Michael Caine’s Mother Hid an Illegitimate Half-Brother From Him for 50 Years: ‘She Fooled Us All’

Michael Caine was nearly 60 years old when he discovered a long-buried family secret.

In 2002, the Academy Award winner appeared on Michael Parkinson's talk show Parkinson, where he recounted how his mother Ellen "fooled us all" and hid an illegitimate half-brother from him for 50 years.

"She had an illegitimate child before she married my father," said Caine, noting that it was "later told to me" that she gave her son David to the Salvation Army, and Ellen was "dead by the time I found out" the truth. Caine's father didn't even know.

The revelation happened when a newspaper was doing a story on "the state of mental health establishments in England," and one patient introduced her boyfriend to the reporter as Caine's brother. The editor called Caine to let him know the story was running.

Caine then went to visit David at London's Cane Hill Hospital, where the actor had to communicate through nurses as he "couldn't understand" his brother, whose epilepsy led to brain damage over the years.

As Ellen was born in 1900, Caine said it would have been "beyond the pale" for a woman to have a child out of wedlock back then. But she kept constant contact with her son over the years.

"Now, unbeknownst to me, my mother had visited him every Monday, with the exception of the war, for 50 years," said Caine, noting that she gave David a photo of the actor in 1964's Zulu. "Always on a Monday. She'd go shopping Monday afternoons, she always came back with just a couple things she'd grabbed. She visited him for 50 years."

The Great Escaper actor said he "felt absolute amazement" at how his mother "fooled us all for 50 years. Every Monday." A nurse told him, "Your mother used to bring a Bible, and every new nurse had to swear on the Bible that she wouldn't tell anyone this was Michael's brother."

David died in 1992, around 18 months after he and Caine connected.