Michael Caine is such a sweet old guy. He recently sat down for an interview with The Daily Mirror, and he mostly talked about how much he loves his wife of 35 years, Shakira Caine. It’s actually Caine’s second marriage, but the way he talks about Shakira, it makes me a little swoony.
Micheal Caine is a two-time Oscar winner who has starred in films with some of the most beautiful and talented women in the world. He says that he enjoys working with these beautiful women, but that his greatest “temptation” was always at home – his wife. Shakira was a beauty queen and then a jewelry designer (before everyone was designing jewelry), but now she simply travels when Michael travels, and stays home when he’s home, so they can always be together. Here’s part of The Daily Mirror’s interview:
Since finding fame as a cocky womaniser in Alfie, Michael Caine has worked with some of the most beautiful women in Hollywood.
But he has only ever had eyes for one leading lady – his wife Shakira. For 35 years their marriage has been rock solid and they have been inseparable. Michael is justifiably proud that he has never strayed – despite temptation being constantly thrown in his path.
“I was always doing love scenes with very beautiful women,” says Michael, 75.
“You can go on the set and there’ll be one of the most beautiful women in the world and the director will say, ‘Take your clothes off and get into bed.’
“That could be a great temptation so I decided that I would never marry a woman who wasn’t as beautiful as the women I was working with. And I married a woman who, in actual fact, is more beautiful than most women I have worked with, so all the temptation was at home, not at work.”
With a throaty cackle, he adds: “So I rush home to get some temptation.”
Michael fell for Shakira, a former Miss Guyana, after spotting her in a Maxwell House ad. Intrigued, he got her number from a friend who worked in advertising. After several calls, she agreed to meet him.
Today they are as devoted as ever, happy to spend time together at their home, a 200-year-old converted barn in the Surrey countryside – their daughter, Natasha, 35, a model turned interior designer and property developer, long since flew the coop.
“I’m deliriously happy,” says Michael, whose first marriage to actress Patricia Haines ended in 1957. “I love the house. I’m very happy there and I’m a real family man. I just love to go home, no matter where I am, the most luxurious hotel suite in the world, I love to go home. People ask me, ‘Where do you go for your holidays?’ I say, ‘I go home.’”
“My wife comes with me on all the movies, but she is not an appendage to a film star or anything like that. She is a completely intertwined partner. She is the other half of me. Also, we’re still very much in love with each other. We always have been, we always will be.”
From The Daily Mirror
I’ve seen Shakira on Michael’s arm at various red carpets, and she is very stunning, and always dressed elegantly. She’s got a very regal, almost haughty look, but you can tell that they’re still really in love. The story of how they met is very sweet too – I wonder if she even knew who Michael Caine was when he called her up.
Michael Caine and Shakira are shown in file photos from 2007 and 2008. Credit: WENN
swoon indeed
That is the way it should be. Good for them.
I’ve always loved Michael Caine. It’s wonderful that they’re still happy together. Sniff.
She had a part in ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ with Caine and Sean Connery. It’s a great film, check it out if you haven’t seen it.
oh, and p.s.
Guyana, REPRESENT!
🙂
That is so awesome. As it should be! I now like him even more.
How sad that it is actually noteworthy for someone famous to love his wife and respect his wedding vows. This should be the norm rather than the exception.
That is amazing. I love to see him in movies and this makes me appreciate him even more!
A rarity in Hollywood. Great to see.
Bless them. They both seem like beautiful people.
Sorry to disappoint but he is a complete and total ahole. I was doing a tour of Ireland several years ago and we stayed at his hotal, a small historic guest house. No one from the tour group bothered him for 3 days and he sat peacefully in the common areas the whole time. Everyone left him alone. On our last day before departure a 78 year old woman asked him for an autograph and he said no and his “private time is his private time” I could care less that he said that but to turn down an old lady, the only one who asked for his autograph, shows he’s an arrogant jerk. And I guess no one informed him he’s older than dirt also. Ever since then I avoid his movies.
This just makes everything else about him even more attractive. Love them.
xxx – wasn’t this the time when he was filming The Actors in Dublin? (if any of you haven’t seen it, you should himself and The Gambon are a treat, especially the “Richard III” scenes). I’d not heard anything bad said about him then, and I definitely had my ear to the ground as they were filming around the corner from me.
That said, a then colleague said that she sat behind them in the cinema one night and that Shakira was impossibly glamourous. Even though she was dressed quite simply, she still caught your eye. It’s only when you looked to see the hunched baseball-cap wearing man beside her you realised it was the Caines! I know I’m biased as he’s my absolute favourite, but it sounds that although he said “no” he was polite about it. These pensioners, can’t rely on them anything!
Elderly autograph hunters aside, Michael Caine, you’re a gentleman and a scholar.
even after he got rich and bought his mum a house she still worked as a skivvy – because she enjoyed it
while i agree that its all romantic and sweet and stuff, it should NOT be news that he has stayed faithful to his wife. hello?! thats what marriage and relationships are about.
@ XXX – He really doesn’t owe anyone anything, does he? I saw Bill Cosby go apesh*t on a lady in a restaurant once, but looking back, she was being very bothersome while he was trying to eat with his family. Let them be, I say.
She has very good dress sense.
I second what Heather said.
