Michael CaineReseñas

Perhaps the best and most reassuring comment I can make about Deadly Game, the debut novel from legendary actor (and national treasure) Michael Caine, is that you soon forget it's by legendary actor (and national treasure) Michael Caine. I'm not really a fan of thrillers in general, considering them to a literary diet what a microwaveable hamburger is to a regular diet, and on the initial press release of Deadly Game I feared the worst. A 'pulsating' thriller. 'Globetrotting'. A Met detective who plays by his own rules – and he's an 'ex-SAS soldier' at that… It all sounded so cliché.

And, well, it is. But what is a relief – given my admiration for Michael Caine – is that it's not bad. It can't be scoffed at as a vanity project, at least not without being a tad churlish. It's tidy, it's honest, the pages turn easily, and the characters aren't irritating. There's no stodginess in the writing, though the plot itself does lose steam as it becomes more removed from reality. By the end, it tries to do too much and ends up providing little satisfaction on some pretty key questions the reader will be having.

Caine's name no doubt draws a lot more eyes to it than its objective value deserves, but reading Deadly Game quickly ceased to be a novelty and it can be recognised as a pretty decent, if unremarkable, thriller. It was probably too much to expect him to blow the bloody doors off, but Michael Caine's provided a perfectly respectable drop into a saturated market.

The Hollywood legend reveals the wisdom, stories, insights and skills that life has taught him in his rise from humble origins to the pinnacle of success.

I listened to Caine read this and it was easy and interesting to listen to. He talks a lot about the positive ideas he learned which helped him be successful. He gives lots of examples in his life of how he put those ideas into practice. An enjoyable memoir.½

Great tips on film acting and how to be someone who is noticed. Takes courage and all you have along with lucky breaks. Found this book yesterday in a "Little Library" at someone's place.

So, I really stepped out of my usual reading with this audiobook but I heard an interview with Michael Caine talking about this memoir and he's just such a joy to listen to that I thought I'd give it a shot. It was definitely worth the credit. Caine is such an engaging person. He doesn't get mean or ugly with any person and I'm sure with as long as he's been in Hollywood, he could tell some stories that would make people look bad. He's a class act and exactly how I imagine a real knight would be in his elder years. On top of that, Caine does a wonderful job narrating the story. It's like you're sitting in his living room, drinking tea and eating scones and he's telling you stories. I loved it.

This book is often about tidbits that Caine - birthname Maurice Micklewhite - has plucked from Hollywood. For example:

I was browsing through the power tool display when I popped my head round the corner and there in the next aisle was Klaus Kinski buying an axe. Never has a shop full of DIY aficionados cleared so quickly...

As such, it gets a bit tedious at times, but given that Caine was 77 years old upon finishing it and has a dry, yet interesting sense of humor, it's quite forgiven. Very linear, but still straightforward in a way that he writes of his own life, often plodding thoughts about people in films he's been with, apart from some dull food-recipes at the end.

He was around for more than a decade before becoming famous, "resting" between roles with other unemployed friends like Terence Stamp and Sean Connery.

When he first started out in theatre...I'll quote him on it:

Even so, I understood fully the sarcasm behind the young critic’s assessment of my performance. ‘Maurice Micklewhite played the Robot, who spoke in a dull, mechanical, monotonous voice, to perfection.’ Bastard.

He also provides food for laypeople as far as acting is concerned, and is humble and credits people who've taught him:

In one play I did in Lowestoft I was cast as a drunkard and at the first rehearsal I came rolling onto the stage and staggered about. The director held up his hand to stop proceedings. ‘What do you think you are doing?’ he demanded. Feeling rather aggrieved, I said, ‘I’m playing a drunk.’ ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘You are playing a drunk – I am paying you to be a drunk. A drunk is a man who is trying to act sober; you are a man who is trying to act drunk. It’s the wrong way round.’ Spot on.

