‘The Dark Knight’ Star Michael Caine Fell In Love With His Future Wife After Seeing the 26-Year-Old Model on TV in a Coffee Commerical
Acclaimed British actor Sir Michael Caine, 91, is best known for starring in films like “The Dark Knight” and “Inception.” His real-life love life makes a compelling story, too.
Caine married British-Guyanese model and actress Shakira Caine (née Baksh) in January 1973. He was 40 years old at the time, and his wife-to-be was 26 years old.
During an interview on “The Jonathan Ross Show” in 2018, Michael talked about how he initially discovered Shakira in a Maxwell House television advertisement over fifty years ago.
“I saw this lady on the television in a commercial and fell in love instantly,” Michael explained to Ross. “It was a commercial for coffee in Brazil.”
He added, “I said to my mate, ‘We’re going to Brazil in the morning. We’re going to find her.’” However, one of Michael’s friends informed him that Shakira actually lived on Fulham Road in London, England.
Michael was able to get Shakira’s phone number from a mutual acquaintance. After first turning him down, eventually she went on a date with the London native.
“He was everything I didn’t expect. I had just seen him in ‘Get Carter,’ and he seemed so aggressive and ruthless,” Shakira expressed in a 1976 People magazine cover story.
The Miss World 1967 beauty pageant competitor continued, “Instead, I found him charming and very gentle, someone whom I’d like to spend part of my life with.”
Michael played the fictional gangster Jack Carter in the Mike Hodges-directed, London-set drama. The movie was based on British author Ted Lewis’s 1970 novel “Jack’s Return Home.”
After tying the knot on Jan. 8, 1973, in Las Vegas, Michael and Shakira had a daughter named Natasha Caine later that year.
Shakira is Michael’s second wife. The two-time Academy Award winner was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1954 to 1958. She gave birth to his first daughter, Dominique Caine, in 1956.
In his 2018 memoir, “Blowing the Bloody Doors Off,” Michael credited his relationship with Shakira and being a parent to their child for some of his positive life-changing decisions.
“By an immense stroke of good fortune, Shakira arrived in my life just in time. The empty feeling vanished and she got on my case,” Michael penned in the book, according to People.
He also wrote, “Then, to top it all, she got pregnant, and I was given a second go at fatherhood, and soon I got myself straightened out. I gave up alcohol entirely for a year and now I never drink during the day, and with dinner, it’s just wine.”
Michael and Shakira have remained married for 51 years. Throughout those five decades, Michael performed in dozens of motion pictures, apparently with his spouse by his side on set.
“My wife comes with me on all the movies, but she is not an appendage to a film star or anything like that,” Michael stated in a 2009 interview with The Mirror. “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.”
Shakira appeared in films too. The 1967 Miss Guyana contest winner had roles in movies such as 1969’s “Some Girls Do,” 1974’s “Son of Dracula,” and 1975’s “The Man Who Would Be King.”
Caine explained to The Mirror how he was never tempted to step outside of his marriage by doing love scenes with so many attractive actresses.
“That could be a great temptation, so I decided that I would never marry a woman who wasn’t as beautiful as the woman 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,” Michael conveyed to The Mirror.
