The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [12]
Where Wilson’s was failing in its attempts to educate me, the Tower cinema was doing a lot better – and not just in the world of film. One day I turned up at the box office as usual with my chocolate bar and while I was buying my ticket, the girl behind the glass leant forward and whispered, ‘Give us your chocolate and I’ll show you me tits.’ My jaw dropped. I sneaked a look at her torso. She was no oil painting, but when you’re fourteen, most girls have a certain allure. ‘OK,’ I said hoarsely and pushed the bar across the counter before she could change her mind. She glanced around. The foyer was empty. ‘Here you are, then, Romeo,’ she said and slowly lifted one side of her jumper to reveal a slightly grubby bra. With one finger, she pulled up the left cup until first a nipple popped out and then a whole white breast. It was enormous! It quivered before my staring eyes for at most two seconds before she bundled it back inside her bra, pulled down her sweater, grabbed the chocolate bar and slammed the box office window closed. As I walked the long lonely walk down the darkened corridor to the screen, a sense of injustice began to grow. She’d said ‘tits’ plural! I’d only seen one. And now I was left with no chocolate. It didn’t seem fair to me and I vowed that I’d never pay for sex again. And I never have. Love, yes – at various points – but that’s a different matter.
They say the average teenage boy thinks about sex every fifteen seconds. That wouldn’t have got anywhere near it for me. But of course help was always at hand, so to speak. More constructive help was available at a youth club called Clubland in the Walworth Road, which offered a gym and sport to keep our minds pure and our bodies exhausted. Cold showers were also on the agenda, but I cottoned on to the real purpose of these very quickly. I did join the basketball team since I was already six foot tall but I was a lost cause: the only thing I was really interested in chasing was girls.
I was obsessed with a girl called Amy Hood and one day as I was going up the stairs to the gym, I spotted her through a door, along with all the other best-looking girls in the club. I was standing there with my nose pressed to the glass when the door opened unexpectedly and I fell into the room. I blushed and the girls all tittered but the teacher came over and grabbed me by the collar. ‘Come in!’ she said, hauling me over to the group. ‘You’re the first boy we’ve had all year.’ My lucky day; my twin obsessions – girls and acting! I had stumbled into the drama class.
I’ve never liked critics and it may well go back to my very first review in the Clubland magazine. I was playing a robot in R.U.R., an obscurely intellectual play by Karel Capek. I didn’t have a clue what it was about. I didn’t even understand the one line I had. Even so, I understood fully the sarcasm behind the young critic’s assessment of my performance. ‘Maurice Micklewhite played the Robot, who spoke in a dull, mechanical, monotonous voice, to perfection.’ Bastard.
Bad notice or not, I was on my way – or so I thought. From then on until I was called up for my national service, I was always in a play. I was also taken under the wing of a man called Alec Reed, a movie fanatic, who used to show his collection of sixteen millimetre silent films at Clubland every Sunday evening. Not only did Alec teach me everything he knew about the history of film, he also introduced me to the technical side of movie-making. Every summer the whole