Some paragraphs are really lovely and reminded me of a time when courtesy and "taking the high road" was often the case, and why:

The horse was as quiet as can be, I was assured, and had been chosen with me in mind. His name – I should have suspected something – was Fury. My first few rides on Fury were uneventful and I began to relax. But on the first day of shooting, he seemed to switch personality. I had changed into costume and had planned to start the day with a little trot. The trot began sedately enough but soon turned into a canter and then began to gather speed until it turned into a gallop I had no chance of controlling. We were eventually brought to a screaming halt (it was me doing the screaming) by a jeep from the unit, three miles from the set. I have rarely been angrier and let rip at the director, James Clavell, as soon as I was back. He sat calmly absorbing my anger and then got up, took me by the arm and led me to a quiet corner and gave me one of the best lessons of my life. ‘I was a prisoner of the Japanese during the war,’ he said, ‘and the reason I survived and others did not is that I never lost face. If you lose your temper in front of people you do not know, you lose their respect and it is almost impossible to win it back. You must keep control – if you cannot control yourself, then you have no chance of controlling others. The reason the horse ran away was that your sword was slapping against his side as you began to trot. He thought you were urging him on to go faster and faster.’ I have never forgotten his advice.

Also words on John Houston, who also directed Caine's favourite actor, Humphrey Bogart, upon acting in his film "The Man Who Would Be King":

In The Man Who Would Be King, John Huston lived up to every inch of his reputation as a great director. Throughout the making of the movie he addressed Sean and me as ‘Danny’ and ‘Peachy’, even off set, and he was somehow able to convey with the minimum of fuss or explanation exactly what he was looking for in a character. He didn’t tell you much, he just watched you very closely and you knew you were doing it right just by looking at him. He held the view – rare among directors – that good actors know what they are doing and should be left alone to do it if at all possible. I said to him once, ‘You don’t really tell us much, do you?’ And he said, ‘Two things, Michael. The art of good direction is casting. If you cast it right you don’t have to tell the actors what to do. Also,’ he went on, ‘you’re being paid a lot of money to do this, Michael. You should be able to get it right on your own – you don’t need me to tell you what to do!’ He only ever stopped me once mid-take, when I had to tell Christopher Plummer (who was playing Rudyard Kipling), what Danny and I were up to. Kipling warns us that what we were planning was very dangerous and Peachy replies, ‘We are not little men.’ I put the emphasis on the word ‘not’, but John held up his hand. ‘We are not little men,’ he said. I shrugged and did it his way and when we finished the take I saw he was smiling. He was right. We were not little men – under Huston’s direction we became giants.

And one of the many signs that Caine has come a long way since his poor beginnings:

The first lunchtime on the set just before we started filming, we were all given personal Geiger counters to test the food for radiation. The first thing we all did was buy new batteries. Radioactive or not, the food was terrible and Shakira would go back and forth to London, returning to St Petersburg with Marks and Spencer’s steak and kidney pudding and other goodies to keep us all going.

A more precise account of this was given upon his recollections regarding "lazy" youths in the high-rise building areas where he acted in the film "Harry Brown"; he stated that he has previously thought that criminals should basically just be locked up for a long time, but that mingling with these youths made him think that there might actually be reasons as to why they're out and about, learning bad manners along the way. Oh, brother. Intertwined with stuff like this, I wonder why that took him such a long time to grasp:

In Britain if you are successful and from a working-class background, you get this sort of thing all the time. It’s often a tiny and insignificant comment made by a tiny and insignificant person, but it’s annoying – a bit like being bitten by a flea you can’t quite ever squash. I remember talking to a reporter years ago about my elder daughter, Dominique. ‘Oh,’ he said, trying to stifle a laugh, ‘so you named her after the singing nun, did you?’ (There had recently been a number one hit called ‘Dominique’, by a Belgian nun.) ‘No,’ I said. ‘I named her after the heroine of the Ayn Rand novel The Fountainhead, Dominique Francon.’ I can still see the look on his stunned face: how could this ignorant Cockney bastard have read a book like that? Class prejudice works in weird and wonderful ways in Britain. A supreme example of this is our planning system: thousands of apartment blocks were built for lower-income families after the war, with nowhere for tenants to park their cars. I suppose at the time the planners didn’t envisage that the working class would be able to buy cars.

While quoting history, this note of his angered me some (if it's indeed true):

The very worst thing about the London social scene in those days was that everything shut at ten thirty – pubs, theatres, cafés, buses, tube, everything. I once heard a member of parliament explain that it was to make sure the working classes weren’t late for work the next day. You can imagine how that went down with my friends and me...