Mrs. Caine (and I love that she took his last name…it may be old-fashioned, but I think it’s romantic as hell) has a bit of an Eartha Kitt vibe, no?
Heather and Jess, that’s the first thing I thought, so sad that this is newsworthy!
I’ve always loved him, now even more!
Dirt Rotten Scoundrels and the one with Julie Walters, Educating Rita, love!
“…the only one who asked for his autograph, shows he’s an arrogant jerk.”
Yup. That 10 second encounter is certainly enough to define the man’s entire personality as an arrogant jerk. Yeah. That makes sense. How dare he not want to be bothered by a complete stranger!
A few others have said this, and while I think it’s very respectable that he has been with his wife for 35 years and never cheated on her, the fact that this could be considered “news” is partially the reason why I don’t ever want to be in a relationship.
Apparently, it’s a record to stay faithful…and regardless of who you’re around all the time, it’s ultimately your responsibility to resist any random piece of ass that offers, and I think that men need to spend more time making their wives/girlfriends feel beautiful.
It really bothers me that it’s the social norm to cheat, or think about cheating. I know I’m a little bit young still, but I go to a university where people cheat on each other or talk about how they’d like to cheat privately amongst their friends and it’s actually really upsetting in my opinion. Even the media glorifies infidelity. I also think that regardless of either gender in a relationship, alongside cheating, comparing your partner to other members of their own is disgusting.
It’s really disturbing to me how accepted it has become in our society to cheat that it has become noteworthy when someone resists infidelity.
*SNORE*
Fidelity is overrated.
It’s nice to hear a story of a man staying true to his wife.
Loved him in “Children of Men” with yummy Clive Owen.
I’m with Heather. It’s like people saying “I Take care of MY kids!” Like it’s supposed to be an option.
And what, if his co-star was MORE attractive his marriage would be in jepordy?
yeah, no swoon here.
Tia C:
What’s next? Loyalty being overrated?
Because let’s face it, being in a romantic relationship and being in a casual/relationships doesn’t really change the standards. It’s still disloyalty.
This is going to sound a little bit immoral on my part, but I think that physical attraction is very important in a romantic relationship because if you’re not attracted to your partner, that’s mostly what initiates cheating.
Well la di da, let’s give the guy a fu*king medal.
@ChristinaX-I’m totally agreeing with all you’re saying.
This may be a bit of a shocker, but acting is kind of a bed-hopping industry… besides the man was being tongue-in-cheek.
It’s not news, it’s just a sweet story in the midst of tales of women making their boyfriend strange them, a one-woman baby boom and armchair politcal punditry.
To paraphrase Kitten from Breakfast on Pluto “Serious, serious, serious… why is everything have to be so serious?”
Christina! So negative!!
I mean, you’re absolutely right. But I hope that this doesn’t close you off from finding true love!
If it helps at all, I believe we’re about the same age, and my guy’s been loyal to me in an atmosphere that is LOADED with temptation. (Drunken college girls take off their whats?)
P.S. I adore Michael Caine a million times more for this.
Mairead, we were staying at the Tinakilly Guest House. I know he was living there for a month during shooting of the film but I forgot the name. This was about 5-6 years back.
To the others, I was raised to respect the elderly, especially little old ladies that probaly don’t have a whole lot longer to live. That’s my .02 and to each his own. Personally I think disrespecting an old person whose by themself not harming anyone is not nice.
I don’t care if he’s 75 and I’m 25. I’d marry him in a heart beat. The guys my age got nothing on him…. it’s not sad that it’s noteworthy… happy and good things should always be noteworthy. It’s sad that it’s so rare.
Annie: thank you.
I’m only 20, but I’ve become so pessimistic over the past few years…I hope it isn’t too late for me to change.
Michael Caine is a class act. I find the reference to him as “such a sweet old guy” extremely patronizing and inappropriate. He is not some doddering old fool.
xxx I’m curious, did he say it rudely or otherwise impolite? I understand and commend your respect for this elderly lady (even if not for him as an elderly man), but perhaps since she was basically his peer, age-wise, he didn’t feel the need for similar deference? He normally has a decent reputation for being cordial with fans, not perfect, sometimes gruff especially when he’s not on the set of a film.
It sounds to me like he felt he was “off duty”. After all, doctors won’t diagnose patients at dinner parties and they sign an oath to heal. And while it’s nice to be nice, jobbing actors (even those with Caine’s skill) don’t really owe their fans anything.
ChristinaX: Some men and women are sluts. Some are not. I stayed faithfull to my ex-husband for 10 years though he was psychologically abusing me.
And even when he strayed (and made sure he told me everything that was happening on a hourly basis, otherwise it’s no fun), I didn’t.
There are decent people out there. You’ll find some. Of course, they’re maybe not as loud as others in college. But they are there.
@ChristinaX – don’t mind me, I just haven’t met anyone who was worthy of my fidelity yet, LOL.
I agree with the other posters on here who say why is this news? These people are just doing what they’re supposed to be doing. So what?
i adore him – his voice is so sexy.
Hi Mairead,I wasn’t there but my ex mother-in-law was. She was mad and called him an a-hole. She was next to the lady when it happened. I just didn’t like it either because no one in the tour bothered him during the stay. Granny was the only one that asked as the tour bus was leaving, we were already on board. In any event that’s the story as I know it. I grew up enjoying his movies also:) Cheers.