Sean Connery

• Born: August 25, 1930
• Place of Birth: Edinburgh, Scotland
• Died: October 31, 2020
• Place of Death: Nassau, The Bahamas

With his characteristic Scottish accent, Sean Connery was perhaps the most famous Scottish actor of all time. While he was criticized for speaking with the accent no matter what the nationality of the character he was playing, it was a voice that was instantly recognizable to many, especially when uttering the words most closely associated with him: "Bond. James Bond."

Early Life & Career

Thomas Sean Connery was born on August 25, 1930, in Fountainbridge, a working-class neighborhood in Edinburgh, Scotland. His father, Joseph, was the grandson of an Irish Catholic tinker (tinsmith) and worked for the North British Rubber Works in Edinburgh. Connery's mother, Euphamia (Effie), worked as a cleaning woman. The family was very poor and lived in a two-room apartment.

Connery attended Bruntsfield Primary School where he loved to play football (soccer). After his younger brother Neil was born in 1938, the increased economic pressure on the family led Connery to look for ways to help his family make money. At age nine, he took a job delivering milk in the morning before school, and later took on a second job in the evening as a butcher's assistant.

After two mandatory years at Darroch Secondary School, Connery left school at the age of thirteen and started delivering milk full time. Three years later, he joined the British Royal Navy, where he was stationed at Portsmouth in a gunnery school. He served briefly as a seaman on the HMS Formidable, but stomach ulcers led to a medical discharge at the age of eighteen. Returning to Edinburgh, Connery took on odd jobs, including driving a truck and polishing coffins.

Connery soon took up bodybuilding. At the same time, he was working on sets for a local theater and became intrigued by the acting life. In late 1952, he appeared on stage for the first time as a spear carrier in a play called The Glorious Years. However, it was the bodybuilding that brought Connery his big break in acting. While participating in a Mr. Universe competition in London in 1953—he placed third in his category—Connery learned that a local theater company was holding auditions for South Pacific. Using the name Sean, he embellished his acting experience and won a small part.

While performing in South Pacific, Connery was faced with a career decision that he later recalled as one of his "more intelligent moves." The show had a football team and one of their matches was witnessed by a scout from Manchester United, who offered Connery a contract. Connery reasoned that, at the age of twenty-three, his football career would be short-lived and he decided to stick with acting.

Following several small roles in films and on television, Connery landed a role as a boxer in the TV movie Requiem for a Heavyweight in 1957. This role earned Connery some good reviews, as well as the attention of American film studios. He was signed to a long-term contract by 20th Century Fox in late 1957, where he first met director Terence Young. Young would soon play a very important part in Connery's career.

"Bond, James Bond"

In 1961, Young was in discussions with two producers who had acquired the rights to the James Bond series of novels by writer Ian Fleming. Several major actors, including Rex Harrison, James Mason, and David Niven, had been approached about the role, but had declined. Terence Young remembered working with Connery and suggested that he be brought in for an audition. Neither the producers, Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, nor Ian Fleming, who sat in on the audition, were impressed by the rough young man with a thick Scottish accent. Broccoli's wife, however, made the men watch out the window as Connery walked away, pointing out that he definitely had the sex appeal that the character required. In November 1961, he was signed to a six-year deal with EON Productions.

The first film of the series was Dr. No (1962). During the filming, director Terence Young worked to transform Connery into the polished and suave Bond. When Dr. No opened in Europe in 1962 and in the United States in 1963, Connery received excellent reviews. Even Ian Fleming had changed his mind about the actor and gave the Bond character a half-Scottish background in subsequent books.

Already concerned that his role as James Bond would lead to typecasting, Connery continued to seek and land roles in other films, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964). In 1967, after five Bond films in six years, Connery stepped away from the role. In the sixth James Bond film, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Connery was replaced with Australian actor George Lazenby. While the film was successful, the studio wanted Connery back in the role, and in 1971, he was offered an unprecedented salary to film Diamonds are Forever. Perhaps more importantly to Connery, he was granted the chance to make two films of his own choosing, and he accepted the deal.

After Diamonds, Connery told his wife that he would "never again" play Bond. She reportedly replied, "Never say never again." This became the title of the "unofficial" Bond movie that he filmed in 1981, a remake of Thunderball, which he had made in 1965. After years of wrangling over the film rights to the novel Thunderball, Connery and cowriter Kevin McClory released Never Say Never Again in the same year as the "official" movie Octopussy. The latter, starring Roger Moore, who had taken over the role of Bond from Connery, proved to be slightly more successful both at the box office and with critics.

After Bond

Throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, Connery starred in a wide assortment of movies, most of which received little attention from critics or moviegoers. In 1986, The Name of the Rose won him a British Academy Award for Best Actor, which he followed with a role in The Untouchables in 1987. This role, although criticized by some because Connery played a Chicago cop with his normal Scottish accent, became a second turning point in Connery's career. He won both the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Subsequent roles in Highlander (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Rock (1996), and Entrapment (1999) further cemented Connery's reputation as an actor and box office draw. In 1989, he was named as People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive," and in 1999, New Woman magazine readers voted him "Sexiest Man of the Century." He received achievement awards from the American Film Institute, the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, and the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

In 2000, Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, an honor that many thought was delayed by his support for Scottish nationalism. Although he had not lived in Scotland since the 1950s, Connery made many contributions to Scottish society, establishing the Scottish International Education Trust with his salary from Diamonds Are Forever in 1971. In 2008, after he had essentially stepped away from acting following his appearances in the films Finding Forrester (2000) and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), he was named International Scot of the Year.

Connery effectively retired from acting after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but he did briefly return for a voice role in the Scottish animated project Sir Billi (2012). During his retirement, he continued to publicly advocate for Scotland's independence from the United Kingdom.

According to reports, Connery had become ill by the end of the 2010s. He died in his sleep on October 31, 2020, at the age of ninety, in the Bahamian capital of Nassau.

Personal Life

Connery met Diane Cilento, an Australian actor, while filming a TV version of Anna Christie in London. On the verge of a divorce, Cilento acted as a mentor to Connery, encouraging him to read the classics and work on his acting technique. They were married in 1962 and had one son, Jason Connery. However, their marriage was a troubled one, and it ended in divorce in 1973.

In 1972, Connery met Micheline Roquebrune, a French painter, in Morocco. The two were married in 1975, and Roquebrune quickly took over the financial side of Connery's career. She was reported to be "the power behind the throne," advising Connery on all of his business dealings.

In 2024, the Edinburgh International Film Festival and the Sean Connery Foundation announced the formation of the Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence, an annual award to be presented at the Edinburgh, Scotland, festival.

Bibliography

"Edinburgh Film Festival Launches Sean Connery Award." BBC, 14 Feb. 2024, www.bbc.com/news/articles/cxw74kd2m90o. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Harmetz, Alijean. "Sean Connery, Who Embodied James Bond and More, Dies at 90." The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/movies/sean-connery-dead.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Lyden, Jacki. "Sean Connery, Actor and the Original James Bond, Dies at 90." NPR, 31 Oct. 2020, www.npr.org/2020/10/31/521703453/sean-connery-actor-and-the-original-james-bond-dies-at-90. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

"Sean Connery." IMDb, 2024, www.imdb.com/name/nm0000125/. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.

Thorpe, Vanessa. "'He Defined an Era and a Style': Film World Mourns Sean Connery." The Observer, Guardian News and Media, 31 Oct. 2020, www.theguardian.com/film/2020/oct/31/he-defined-an-era-and-a-style-film-world-mourns-sean-connery. Accessed 4 Oct. 2024.