One of Britain’s most beloved living legends of the screen, Michael Caine, retires comforted by a legacy of consistent acting prowess. The London-born actor first broke through with a foundational role in Cy Endfield’s colonial war classic Zulu in 1964. Over the past half-century, he has remained just as relevant, with Academy Award-winning roles in Woody Allen’s 1986 movie Hannah and Her Sisters and 1999’s The Cider House Rules.
Sadly, Caine announced his retirement in October 2023, following his final movie role in Oliver Parker’s The Great Escaper. “I keep saying I’m going to retire. Well, I am now,” he told the BBC’s ‘Today’ programme. “I’ve figured, I’ve had a picture where I’ve played the lead and had incredible reviews … What am I going to do that will beat this?”
“The only parts I’m liable to get now are 90-year-old men,” he added. “Or maybe 85. They’re not going to be the lead. You don’t have leading men at 90; you’re going to have young, handsome boys and girls. So I thought, I might as well leave with all this.”
Having led a seven-decade career through the latter 20th century, Caine was lucky enough to experience the rise of a global music industry. He rose to prominence at a time when British musicians, such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, made a monumental impact on charts around the world.
“I knew all The Beatles, all The Rolling Stones,” Caine told Rolling Stone in 2019. “I knew everybody in the music business, and we spent our lives in discotheques. I drank alcohol quite heavily for some time. But I never did any drugs.”
Although Caine rubbed shoulders with the 1960s elite, his music tastes have moved with the times. In December 2009, he paid a visit to BBC Radio 4 to partake in their much-adored Desert Island Discs feature. Alongside discerning choices by Frank Sinatra and Edward Elgar, Caine showed his appreciation for more modern acts, including Bent, Coldplay and Chicane.
Since Caine was asked to select his eight favourite tracks for a Christmas Day feature, he felt it was only appropriate to cap things off with his favourite festive tune. Of course, any Christmas song could drive one crazy on a desert island eleven months out of the year, but at least he has eight other tracks to busy himself with. “My final one is a carol,” he began. “It’s by John Lennon, who I knew and liked very much.”
Continuing, Caine recalled getting well acquainted with the Beatle at the Cannes Film Festival. “We both went to the Canne Film Festival, drinking a little too much, and so I sort of got to know him like that there. And I noticed he always introduced himself, to anyone, as ‘John Lemon’ – anyway, we won’t go into that. It’s John Lennon, and his Christmas carol is called ‘Happy Xmas’. And there’s a little bracket after it, and the line is: ‘War Is Over’. Of course, it isn’t, but we all wish it was.”
Listen to John Lennon’s anti-war Christmas carol below.
