Michael Caine on sex, booze, equal pay and why he thinks we’ll fare better outside the EU
FED up with the stuffy old Establishment, Sir Michael Caine helped start the 1960s revolution that brought new freedoms and put Britain back on the map.
Now the 84-year-old knight of the realm is convinced Brexit will do the same for a whole new generation.
And he believes that far from a sexist gender wage gap in the movie industry, actresses were crashing through pay barriers first.
He points to Elizabeth Taylor negotiating a million-dollar pay packet for playing Cleopatra in 1963 — a record-breaking deal for either sex.
Sir Michael adds: “I worked with Elizabeth Taylor and I got about ten per cent of the money she got.
“I never realised women were underpaid.
"I worked with Jane Fonda, and they all got more money than me or the same.”
But he continues: “Women want more freedom and I agree with that. I am a big feminist.”
It is an attitude far removed from cheeky Cockney womaniser Alfie, who he played in the 1966 movie of that name.
It is a film that Sir Michael believes is dated now — but not because of his character’s easy-come, easy-go attitude to the opposite sex.
He says: “I don’t think Alfie would be relevant any more.
A guy says he seduced ten women, and you would say, ‘So what? I seduced 20’.
Then, that was part of sexual freedom, that there were ten girls to seduce.”
Along with the sex and rock ’n’ roll, the Sixties were heavily associated with drugs.
In the documentary, Paul McCartney talks about taking mind-altering substances, but Sir Michael says he only tried marijuana once.
In fact, he blames the arrival of LSD and cocaine for killing off the enthusiasm of his generation.
He says: “The Seventies was drugs and the reason the Sixties disappeared.
"Someone would either be on cocaine talking like a bloody machine gun, a load of cobblers, or on LSD going, ‘Wow, isn’t it great’.
"It got quite boring.”
Instead, his vice was alcohol. At one point he was downing a bottle of vodka a day and admits: “We were all drunks in the Sixties.
Women want more freedom and I agree with that. I am a big feminist
“Peter O’Toole was a heavy drinker and I used to go out drinking with him. I couldn’t drink like Peter though.
"He wound up with a metal stomach.”
It was falling in love with second wife Shakira Baksh that he believes saved him from a booze-fuelled demise.
He pursued the Guyanan former Miss World contestant after seeing her in a Maxwell House coffee advert, and they wed in 1973.
Sir Michael, who has a daughter from each marriage, says: “If I hadn’t met Shakira I would be dead, she cut my drinking right down.”
But the two-time Oscar-winner also has to thank now-deceased actor pal Tony Curtis for helping him survive this long.
He explains: “I was at a party chain-smoking.
"I threw one dog end in the fireplace and started smoking another.
“A hand came round me, went in my pocket, took out the cigarettes and threw them in the fire. I turned round and it was Tony.
“He said, ‘You’re going to die if you keep on smoking like that.
'I have been watching you’. Then I gave up smoking.”
Despite his advancing years, Sir Michael, who lives in Leatherhead, Surrey, with Shakira, 71, is still one of Britain’s most in-demand actors.
He has made 18 movies so far this decade, including Inception and Kingsman.
Next up is The King Of Thieves about the Hatton Garden jewellery heist by ageing robbers.
Sir Michael’s new documentary may celebrate his generation, but it does not mean he thinks it was better than the current one.
He says: “The thing about the younger generation now is you have the internet. You are much more knowledgeable than we are.”