The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [31]
Next evening, determined to face the music like a man, I went down to the bar in the hotel we were all staying in, lined up a couple of drinks and waited for Stanley and Cy to come in from the day’s shooting. ‘Hey – not bad, kid!’ Stanley said as they breezed by. ‘Don’t worry – you’ll get better.’ I stood looking after them, mouth open. Did they really mean it? I downed the drinks and decided that I needed to work on my paranoia.
I wasn’t too successful. A few days later, one of the secretaries from the production department beckoned me in as I was passing by. She was gorgeous, and thinking my lucky day had come, I followed her in to her office anticipating a bit of action. Instead, she rather nervously handed me a telegram. It had come from a senior executive in Paramount head office in London. ‘Fire Michael Caine doesn’t know what to do with his hands.’ Again I was outraged. Searching around for someone on whom to model the character of Lieutenant Bromhead, a man from an immensely privileged background, I had lit upon Prince Philip. The first thing I’d noticed about him was that he always walked with his hands clasped behind his back because, I realised, he never had to do anything for himself. He never had to open doors, he never had to use his hands to gain attention – he would always be the centre of any conversation – and he was surrounded by bodyguards so he’d never have to use his hands in self-defence. This was yet another piece of skilful characterisation wasted on an unappreciative audience! Was I doomed always to be misunderstood?
Outrage aside, I was certain that Stanley really would have no alternative but to fire me this time and I hung about miserably for the next two days waiting for the axe to fall. The problem was that I couldn’t reveal I had seen the telegram without getting the secretary into trouble. Eventually I cracked and confronted him. ‘I know you’re going to fire me,’ I began, concocting some wildly improbable tale of having accidentally seen the telegram in his office, ‘and I completely understand and I’ll go at once,’ I finished in a rush. He stood there for a moment and I realised he was actually angry. ‘I am the producer of this movie, Michael,’ he said. ‘Have I fired you?’ ‘No, Stan,’ I said. ‘Then get on with your job – and stop reading my fucking mail or I will fire you!’ So I really was going to be in the movie. This time I managed to get to the gents before I was sick on my shoes.
It wasn’t just my first time on a major movie, it was my first time in Africa – a continent I love and would return to later with my friend Sidney Poitier to make The Wilby Conspiracy. The landscape of the Drakensberg mountains was powerful enough, and the wildlife was incredible, but it was the African people who really made the filming of Zulu so memorable. Zulu tells the story of the Battle of Rorke’s Drift between a small detachment of a Welsh regiment (hence Stanley Baker’s interest in the incident) and the Zulu nation, in 1879.
We were fortunate not only to have Chief Buthelezi, the head of the Zulu nation, playing the Zulu leader, but a Zulu princess as our historical consultant, which meant that the battle lines of the Zulu forces were drawn up exactly as they had been. This level of authenticity made a huge difference to the impact of the film – I still think the battle scenes are some of the best I have seen in any movie. Certainly my first sight of those two thousand Zulu warriors coming over the hills and into the valley where we were filming was unforgettable. They wore their own battle dress with high head dresses and loin cloths made of monkey skins