As a schoolboy, Michael Caine, the son of a charlady and a fish-market porter, was repeatedly taught to respect “his betters”.
The British industry is enjoying another boom now, Caine believes: “The units and the studios here are the best,” he said.
Born Maurice Micklewhite in south London, Caine changed his name for the actors’ union Equity, picking the surname Caine when he saw a sign for the Humphrey Bogart film The Caine Mutiny.
It took the social revolution of the 1960s, he says, to make it clear that such a hierarchy did not exist.