And, the illustrious Swinging 1960s...

Working-class actors like Terence Stamp, Albert Finney, Peter O’Toole and me were blazing a trail, too – and we were all taking full advantage of a much freer attitude to sex and booze, to have the time of our lives. Peter was probably the wildest of us all. During my time understudying him in The Long and the Short and the Tall in 1959, my main job was to bring in the drink and find the parties, but I soon learnt to start the evening off with him and then duck out. God knows, I love a party, but I just couldn’t keep up. On one Saturday night after the show we were about to set off when he suggested that we line our stomachs first at a fast-food place in Leicester Square called the Golden Egg. This seemed to me to be perfectly sensible and I was encouraged because Peter’s diet hadn’t to this point seemed to include any food, so I went along and ordered a fry-up. I have absolutely no idea what happened after that because the next thing I remember is waking up in broad daylight in a flat I had never been in before, still wearing my coat. I nudged Peter, who was lying next to me, and asked him what time it was. ‘Never mind what time it is,’ he said, ‘what fucking day is it?’ Our hostesses, two rather dubious-looking girls I really don’t remember having set eyes on before, told us it was Monday and it was five o’clock. The curtain went up at eight. Somehow we got to the theatre in time – we hadn’t even been sure we were still in London – but instead of being pleased to see us, the stage manager was very cross. It seemed that the manager of the Golden Egg had already been round: henceforth we were both banned. ‘But what did we – ?’ I began. Peter nudged me. ‘Never ask,’ he said. ‘Better not to know.’ The voice of experience. They say that if you can remember the Sixties, you weren’t there. And this was only 1959...

His recollection of Austin, Texas, filled me with longing for the place again, one of my dream cities:

The film was shot in Austin, the capital of Texas. Austin is a very rich town with a massive university and a lot of steak houses. The most famous one at that time was Sullivan’s and it was here that the then governor of Texas and his cronies always ate: we saw George W. Bush there every time we went. Everything in Texas is big, including the onion rings. Benjamin and I were at Sullivan’s one lunchtime and just about to start eating, when we saw a woman approaching us with a smile and a camera. It happens all the time when you are well known: not only is your meal interrupted with the photograph, but attention is drawn to your table and so everyone else thinks it’s OK to interrupt you, too. Anyway, as she came over, we both put a brave face on it and prepared to pose, but she completely took the wind out of our outraged sails by saying, ‘Can I take a picture of your onion rings? The folks back home just won’t believe how big they are!’ With a sigh of relief, we both said yes . . . Austin is a strange town – and the citizens know it. I have a souvenir mug that says ‘Keep Austin Weird’, and they are doing a pretty good job. Sandra was going out with Bob Schneider around the time we were making the film and she took a group of us to see him play. When he came on, the young female fans at the front lifted up their blouses and flashed their breasts at him. Sandra said that they always did that to him as a greeting. It would have made my day back when I was fourteen, but it seems a pretty odd business to me now. The weirdest thing I saw in Austin was from the window of our hotel, which was on the banks of the Colorado river. Shakira and I arrived back at the hotel late one afternoon and the receptionist told us rather mysteriously to go out onto the balcony of our room at precisely six o’clock and look at the bridge over the river on our right. We did exactly as she suggested and saw that there were crowds of other guests standing on their balconies, too, and a host of people standing below, all with cameras ready, waiting for something to happen. Not wanting to miss anything, I rushed back inside to get my camera and got back just in time to witness one of the most extraordinary sights I’ve ever seen. At dead on six o’clock, two million bats flew out from under the bridge in their nightly search for food. There’s no other word for it – weird.

All in all: a fair autobiography. I'd love for it to have been more detailed in the introspective, but I guess that's just how Caine writes.

Life advice from Michael Caine. Coming from his years as an actor, and although he often uses the phrase, “no matter what you do in life”, it’s directed at that profession. There are many Hollywood stories, but what makes the Audio Book version enjoyable is Michael Caine’s narration. One of the most recognizable voices.

