The Continuing Wit and Wisdom of Sir Michael Caine

When last I presented some bits and pieces from Michael Caine’s autobiography, The Elephant to Hollywood (2010), I noted that Maurice Mickelwhite’s first stage name was the same as Steve Carrell’s character in The Office — namely, Michael Scott. It turned out, however, that there was already an actor by that name in the English actors’ union. So how did Caine become Caine? By sitting down on a bench in the middle of Leicester Square and looking at the cinema marquees.

And then I saw it. Humphrey Bogart, my favorite actor, my hero, was starring in The Caine Mutiny. Caine – because it was short, because it was easy to spell, because I was feeling very mutinous at the time – and because, like Cain in the Old Testmaent, I, too, was outside Paradise.

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