Taking the (sir) Michael

THE TIMES WE LIVED IN:OUR PHOTOGRAPHER David Sleator snapped these two Michaels – no, wait, not just two Michaels but two Sir Michaels, better known as Michael Caine and Michael Gambon – at a press conference held at The Four Seasons Hotel in Dublin in May 2003.

The occasion was the morning after the premiere of the film The Actors, in which Caine and Dylan Moran play two not-so-eminent actors who plan to con a retired gangster out of half a million; the film also stars Gambon as an individual who goes by the name of, um, Barreller.

If this photograph is anything to go by, the two Sir Michaels got on like the proverbial house on fire; though why they have matching poses of hands clasped on their knees is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps it’s a sub-conscious reference to the fact that Caine’s role in the movie required him to get into drag – at which point it was, apparently, discovered that he has absolutely fabulous legs.

Not many people knew that at the time: certainly not the film’s director, Conor McPherson, who had planned to use a female stunt double for the drag scenes.

Caine’s 70-year-old legs turned out to be so attractive, the director declared, that the double wasn’t needed after all.

At this point, we might all be forgiven for wondering whether some serious (Sir) Michael isn’t being taken at this press conference.

Caine’s laughter, however, is surely genuine. And if this image did make you smile – even a little – you could do worse than to get yourself along to Stargazing in Dublin, a photographic exhibition running on the top floor at the Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre in Dublin as part of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival.

Assembled from a wide range of sources including RTÉ, freelance agency archives and The Irish Times, the exhibition features 100 photographs taken over a 60-year period and celebrates "the moments when a little bit of Hollywood stardust was sprinkled over the capital".

Among the celebrities captured during visits to Dublin are Mia Farrow, Britt Ekland, Paul Newman, Walt Disney and, of course, the two Sir Michaels.

Stargazing in Dublin is open daily from 9am to 7pm; 11am to 6pm on Sundays, until February 26th.

[ irishtimes.com/archive ]

Published May 8th, 2003 photo by David Sleator