Michael Caine

 Michael Caine was so very much beside himself to be working with Laurence Olivier on the set of "Sleuth" (1972) that he didn't even know how to address him. Eventually, he broke down and just asked. Olivier replied, "Well, I am the Lord Olivier and you are Mr. Michael Caine. Of course, that's only for the first time you address me. After that I am Larry, and you are Mike."

Caine tells in his biography that Olivier could not, at first, remember his lines - he, a great stage actor who could initially remember three hours of lines in a play. He could not because of pills he started taking to calm him down after he learned that a theater of his, which he put much money and many efforts in for many years, had to be closed down. But Olivier eventually stopped taking those pills and his memory issues stopped.

Olivier was so impressed with Caine's acting during the scene in which Caine's character cries hysterically that he said, "I thought I had an assistant, Michael. I see I have a partner." Caine expressed later that he considered this the greatest compliment he received since becoming a professional actor.

NOTE: As "Sleuth" is a mystery, writing about it may reveal a spoiler or two to those unfamiliar. Apologies beforehand...

Caine was the third choice for the part of Milo Tindle, after Albert Finney (who was deemed too plump), and Alan Bates (who turned down the role). The reason Bates thought the role was "beneath" him was that he walked out of the stage show at intermission after believing that his character had been killed when the character of Andrew "shot" him at the end of the first act.

To confuse potential moviegoers who were unaware that the tricky plot of the play upon which this movie was based involved only two characters, several pre-release stories, including one widely-syndicated on-set interview by Rex Reed, suggested that this movie would feature a lot of cameos by unnamed stars. In a 1993 interview for "Films in Review," director Joseph L. Mankiewicz claimed that the names of the extra non-existent red herring characters in the credits were members of his wife Rosemary Mathews' family.

Caine later starred in Kenneth Branagh's 2007 remake, taking over the role played by Olivier, opposite Jude Law.