the conclusion of Michael's book.
I had to write this to declare how completely I enjoyed listening to Michael speak and all the stories that he had to tell which he told so exceedingly well.
I should go out and buy a new clean version of this two cassette edition so that I can listen to the first tape uninterrupted and also seek out the book itself to fill in the gaps that the cassettes bypass.
I have to just reiterate as evidenced by my 5 star grading above, that this audio edition was pure pleasure to listen to and that is all a tribute to the wonderful wonderful speaking personality Michael Caine is and the story of his life.
Interesting though not perfect
SORRY -VERY LONG!
One of the reviewers here criticises Caine (not his real name!) for name-dropping. This seems unreasonable - firstly, there's in fact a lot of material about his early life; secondly, what, in addition, would he write about, but film stars, producers, Cannes, Harold Pinter, Robert Graves, Ben Gurion being an East End Royal Fusiliers sergeant?
The engaging quality of this book is the way Caine describes his learning experiences - acting tricks, such as the way to act drunk, and the command not to break the 'fourth wall', and wearing heavy specs so in future films he could change his image; adaptation of his eyes to bright lights - it takes a minute; script problems, issues with friends, starry-eyed awe of famous people, Hollywood studios.One other acting trick was not to enter a room which was supposed to be new to the character, to give the authentic appearance of groping for light switches and watching for trip hazards. His writing style seems to reproduce something of the same feeling.He reveals the slow dawning on him of his family's poverty not being anything like as bad as some others, of comparative misfortunes, of homosexuals being polite and civilised to him,
His early life and the Micklethwaite's Cockney existence includes accounts of bomb damage, orphans, and sudden deaths in London, and of his school's evacuation - he was moved with his brother to a huge house, then split up and redirected to somewhere deemed more befitting their lowly status, and Caine was locked under the stairs in Harry Potter style.They were rescued by their mum and somehow moved to Norfolk.Caine was encouraged at the little school there - and was the only pupil ever to get a scholarship.
Back in south London, Caine writes of spivs (backslang for VIPs) and teddy boys: he says both were dangerous, and that petrol bombs were thrown as a protection racket incentive.This sounds like a child's exaggeration to me.For one thing, some were friends of his father.He says his mother was tough as nails, but this can't quite have been true, as she seems not to have been able to prevent him gambling all their little spare money away, or renting radios at great cost.
In his teens he did National Service: Korea, with accounts of Seoul destroyed by American bombs, with human 'night soil' on fields, Chinese across the hill, minefields and twigs.Caine mentions Dien Bien Phu, and Chinese 'communism', which I've always thought dissimilar to Russian.Caine isn't very precise on politics - he says he was tempted in London by woemn trying to sign him up to the CP, offering him wealth and free love - which he found wasn't entirely an accurate prospectus.Joan Littlewood didn't like him - she didn't want stars.She chatted to Baron Philippe de Rothschild, suggesting an ideological link which Caine didn't follow up.
In the late 1950s new types of informal London clubs developed, prefiguring the 1960s; it couldn't have been that bad.Hitchcock, Chaplin (earlier) and Coward (Clapham - more upmarket) were also south Londoners.
Caine went into rep after being told about 'The Stage' and being told where he could buy it.He was hired by a homosexual in Horsham - years later this man died impoverished, but pleased because he was acknowledged to have discovered Michael Caine.The stage name was taken from the film 'The Caine Mutiny' - as with 'Pink Floyd', made up because a name was needed then and there.There are anecdotes, including of course sexual stuff.And actors' lodgings.Apparently the sign was: 'no blacks, irish, dogs, or actors'.Quite a few committed suicide; I cna't help wondering if they did this in a theatrical manner.
Fascinating to see how limited is the part played (pun intended) by actors. Most films start with a script - but the locations, ambience, general feeling, final form of the plot and practically everything else are jointly assembled to such an extent it's quite surprising the process works at all. And maybe it doesn't - this book was written as Hollywood was starting to decline, if I've understood the figures; and Caine lashes out at a chap called Lennard who had a rota of permanently employed studio film actors, none now famous, when he might have employed O'Toole, Connery, Frank Finlay, Terry Stamp, and of course Caine. Quite a few directors are (of course) discussed, and their quirks. Producers less so, and contractual details and such things as dubbing and foreign rights and videos and repeat fees and the general life-cycle of films hardly appear at all.He has a lot of amusing detail about the quirks of directors, which felt overdone to me - it's after all largely a technical job, and screaming and shouting seem inconsistent with worrying over the details of continuity and lighting and emotion.
I have a theory that some performers have a slight oddity which makes them stand out: Stallone has some sort of facial muscle inertia, Mitchum looked slightly red Indian, and so on.Caine has light blue eyes with what he calls a disease of the eyelids, making his eyes look a bit menacing.He says he practised staring, as he'd read somewhere that actors don't blink - probably good advice with films.
Caine's early films, and the 1960s of which there's a very colour supplementy description, made the greatest impression on him. In retrospect they're a bit small-scale compared with those of Sean Connery, for example. 'The Ipcress File' is a rather small-scale spy thing, as is 'Get Carter' (with the the multistorey car park, still talked off in Newcastle until its demolition). 'Alfie' had an abortion sub-plot - Caine's early films all had the element of violence which I think was helped by technological improvements - cameras were smaller and film faster, so places like rail stations and hotel foyers and views through car windows were easier to film. Caine however turned down Hitchcock's unpleasant Frenzy - he had a lifelong dislike of paid sex and related issues, which he dates to being shown a tit in exchange for a chocolate bar.
Judging by this book Caine had little interest in the technical details, confining his comments to the angles of shots and smog. There's stuff on such topics as dried camel dung in Sahara windstorms, Filipino poverty with sad young women used as prostitutes, Almeira and spaghetti westerns, Hollywood (the actual place) and its seediness, the new 'independence' of Nigeria and Uganda.
He seems to have had little idea of which films would be successful, and doesn't seem to have cared, since in the short term he was paid about the same amount. However he's a bit scathing about 'The Magus' and its author, and about his killer bees film (which incidentally must be one of the earliest uses of blue screens) - the one that wrecked his name in the USA. In the days before digital editing, film cutting was literally that; it must have taken forever.
The later parts of the book deal with Labour and high taxation - many people of 'talent' emigrated. And his Windsor house and departure to Los Angeles. And with his identifying his wife, a Kashmiri who appeared in a coffee TV advert and whom he tracked down - his write-up makes this sound quite an adventure, which, surely, can't have been the case, as he must have known how to locate actresses. Incidentally she is (or was) a Muslim and this may be related to Camoron's adoption of Caine for political purposes. And his connection with Langan's Brasserie. There's an account of 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' as the theme for 2001, the music borrowed by Stanley Kubrick from Elstree library, perhaps with 'The Blue Danube'. It occurs to me that some of the footage for the moon landings must have been Kubrick's work. Caine mentions nuclear weapons, the Vietnam War and other public events.
I have to be honest and say I didn't finish the book, as I regard many films as propagandist and/or silly and catchpenny, aimed at the proles. However it does appear to be authentic autobiographical work; there are a few minor errors suggesting no ghosting and light editing.
Entrancing!
This book is superb - well-written, engaging and funny.I didn't want to put it down.
The little anecdotes that Michael Caine shares are amusing, interesting and sometimes poignant; he is as good a writer as he is an actor.Fabulous!You'll love it!
You'll Die Laughing
An extremely interesting and hilariously funny account of Caine's life.
He should write another book. In fact, it's so good that I think I'll read it
again.
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