“Everybody’s dead. It’s amazing”: Michael Caine’s unique perspective on mortality
After a career that stretched from 1950 to 1923, Michael Caine‘s status as an active performer drew to a close when he confirmed that his days of being a working actor were well and truly over.
Calling it quits at 90 years old was impressive, especially when he’d continued proving his worth as both a leading man and an esteemed supporting player on a regular basis. Evolving from one of British cinema’s leading lights to a globally famous star, award-laden icon, and regular source of effortless gravitas, Caine has left quite the legacy behind.
As well as winning two Academy Awards from six nominations, his trophy cabinet includes a Bafta, three Golden Globes, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and countless roles in a litany of greats that extends to crime classics Get Carter and The Italian Job, war stories The Eagle Has Landed and A Bridge Too Far, his fruitful collaborations with Christopher Nolan, and countless more besides.
His reasons for stepping away from the profession that turned him into a household name and regular fixture of the big screen were simple, with Caine hardly being inundated with offers suitable for a man of his advancing years. He’s made his peace with drawing a line under his on-screen tenure, which has, in turn, given him a unique view of mortality.
Many of Caine’s peers, colleagues, contemporaries, and friends have passed away over the years, and as he put it to The Guardian, his immediate concerns are hardly rooted in the long term. “I’m 90, I don’t worry about the future,” he said. “I worry if I’m going to make it to lunch.”
Self-deprecatingly but entirely accurately acknowledging that he’s “so bloody old”, Caine reflected on how the passage of time has robbed him of so many people he was close to. “Sean Connery, Roger Moore. Everybody’s dead. It’s amazing,” which has left him feeling increasingly isolated as a result.
When asked how it feels to be among the last left standing from his generation, he conceded it was “lonely”, especially in social situations with his wife. “I had dinner last night here with eight women. Shakira gets them. I don’t get them. They’re the wives of my friends. I’m often sitting with a table full of widows.”
Even though he’s retired from the day job that kept him occupied for over 70 years, it’s not as if Caine is spending his increased free time sitting around staring out of the window. His debut novel Deadly Game was published the month after he announced his retirement, which opens the door to a Gene Hackman-esque secondary career path with the potential to funnel his creative energies somewhere other than the bright lights of a film set.
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