Sir Michael Caine: My wife saved me from drinking myself to death

The actor has opened up about his wife's calming influence on his life
Supportive: Shakira and Sir Michael Caine
Startraks Photo/Rex Shutterstock
Emma Powell19 January 2016
The Weekender

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Sir Michael Caine has revealed he would have been “dead long ago” if he had not met his wife Shakira.

Caine, 83 – who has been married to the former Miss Guyana for 43 years – said he would drink a bottle of vodka and smoke several packets of cigarettes every day.

"Without her I would have been dead long ago,” he told the Radio Times. “I would have probably drunk myself to death.

"I was a bit of a p**s artist when I was younger, I used to drink a bottle of vodka a day and I was smoking too, several packs a day."

Youth London Film Festival screening

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The Youth actor blamed it on the stress of not knowing whether he would make another film.

"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? I've got to get up at 6 in the morning and I hope the alarm works.'

"There was always some stressful thing. Meeting Shakira calmed me down."

Praising Shakira for her calming influence, he said: “She’s not the little wife. She runs the whole business side of my life. She’s my right-hand man, my confidante.

“I was famous when I met her but I could not have got this far without her. She is the most important person in my life.”

The couple married in 1973 following Caine’s divorce form his first wife, Patricia Haines, in 1962.

They have one daughter together, 43-year-old Natasha.

Read the full interview in this week's Radio Times, on sale from Tuesday, January 19.

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