EVERYONE'S favourite 60s spoof spy, Austin Powers, has his Mojo back and is raring to go after three years away from the big screen.

The third instalment in the smash hit series, Goldmember, is brasher, bolder and promises to be funnier than ever.

The nerdy time travelling super spy has become one of the most popular comic characters in movie history. But the man who created him, actor Mike Myers, has revealed his hilarious alter ego only came about after the death of his much loved father.

"My father died in 1991 and I was devastated by that," he says. "I was driving home from hockey practice and I heard the song The Look of Love by Burt Bacharach and rays of great feelings about my father came out and all the great movies that he forced me and my brothers to watch inspired me to write the movie in three weeks."

Although Myers was born and raised in Canada, his parents were both English and he credits them for providing him with a love of British comedy, which he says was the inspiration for Austin Powers.

"I grew up watching shows like Benny Hill, Python and The Avengers," he smiles. "We watched Bond movies and all the Peter Sellers films."

In a loving tribute to his father, who was from Merseyside, Myers has even cast Michael Caine - his dad's favourite actor - to star in the movie.

"It's an amazing journey for me because it has been therapeutic to say the least. It's one of those amazing things where your heart is broken and you are able to make stuff of it."

As well as Michael Caine, Goldmember also features a host of other superstars in cameo roles, such as Britney Spears and Gwyneth Paltrow, and a big screen debut from Destiny's Child singer Beyonce Knowles.

The fact that so many big stars are clamouring to work with the bespectacled superspy remains a mystery to Myers.

"I was blown away when the first two films found the audience they did. The only reason we decided to do a third one was to honour the fact that people followed us through one and two. I really didn't know if anybody would get the joke. I thought it was funny, but I didn't know whether anybody else would ."

So here we have Powers again facing his nemesis Dr Evil (also played by Myers), when he and his accomplice Mini Me (Verbe J Troyer) escape jail, join forces with Goldmember (Myers again) and plan to kidnap Austin's father Nigel (Caine).

So Austin heads back to 1975 to join forces with old flame Foxxy Cleopatra (Knowles) and thwart Dr Evil.