Caine talks about Ledger's death 

Michael Caine recalls sitting on a comfy chair in his London home earlier this year.

It was January 22 and the day had been unremarkable - until the 75-year-old Londoner turned on the TV set and BBC's 10pm news bulletin began.

"It suddenly came up on the news," said the two-time Oscar winner, his face, all these months later, mirroring the shocking moment.

"I ran to my wife and said: 'Heath has died'.

"I couldn't believe it."

After almost 100 movies in an acting career that reached its 50-year milestone two years ago, Caine has said goodbye to many of his co-stars, but the death of Heath Ledger at the premature age of 28 shook him to the core.

Caine and the Australian actor had finished shooting British director-writer Christopher Nolan's Batman sequel, The Dark Knight, just a few months earlier at London's Leavesden movie studio.

Caine was reprising his role as Batman's tough-talking butler, Alfred Pennyworth, following the success of 2005's Batman Begins.

Ledger was the new wild card on Nolan's set, playing Batman's crazed nemesis The Joker, a performance that will go down in film history as one of the great villains.

Hidden behind thick, smudged make-up, with scars extending from the corners of his mouth and his hair greasy and wild, Ledger created a character that is despicable, but transfixes the audience when his thin frame and slumped shoulders slither into each scene.

Caine has been vocal about what the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences should do at next February's Oscar ceremony.

Caine, a voting member of the Academy, believes at the least Ledger should receive a best supporting actor nomination.

He felt that as he watched Ledger come alive on The Dark Knight set.

"I'd never met Heath before," Caine said.

"Before we started filming I'd watched Brokeback Mountain, so I was very impressed with him.

"But until he started doing The Joker, wow, that really knocked me back.

"His death was such a waste."

When news broke around the world Ledger had been found dead by his housekeeper and a masseuse in his Manhattan apartment on January 22, speculation swirled about a cause of death, but when the New York Medical Examiner's Office released the autopsy results on February 6, it was deemed an "accidental overdose".

Ledger, struggling with insomnia, had taken a powerful mix of six different medications, including the painkiller OxyContin, the anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax and the sleeping pills Restoril and Unisom.

"I thought it was such a terrible waste and very, very sad," Caine said during an interview at Beverly Hills' Peninsula Hotel yesterday.

The New York Times famously compared Ledger's performance in Brokeback Mountain to a young, brooding Marlon Brando.

When the comparison is raised with Caine he thinks for a moment and then nods in agreement.
 
"I knew Marlon," Caine explains.

"He was very quiet too."

Australians will be among the first in the world to see Ledger, Caine, Christian Bale and the rest of the Batman cast when The Dark Knight opens in Australian theatres on Wednesday (July 16).

The first scene in the film is dramatic and captivating.

It shows with raw power and violence Ledger's take on The Joker.

Caine had no doubt he wanted to be part of the sequel and was excited to see Ledger go head-to-head with Bale.

"I think Christian is the best actor ever to play Batman," Caine says.

"He's also very lucky. He's got the best writer and director ever for Batman, Christopher Nolan. That's why I agreed to do it. I'd seen Memento and Insomnia so was a big fan of Christopher. Then I read Batman Begins and thought the script was brilliant.

"I realised how clever it was because Chris explained why a guy would wear a Batman suit and you believed it."

While Ledger and Bale will receive most of the critics' applause, what audiences should also take note of is Caine's performance as butler Pennyworth.

Caine did not just walk on to the set and go through the motions of Pennyworth.

When Nolan offered him the role in Batman Begins, Caine went about creating a back story for the butler.

As a child growing up in London during World War II, his mother worked as a cook in the large estate home of a wealthy British family. Caine lived in the staff quarters, so knew the mannerisms of stiff upper lip butlers and their uniform accents.

The actor chose not to make Pennyworth a clone.

"My butler is not the normal butler," Caine explains.

"I wanted my character to be the toughest butler, so the way I play him is that he's an ex-SAS soldier.

"The back story I created is that he got hurt, but he didn't want to leave the army so he became in charge of the officer's mess.

"That's how he learned how to do drinks and serve.

"I also gave him the voice of a sergeant I had in the army.

"He doesn't talk like a butler.

"I talk like a soldier, not a butler.

"It's very military the way he talks."

For an actor that has charmed audiences on the big screen for half a century in roles ranging from 1964's Zulu, his breakthrough performance in Alfie (1966), Sleuth (1972), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), The Cider House Rules (1999), The Quiet American (2002) and The Prestige (2006), the simple television set has played an influential part in his personal life.

There was the shocking news about Ledger's death.

There was also the life-changing moment almost 40 years ago when a beautiful woman danced across his black and white TV set in a Maxwell House coffee commercial.

She transformed Caine from a big drinking, womanising party boy, to a loyal husband.

"In the 1960s, it was disco time," Caine, explaining the moment that changed his life, said.

"I was known as Disco Mike.

"I was in discos every evening of my life.

"I was always out dancing and with girls and being drunk.

"Then my life changed.

"One night I remember saying to my best male friend, 'Let's stay at home tonight. I'm really tired'.

"I'm a really good cook and he knew it so when I said 'I'll cook dinner and we'll watch TV' he agreed.

"We'd never done that.

"So we sat down and on came a commercial for Maxwell House coffee with this girl.

"I thought she was Brazilian back then."

Caine was mesmerised by the woman.

She was dancing to Brazilian music, so Caine presumed she was Brazilian.

He was ready to fly to Brazil to track her down.

In the days after he would tell anyone he met how this mystery woman had stolen his heart.

By chance, one of his mates knew her.

Soon after, the mate slipped the woman's phone number, scribbled on a piece of paper, into Caine's hand.

The beauty was not living in Brazil.

She wasn't Brazilian.

The woman lived just a few kilometres away in another suburb of London.

Her name was Shakira Baksh, a former Miss Guyana.

"She was my future wife," Caine said.

He was right.

Caine, who had been married for three years in the 1950s, and Baksh married in 1973 and he says he hasn't thought about another woman since.

The couple have one child, Natasha, who will soon give birth to Caine's first grandchild.

"Staying in that one night changed my life," Caine said.

"I often think if I said that night 'Sod it, let's not stay home. Let's go out to the disco' what would have happened.

"Life is like that.

"Shakira danced on to my TV screen that night, I fell in love with her instantly and we have stayed in love for 36 years."
  

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