Caine ‘grateful to his parents’ (Image: Getty)
The star of movies The Italian Job, Alfie and Zulu found his passion to perform and ditched an apprenticeship at Billingsgate fish market. But Sir Michael, 86, said he was sad that his supportive dad Maurice never saw him achieve success as he passed away in the early 1960s. He said: "I was in a youth club and we used to play up on the roof. And on the way up on the stairs there was a door with a window in it, and I noticed all the pretty girls in the club were in there doing something.
"I didn't know what it was.
"And one day, I was peeping and leaning on the door and I fell in and the teacher said, 'Come in and help me out. We haven't got any men,' because it was regarded as sissy to be an actor.
"And there were all these beautiful girls, so I stayed. And that's how I got here," he said.
Sir Michael praised his