Crossword Genius

Actor has starter of iced tea in awfully nice meal (7,5)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

michael caine

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'actor' is the definition.
I know nothing about this answer so I can't judge whether it can be defined by this definition.

'starter of iced tea in awfully nice meal' is the wordplay.
'starter of' suggests taking the first letters.
'tea' becomes 'cha' (cha is a type of tea).
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'awfully' indicates anagramming the letters.
The first letter of 'iced' is 'i'.
'i'+'cha'='icha'
'nice'+'meal'='nicemeal'
'nicemeal' anagrammed gives 'melcaine'.
'icha' placed into 'melcaine' is 'MICHAEL CAINE'.

'has' is the link.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for michael caine that I've seen before include "Star of The Italian Job" , "British actor, star of "The Cider House Rules" (1999)" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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