Born Maurice Micklewhite in London, Michael Caine was the son of a fish-market porter and a charlady. He left school at 15 and took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War, where he saw combat. Upon his return to England he gravitated toward the theater and got a job as an assistant stage manager. He adopted the name of Caine on the advice of his agent, taking it from a marquee that advertised The Caine Mutiny (1954). In the years that follow - www.imdb.com

Name at birth: Maurice MicklewhiteIn the 1960s Michael Caine was a cocky young British movie star with a Cockney accent. He played a caddish womanizer in Alfie (1966) and starred as the dark hero Harry Palmer in the spy film The Ipcress File (1965) and two sequels: Funeral in Berlin (1966) and Billion Dollar Brain (1967). In the 1970s he was memorable in The Man Who Would Be King (1975, with Sean Connery) and he won a best supporting actor Oscar for his role in Woody Allen's 1986 movie Hannah and Her Sister - www.answers.com

Two-time Oscar-winning actor Michael Caine was born Maurice Micklewhite in Rotherhithe, in the East End of London. His father, who was also called Maurice, worked as a porter in a fish market, and his mother, Ellen, worked as a cook and a cleaning lady. When he was two-years-old, his brother, Stanley Victor, was born. A sickly child, Caine was born suffering from rickets. He grew up in South London, and attended Ruskin Infant’s School in Camberwell from the age of four. Around the same time, he was fi - www.thebiographychannel.co.uk