Blowing the Bloody Doors Off is lovely and honest life advice from the veteran actor Michael Caine. For those in creative industries, it may prove invaluable, with useful tips and hard-won lessons on how to conduct yourself and how to tackle particular problems that emerge in such a career. Caine's attempts to give his lessons a wider appeal – usually along the lines of 'this also works in your office or your personal life too' – often seem like an afterthought or a marketing decision, but this is a minor quibble. Caine has a good reputation and a family life that is clearly deeply rewarding for him, so even these attempts to diversify his message have some merit.

The book is never cynical, and Caine displays all the wit, compassion and honesty that has helped make him a cultural and national treasure. These traits emerge naturally in his writing, and Blowing the Bloody Doors Off can be seen as a companion piece to his excellent 1992 autobiography, What's it All About? I began to see the book as a sort of updated and abridged version of that earlier tome, and that's perfectly fine. Caine is great company.

Actors' biographies or memoirs don't usually interest me, but Caine's memoir is unpretentious, self-effacing and light-hearted throughout, a pleasure to read. There is no resting on laurels or blowing his horn, he recognizes exactly what he is, a cockney lad who was lucky enough to find his passion. Now in his 85th year, he looks back on his life and shares the lessons he learned. Wise and funny at the same time, his voice is evident on every page.

The title comes from a bit of acting advice for stage actors on a film set. On stage they need to be big and loud, but screen actors must be more restrained: "Don't blow up the whole car. You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off."

Michael Caine presents a mix of "facts" that include "I've heard this fact far too often and I fear that in fact many people know that", "this sounds extremely dubious", "this is flat out wrong" and "mildly interesting".

"Not many people know that" reaches no great heights and really the only thing in its favour was that profits from the book went to charity, although even that is no longer relevant this many decades on from its publication.

Another easy and affable collection of interesting facts compiled by actor Michael Caine. Lacking the autobiographical snippets in the same frequency as its predecessor, Not Many People Know That!, this book has less of the print of its author. Caine's new approach is to ring-fence bunches of facts into themed chapters with movie titles (e.g. 'All About Eve' for a chapter of facts about women), before providing some loose trivia on the film chosen. I have to say, it doesn't really work as the movie trivia is often colourless.

However, one shouldn't be too hard on this sort of thing. The book was done for charity, many of the facts are legitimately interesting and Caine's presence makes it a nice little curio. There are the usual caveats and criticisms of books of this type: lacking supplementary detail, you don't know how true some of the facts are, and because of the book's age (1985) some are undoubtedly no longer true anyway. Nevertheless, a fun thing to dip into.

Given Michael Caine's status as a national treasure and his well-earned reputation as a raconteur, it is no surprise that his autobiography is so amiable and entertaining to read. There are no grotty, salacious revelations in the style of the modern celebrity 'tell-all' gossip biography; that would only cheapen Caine's remarkable story. What we get is something more wholesome (but yet willing to address alcoholism and perceptions of 'womanizing' from the Sixties, amongst other things); we're spending time in the company of a man who you become very interested in.

Much of the book, of course, covers his film career and it is therefore a great relief that this is actually interesting. Caine mingled with a lot of the stars of Hollywood in a time when that still meant something. It seems like every other day he was meeting new and interesting people, whether in Swinging London, New York or Los Angeles. As he notes on page 255, "I seemed to spend a lot of time in Hollywood standing open-mouthed as I was introduced to someone astonishing", and that is the tone and content of a large portion of this book. But it's not a blitz of name-dropping; Caine is great at telling anecdotes and framing them as only a natural storyteller can. It somewhat inevitably becomes less interesting towards the end of the 1970s as Caine's leading-man status in films waned, but there's still plenty to hold one's attention from then on. Mercifully for such a long book with so much content, Caine writes well and the pages breeze by.

In contrast to many autobiographies, in Caine's case it is the years before fame that are the most riveting. As much as I enjoyed the celebrity hobnobbing of the later chapters, the enjoyment of those chapters is heightened by sharing in Caine's experiences and trials before his fame. From evacuation to the countryside in World War Two and growing up in poverty in working-class London, to struggling in both Britain's rigid class structure and the unsympathetic world of show-business until his big break at the age of 30, Caine is for all 557 pages of this book funny, warm and modest, and it's heartening to know that despite some titanic struggles such a person can indeed 'make it'. And for a man who comes across as such a decent and likeable person, with just enough rascal about him to keep him interesting, you don't begrudge him a single minute of it.

