Sir Michael Caine has revealed how he persuaded a doctor to help his terminally ill father die. The Oscar-winning actor makes the confession in a radio interview to be broadcast today and goes on to say he agrees with voluntary euthanasia.

His father Maurice Micklewhite, a Billingsgate fish market porter, died in hospital in 1955 after suffering from liver cancer. He was 56.

Caine told Classic FM: "My father had cancer of the liver and I was in such anguish over the pain he was in, that I said to this doctor, I said 'Isn't there anything else you could do, just give him an overdose and end this', because I wanted him to go and he said 'Oh no, no, no, we couldn't do that.' Then, as I was leaving, he said 'Come back at midnight.' I came back at midnight and my father died at five past 12. So he'd done it…"

Caine said his father had been given just three to four days to live when he asked the doctor to perform the mercy killing. But he kept the request secret from his mother, Ellen, who died in 1989.

Asked if he agreed with voluntary euthanasia, Caine, 77, said: "Oh I think so, yeah. I think if you're in a state to where life is no longer bearable, if you want to go. I'm not saying that anyone else should make the decision, but I made the request, but my father was semi-conscious."

Assisted suicide is a crime under the 1961 Suicide Act, and carries a sentence of up to 14 years. But the Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer has said a person is unlikely to be prosecuted if they are acting for compassionate, unselfish and non-malicious reasons.

A spokeswoman for the charity Dignity in Dying welcomed Caine's confession and called for measures to allow doctors to help terminally ill patients die, if it is their request.