Academy Award winner Michael Caine had been kept in the dark by his mother for half of his life. The actor had a half-brother, six years older than him, but never realized his existence until his mother, Ellen Maria Burchell passed away in 1989. Recalling the deepest secret of his family, Caine noted in his 2018 book, Blowing The Bloody Doors Off, about his mother’s excellence in keeping the secret throughout her life.
Speaking of all the great women Caine had met in his life, including his wife Shakira Caine, the British actor held his mother to the highest standards. While the partner she had conceived the child with out of wedlock was unnamed, Caine revealed that neither of his family members ever knew of his half-brother, besides him.
Michael Caine opened up about his family’s secret
While the 90-year-old actor’s mother had sworn to not let anyone know of his brother, David Burchell, Caine openly spoke of him in his book. Detailing Burchell’s life, the actor noted that he became epileptic following an incident in his childhood. Hence, never recovering from the condition, Burchell was persistently taken care of, secretly, by Michael Caine’s mother.
According to Belfast Telegraph, Caine discovered about his brother after his mother’s death. She never let Caine’s father, Maurice Micklewhite Sr., and younger brother, Stanley Caine, get a hint of the secret child, visiting Burchell on Mondays and disguising it as a visit to church or shopping. Hence, Michael Caine wrote in Blowing The Bloody Doors Off,
“She obviously had an affair, and she didn’t meet my father until… (later). And so she hid the boy. What happened was, he was born okay, but medically he was treated badly and something went wrong. My mother kept her secret for 30 years. She went every week and visited him and none of us never knew. My dad knew nothing about this whatsoever.”
As a result, the discovery bolstered Caine’s admiration for his mother. The Dark Knight actor was in awe of his mother’s abilities, marking her as a “powerful woman” and “incredible.”
How did Michael Caine find out about his half-brother?
While his discovery was life-changing for the star, how he found out was even more complex than the reality itself. Speaking in an age-old interview, shared by One Sunny Day on YouTube, Caine revealed that he was informed about his sibling through a newspaper report, tipped off by his epileptic brother’s disabled girlfriend.
Caine added that his girlfriend was among the brighter ones, and a reporter reached out to the group of disabled individuals for “lucid” answers. This is when David Burchell was pointed out as Michael Caine’s brother to the reporter. Caine narrated,
“His girlfriend said to report that and said you see that man over there, and he said yes, she said that’s Michael Caine’s brother. Of course his ears went what!…and then it came out in the paper and I read it, and the editor called me. He said ‘I’m going to print this on Sunday and they were very good. He said I’m going to print this micro, I think you should know. You’ve got a brother and I said ‘it’s preposterous.’”
Caine was shocked but didn’t hate his mother for keeping the secret. After his discovery, the Batman star met him, like his mother, and took care of his well-being. It ended up being a highlight of Caine’s life story, and he treasures it as a wonderful memory.
