UK

Isis terror threat forces Michael Caine to change name to Michael Caine

The 83-year-old actor was born Maurice Micklewhite
The 83-year-old actor was born Maurice Micklewhite The 83-year-old actor was born Maurice Micklewhite

SIR Michael Caine revealed he has changed his birth name by deed poll to avoid being delayed at airport security.

And he’s changed it to… Michael Caine.

The 83-year-old Italian Job actor was born Maurice Micklewhite and adopted his alias in 1954 after discovering his first screen name, Michael White, was already taken by another actor.

The Cockney star of Zulu and Batman Begins claimed, however, that the recent threat of terror group Isis has caused problems with his double identity.

“I changed my name when all the stuff started with Isis and all that,” The Sun reports him saying.

His name really is Michael Caine:

Speaking of his experiences with a guard at airport security, he explained: “He would say, ‘Hi, Michael Caine,’ and suddenly I’d be giving him a passport with a different name on it.

“I could stand there for an hour. So I changed my name.”

At the Q&A at London’s China Exchange on Tuesday, he reportedly also called for the return of national service, saying: “When you train to protect your country then you really belong in it and you are a different sort of person.

“But I don’t think you should be sent off to fight or anything like that.”

Speaking of his own time in the army, he said: “It made men of us in a very short time.”