NEW YORK -- Actor Michael Caine was 'amazed' to learn last week he has an older brother who spent nearly a half-century in a mental hospital, a published report said Monday.
Caine's mother, Ellen Maria Burchell, visited her son David for more than 40 years until old age and infirmity stopped her, the New York Daily News reported. She died in 1989.
'What's really amazed me is that she managed to visit him all those years without anybody knowing,' Caine told the News.
But he said with the discovery, some pieces of his childhood fell into place.
'I remember my mother telling me when I was a teenager that she was going to visit a cousin there (Cane Hill mental hospital),' he told the News. 'But even then she did a really good coverup. She told me it was a woman cousin who was mentally ill and that she had to go and see. That must have been my brother.'
Caine learned the story of his now 66-year-old brother last week from a reporter with London People. The brother was born six years before Caine's mother married his father, Maurice Micklewhite.
When David was born, the father was never identified.
The baby was first given up to foster care, but suffered from epilepsy and was placed in a series of institutions. He never learned to read or write, and a hip injury suffered in childbirth confined him to a wheelchair for much of the time.
At 17, he was place in the Cane Hill mental hospital, and lived there until about 18 months ago, the News said.
Though Caine -- the Oscar-winning star of such films as 'Alfie,' and 'Hannah and Her Sisters' -- did not know about David, David would tell fellow patients and staff about his famous brother, the News said.
'I suppose none of the people looking after David told me because my mother insisted that they keep it a secret,' Caine told the News.
Caine has now vowed to take care of his brother.
'I am going to do whatever I can for him,' Caine said. 'I have the money to take care of him.'
