Michael Caine explains why the 1960s “were ruined by drugs”
When it comes to the true stalwarts of British cinema, it’s hard to look beyond the extraordinary achievements of Sir Michael Caine. Across eight decades, Caine has delivered phenomenal performances in a wide variety of acting roles that will surely go down in the history of the movies.
His breakthrough arrived in the 1960s with the likes of Zulu, The Ipcress File and The Italian Job, but that was just the beginning of a remarkable career with the London-born film hero going on to play in some of the best movies of all time and for some of the most respected directors.
Caine has been around the entertainment world long enough to have lived through the excess of the 1960s, but once actually admitted that increasing drug use towards the end of the decade was what seemed to ruin its positive nature. In an interview with The Guardian, Caine opened up on the era.
He admitted that the 1960s was largely comprised of drinkers rather than drug users. “What ruined the 60s, towards the end of the decade, were drugs,” he said. “If people were taking cocaine, they’d start talking bollocks and not stop for hours. If they were on other drugs, they’d just sit around, going, ‘Wow, man.’”
Evidently, the legendary actor felt that either people were “talking too much” or they weren’t “saying anything at all”. The 1960s, as Caine knew it – “a load of drunks getting up to all sorts and dancing like mad” – was suddenly over, as drugs began to take hold moving on into the second half of the 20th century.
Caine did note that he smoked weed once, claiming, “I laughed for five hours. I nearly got a hernia. I must have been very tense beforehand! When I left the party at 1am in Grosvenor Square, I was standing alone on a corner, roaring with laughter, and no cab would stop for me. I had to walk to my flat in Notting Hill.”
It was after that experience that the legendary actor vowed to “never take bloody drugs again,” and never did. He claimed not to be “anti-drugs” and expressed “sympathy” towards those who do. Still, even though “most drugs are terrible,” Caine sees a “medicinal purpose for marijuana.”
So, while Caine has never been a drug user, preferring a drink or two, he was no stranger to a cigarette and was often photographed in the 1960s with one hanging out of his mouth. It wasn’t until Tony Curtis saw Caine chain-smoking at a party and threw his cigarettes in the fireplace that he was prompted to quit. But drugs were never his penchant.
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