What an enjoyable read. Yes, this is an autobiography of an actor and there are names named, but his outlook on life and the way he relates his experiences are very entertaining.

Starting life out as Maurice Micklewhite, with a father who worked as a fish-porter on the London docks, Maurice decided he did not want to follow in his father's footsteps, but rather become and actor. Starting on the stage in his late teens, it was an uphill run, but he persisted until he became a household word.

His style of writing and is perspective of his life make this a refreshing memoir. The amusing stories of what has happened to him on his way to the top and the people he has met and worked with are presented in a good pace and easy read style. It is easy to join in this stroll down Michael Caine's memory lane.

Not Many People Know That! is a charming collection of trivia; the gimmick being that this one was compiled by the legendary actor (and national treasure) Michael Caine. Written in 1984, it wasn't a cash-in (all the royalties went to a charity) and Caine has always been a likeable character. He writes a few short anecdotal and autobiographical segments in the book which are enjoyable, particularly his bit about meeting General Eisenhower whilst he was doing his National Service.

As the book is quite old, some of its facts are no doubt outdated (it was peculiar to read of Rudolf Hess spoken of in the present tense) and some others seem of dubious accuracy. In the odd one or two, the facts were so outlandish I thought that Caine might be pulling our collective leg. I don't even know where to start; there's dozens of Caine's assertions which I am just itching to Google to see if they're true.

In some ways, Not Many People Know That! isn't all that different from other trivia books (aside from its odd sprinkle of Michael Caine stardust). Some of the facts are trivia book staples - some true, others have probably been debunked. However, a lot of the facts are interesting and some really make you think, and you should finish this book remembering at least a dozen new facts to impress (or annoy) people at parties. Whilst trivia books are a dime a dozen these days, Caine's compilation doesn't deserve to be forgotten. It is amiable and enjoyable - a nice little gem. It's a shame that not many people know that.

A very well written memoir from one of my favorite actors. It is really amazing how so many of the early British actors came from such humble working class backgrounds.

A very well written memoir from one of my favorite actors. It is really amazing how so many of the early British actors came from such humble working class backgrounds.

OK and easy to read, but drags a bit from the half way mark - more a of book for his family than the general population from that point on.

Maurice Micklewhite is an engaging fellow. His film and stage career seems to be adequately portrayed in this autobiography. Not a laugh fest like David Niven's Memoirs, but still a good time was had by the reader.

Read by author. Only okay. A lot of name dropping. Not much about feelings.

This was an enjoyable read, the kind of book you pack in your beachbag for a summertime read. Caine writes almost the same way he speaks, so there is constant humor and a love of life. His start in life was tough and he doesn't hide his own failings regarding his first marriage and child, so the honesty is appreciated by the reader.

Sometimes he seems to aim for the heights conquered by David Niven in his enjoyable memoirs and doesn't quite get there. I'm not sure all of it is truly happening as he states or whether he's using hindsight to his advantage. But, not for me to decipher, just for me to read and enjoy.

Book Season = Summer

British actor Michael Caine delivers another autobiography, this one an update on his first book, [b:What's It All About?|327610|What's It All about|Michael Caine|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173786963s/327610.jpg|1413710], from 1993. This volume is most definitely an update, as the actor basically provides a skimmer on his earlier bio then does some extra chapters on his life since his first book.

I hate comparing books as the idea is to read each book as its own entity, but in this case it's quite pertinent. If you want a Niven-esque story about Caine's life (up to 1993), then read [b:What's It All About?|327610|What's It All about|Michael Caine|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1173786963s/327610.jpg|1413710]. It's far more detailed and quite frankly, more fun. I still love his telling of the Cheetah and the dog tale in that book.

By contrast, this latest auto-bio is not as detailed with only some of the previous escapades popping up. It's really a primer for the basic cinematic fan who just wants a basic overview, which is okay but certainly nothing special. It feels as though Mr. Caine was asked to provide some more writings and this is the result. The one constant throughout the book is his reminding us that he is getting old. I kept thinking of T.S. Eliot and, "I grow old ... I grow old ...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled."

Time for tea.

