22 January 1964: the film Zulu was released, featuring 31-year-old Caine in his first major film role as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead. The part did not require glasses.

As the heavily bespectacled anti-hero spy Harry Palmer in ‘The Ipcress File’, actor Michael Caine wore ‘Yvan’ framesby Curry & Paxton (as did author Len Deighton). Off camera, Caine often sported ‘The Lord’ by Oliver Goldsmith, (as worn in his famous David Bailey portrait), although his taste in eyewear evolved over the years. “I’ve lost my specs in themost amazing ways,” he once told the Guardian. “In a junglein India, a monkey landed bang on my head and stole a pairright off my nose, scratching my bloody forehead.”