Don’t Mention It…Please
BUSY AS EVER, MICHAEL CAINE SEES NO REASON TO LOOK BACK
AF TER 150 movies or
so, you might think
Michael Caine would
appreciate a lifetime-
achievement award
or two. Well, thanks, but no thanks.
“I’ve had about 20 of the bloody
things, and I don’t go anymore,” says
Caine, 76, with a laugh. “They show
clips from all your films, and you’re
standing there watching yourself
grow old in 20 minutes. I mean, out
comes this young guy with all this
hair, slim waist, and full of life, and
he crumbles before your eyes. I’m
just about lifetime-achieved out!”
For Caine, the best way to head off
retrospectives might be to keep doing
some of the finest work of his long
career. In his new film—Is There
Anybody There?—he’s mesmerizing
as a former magician who moves into
a retirement home and befriends the
owners’ young son (Bill Milner).
“I loved playing him,” says the two-
time Oscar winner from his home
outside of London. “He’s lonely, like
many old people, but he never gives
in. He regains his life with the boy. He
has a raison d’être, as the French say.
Multilingual. That’s me.
Trouble in
Rivers City
For her first novel,
Murder at the Academy Awards (Pocket
Books), Joan Rivers
opens with mayhem
on the red carpet.
It’s all fictional, but
after decades of dishing before and after
awards shows, Rivers
confides that more
than one Hollywood
celeb would be happy
to see a rival whacked.
“Ugh, it’s cutthroat!
It’s vicious,” says Rivers. “I’ve never seen
murder on the red
carpet, but I’ve seen
fistfights. Also a lot of
heavy necking!”—B.N.
FROM TOP: NICK WALL; NICHOLAS EVELEIGH; COURTESY OF NATIONAL PARK SERVICE
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BIG BANG New Mexico has a cloudy past.
Events
EXPLOSIVE LESSONS
The New Mexico History Museum, opening
May 24 in Santa Fe, includes an exhibit about
the first atomic bomb, built at Los Alamos.
Included are the birth certificate of a child
born there, and trinitite glass, made from desert sand by the bomb’s heat (505-476-5100;
nmhistorymuseum.org). —Audrey Goodson
