Michael Caine bins booze in bid to have as much time with grandkids as possible
Sir Michael Caine says he has cut down on the booze in a bid to have as much time with his young grandchildren as possible.
The 88-year-old, grandfather to Taylor, 12, and 11-year-old twins, Miles and Allegra, said his diet has also improved as part of the health kick.
Caine, who has spoken before about his battle with the bottle, said: “I’ve decided to live a bit longer.
“I’ve cut down on the drink and got a new outlook on life. I thought I wasn’t going to have grandchildren, and suddenly I have three.
“They’re my fountain of youth and have given me a new lease of life without any of the worries or troubles. I’m completely besotted and so is my wife.
“I’ve had some high points in my life, I’ve won two Academy Awards and been given a knighthood, and I used to think that you couldn’t get better than that.
“But then I got my grandchildren, which is better than anything.”
(Image: WireImage)
“The wonderful thing about grandchildren is something someone once said, which is they fill a hole in your heart which you didn’t know was empty. And I think that’s absolutely true.”
Caine has two daughters, Dominique – whose mother is his first wife, actress Patricia Haines – and Natasha, from his second, Shakira Baksh. Both are now mums themselves.
In 2016 he spoke about alcohol problems early in his career and said Shakira saved him from a boozy death.
Caine said: “I was a bit of a p***-artist when younger. I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day and I was smoking several packs a day.
“I wasn’t unhappy, but it was stress. You know, ‘Am I going to get another picture? How am I going to do this part? How am I going to remember all those lines?’”
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The Italian job star told how Shakira “calmed him down” after they married in 1973.
He added: “Without her, I would have been dead long ago. I would have probably drunk myself to death.”
For all Caine’s accomplishments, which include six Oscar nominations with two wins for the 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules in 1999, he said his greatest has been being a “great father”.
Speaking in the new issue of Candis magazine, he said: “One of the things I am proudest of in my life is that I am a great father.
“And I know that I am a great father because if you ask my daughters, they’ll tell you so, too.
(Image: Press Association)
“The best thing I ever heard about being a father to daughters was that a great father is a man who spends time with his daughters, not spends money on them.
“Well, I spend the money too, because I have some. To tell you the truth, I tend to spoil them.
“But the time is the important thing, I love spending time with them and they seem to like spending time with me.”
Caine fell in love with Shakira after seeing her in a TV commercial for Maxwell House coffee.
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He said: “My wife is extremely bright. She was secretary to one of the politicians in Guyana, and she can type very fast and also take shorthand, although she never does that any more.
“She also has a degree in accountancy, which she still does do. Looks over all our papers.
“She is a very practical woman who is also very beautiful, and what the hell she’s doing with me, I’ll never know.”
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