Book Season = Summer (basic beachbag book)

Read in August, 2013

The Elephant to Hollywood

Nonfic> Celebrity memoir
Fraudio read by author
summer 2013> tbr busting 2013

"My name is Michael Caine"

More name dropping and false modesty, however he does it so well. You get to hear of all his charitable acts and gifts, which is where this drops a star from the first memoir.

4* What's It All About
3* The Elephant to Hollywood
1 like

Unexpectedly delightful. Warm, moving, funny, sentimental, innocent but not naive. Comes across as a likeable, sociable bloke with a steely core that he doesn't need to flaunt. Could be accused of name-dropping, especially of a previous generation of Hollywood honchos, but he clearly enjoys their company and is generous to those who've helped him. Story of his falling in love (which I heard him tell before) is wonderful. Story of discovery of his disabled half-brother brought tears to my eyes. He's well aware of the media and jealous rivals snapping at his heels but seems to have little trouble from them; perhaps his mix of charm and toughness keeps them at bay. Simple but graceful style which we are led to believe is his own.

What this book has going for it is that you really feel like Michael Caine is there in the room with you just shooting the you-know-what. He is just telling his stories. And that is why this book succeeds. He is sharing with us, as if we were all great friends, the way he became an actor and the way he became a famous actor and the various interactions he has had with other famous people.

By using the “I’m just telling you stories” approach, the accusation of “name dropper” never lands. And the sincerity of the prose shines through. This is a man who has succeeded through effort and (as with all of us) just a little luck. He knows it, and is thankful for the great things he has been able to do.

For most of the book, the conversational style works really well. It all loses steam at toward the end. Then again, we are all losing a little steam as we move further into our own lives.

Probably a book that is more fun to those of us who remember all the old stars. But worth trying, even if you don’t. (And I defy you to read the book without hearing Michael Caine’s voice in your head.)

A lot of great actors are not interesting at all: they just think they are because they are well known, so I seldom read any actor's biography; I prefer the biographies of businessmen and sports coaches: at least I know I will learn something. I made three exceptions: one with Paul Newman, because he was successful at anything he tried, one with Laurence Olivier, because I wondered if he was as insufferable as I suspected - and he was. The third one is Michael Caine, because I have seen him in a lot of bad movies, but he never gave a bad performance or let himself go. In a 40 years career' span, it says something of the man's character.
Caine was born on the wrong side of the tracks in Britain in 1933. There was a much bigger class division in Britain than in the USA or France, a division I still felt in the 40s, 50s and early 60s. The Victorian snobbery was still in full blast; the great depression was followed by the war and the great decolonization: that did not help anybody get out of misery. What made of Michael Caine a success? Character. It makes the book worth reading for me.
The general mood of the book is good: no complaint, lament or bitterness. Caine is a good story teller and sees the funny side of things. He is faithful to his friends, so do not expect scandals and shocking revelations. If you are a good reader, you will guess who he does not care for, but he never spells it out. Caine met everybody in Hollywood. Some people call it "name dropping." I do not see it that way. Caine was starstruck as any movie fan and happy to meet his big American screen heroes. In my field, people who ever met Einstein are happy to talk about it, and they think it will make you happy too, I pass around whatever nice story I know about the few Nobel prizes I met: it is not about me, and it is not about Caine: it is sharing the small pleasures of life. Proof of this is that Caine shares memories of friends we never heard about, the people he found remarkable and was proud to meet. Once again, this shows character.
Altogether, a remarkable man. A good and easy read -with a lot of depth under the apparent lightness.
To the future actor, I heartily recommend reading Michael Caine's "Acting in Film: An Actor's Take on Movie Making."

This a book filled with humor, intelligence and subtlety. Some actors are good but not very smart, it happens. Caine is extremely smart and wrote a good book. It goes from the difference between a movie and a play to technical advice to actors on the set and includes how to behave on and off the set. There are a lot of funny stories, but each of them is a lesson, so young actors better read this twice. Non-actors will be delighted by the humanity of the book.
There are plenty of books called "how to be successful", usually very pedestrian. If you are tempted to buy one, try "Acting in film" instead; it is full of advice that applies to scientists as well as it does to actors. Indeed I had to laugh several times when I read it: some advices that Caine gives are just the same as what I used to say to young geochemists. For instance: this (acting or being a chemist) is an expensive business: show on time and be reliable.