Not many people know this but...I'VE WRITTEN A SELF-HELP BOOK

SIR MICHAEL Caine has revealed how he fell into acting quite literally aged 11 when he tumbled through a doorway at his local youth club "like Buster Keaton" while ogling the pretty members of a drama group.

- Matt Nixson

Being the only boy present, he swallowed his embarrassment and joined up, even though he admits that, in those days, "most lads thought taking an interest in the theatre meant you were gay".

Having played a robot in his first production, the young south Londoner realised he might be good at acting - as he reveals in his new book, Don't Look Back, You'll Trip Over, an insightful mix of memoir and self-help from one of our greatest ever screen stars.

"You never know when you're going to fall through the right door," Sir Michael, now 91, told journalist Matthew d'Ancona during hours of conversation in 2023 and 2024.

"If I hadn't fallen through that door, I would never have gone to Hollywood, or won two Oscars, or had all the unbelievable good fortune I've had."

And all from that inauspicious start at Clubland on the Walworth Road, south-east London, in the mid-1940s.

Sir Michael, who has previously published several volumes of memoir and other nonfiction books, plus a crime novel last year at the age of 90, was inspired to write Don't Look Back - which, he explains, is an admonition to his grandchildren to keep their eyes firmly fixed on the future ("Understanding your past is very different from being stuck in it," he writes)- because he's always being asked questions.

"By fans, by other actors and friends, by my grandchildren," he explains. "They want to know how I've lasted so long, how I handle fame, why I chose to do some of my films, which films, directors and actors I like best, and so forth.