Sir Thomas Sean Connery (25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He is best known as the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films (every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again) between 1962 and 1983.
Connery was in smaller theatre and
television productions until he got his break with the Bond films. He became a
major actor with the success of his Bond role. His films also included Marnie
(1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be
King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), The
Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1988), Indiana Jones
and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart
(1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000). Connery
retired from acting in 2006. His achievements include one Academy Award, two BAFTA
Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden
Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. He received
a lifetime achievement award in the US with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999.
Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.
Connery was polled in a 2004 The
Sunday Herald as "The Greatest Living Scot" and in a 2011 EuroMillions
survey as "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was
voted by People magazine as both the "Sexiest Man Alive" in
1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century" in 1999.
James Bond:
1962–1971, 1983
Connery's breakthrough came in the role
of British secret agent James Bond. He was reluctant to commit to a film
series, but understood that if the films succeeded, his career would greatly
benefit. He played 007 in the first five Bond films: Dr. No (1962), From
Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965),
and You Only Live Twice (1967) – then appeared again as Bond in Diamonds
Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983). All seven films
were commercially successful. James Bond, as portrayed by Connery, was selected
as the third-greatest hero in cinema history by the American Film Institute.
Connery's selection for the role of
James Bond owed a lot to Dana Broccoli, wife of producer Albert
"Cubby" Broccoli, who is reputed to have been instrumental in
persuading her husband that Connery was the right man. James Bond's creator, Ian
Fleming, originally doubted Connery's casting, saying, "He's not what I
envisioned of James Bond looks", and "I'm looking for Commander Bond
and not an overgrown stunt-man", adding that Connery (muscular, 6'
2", and a Scot) was unrefined. Fleming's girlfriend Blanche Blackwell told
him that Connery had the requisite sexual charisma, and Fleming changed his
mind after the successful Dr. No première. He was so impressed, he wrote
Connery's heritage into the character. In his 1964 novel You Only Live Twice,
Fleming wrote that Bond's father was Scottish and from Glencoe in the Scottish
Highlands.
Connery's portrayal of Bond owes much to
stylistic tutelage from director Terence Young, which helped polish him while
using his physical grace and presence for the action. Lois Maxwell, who played Miss
Moneypenny, related that "Terence took Sean under his wing. He took him to
dinner, showed him how to walk, how to talk, even how to eat." The
tutoring was successful; Connery received thousands of fan letters a week
after Dr. No’s opening, and he became a major sex symbol in
film.
During the filming of Thunderball in
1965, Connery's life was in danger in the sequence with the sharks in Emilio
Largo's pool. He had been concerned about this threat when he read the script.
Connery insisted that Ken Adam build a special Plexiglas partition inside the
pool, but this was not a fixed structure, and one of the sharks managed to pass
through it. He had to abandon the pool immediately.
Career Beyond Bond
Although Bond had made him a star,
Connery grew tired of the role and the pressure the franchise put on him,
saying "[I am] fed up to here with the whole Bond bit" and "I have
always hated that damned James Bond. I'd like to kill him". Michael Caine said
of the situation, "If you were his friend in these early days you didn't
raise the subject of Bond. He was, and is, a much better actor than just
playing James Bond, but he became synonymous with Bond. He'd be walking down
the street and people would say, "Look, there's James Bond." That was
particularly upsetting to him."
While making the Bond films, Connery
also starred in other films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964)
and
Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965). In Marnie, Connery starred
opposite Tippi Hedren. Connery had stated that he wanted to work with
Hitchcock, which Eon arranged through their contacts. Connery also shocked many
people at the time by asking to see a script; something Connery did because he
was worried about being typecast as a spy and he did not want to do a variation
of North by Northwest or Notorious. When told by Hitchcock's
agent that Cary Grant did not ask to see even one of Hitchcock's scripts
Connery replied, "I'm not Cary Grant." Hitchcock and Connery got on
well during filming. Connery also said that he was happy with the film
"with certain reservations." In The Hill, Connery wanted to
act in something that wasn't Bond related, and used his leverage as a star to
star in the film. While the film wasn't a financial success it was a critical
one, debuting at the Cannes Film Festival winning Best Screenplay.
Having played Bond six times, Connery's
global popularity was such that he shared a Golden Globe Henrietta Award with
Charles Bronson for "World Film Favorite – Male" in 1972. He appeared
in John Huston’s The Man Who Would Be King (1975) opposite Michael
Caine, with both actors regarding it as their favourite film. The same year, he
appeared in The Wind and the Lion, and in 1976 played Robin Hood in Robin
and Marian where he starred opposite Audrey Hepburn who played Maid Marian.
Film critic Roger Ebert, who had praised the double act of Connery and Caine
in The Man Who Would Be King, praised Connery’s chemistry with
Hepburn, writing: "Connery and Hepburn seem to have arrived at a tacit
understanding between themselves about their characters. They glow. They really
do seem in love."
In the 1970s Connery was part of
ensemble casts in films such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) with
Vanessa Redgrave and John Gielgud, and A Bridge Too Far (1977)
co-starring Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Olivier. In 1981, Connery appeared in the
film Time Bandits as Agamemnon. The casting choice derives from a joke Michael
Palin included in the script, in which he describes the character removing his
mask as being "Sean Connery– or someone of equal but cheaper
stature". When shown the script, Connery was happy to play the supporting
role. In 1982, Connery narrated G'olé!, the official film of the 1982
FIFA World Cup.
Connery agreed to reprise Bond as an
ageing agent 007 in Never Say Never Again, released in October 1983. The
title, contributed by his wife, refers to his earlier statement that he would
"never again" return to the role. Although the film performed well at
the box office, it was plagued with production problems: strife between the
director and producer, financial problems, the Fleming estate trustees'
attempts to halt the film, and Connery's wrist being broken by fight
choreographer, Steven Seagal. As a result of his negative experiences during
filming, Connery became unhappy with the major studios and did not make any
films for two years. Following the successful European production The Name
of the Rose (1986), for which he won a BAFTA Award for Best Actor,
Connery's interest in more commercial material was revived. That same year, a
supporting role in Highlander showcased his ability to play older
mentors to younger leads, which became a recurring role in many of his later
films.
In 1987, Connery starred in Brian De
Palma's The Untouchables, where he played a hard-nosed Irish-American
cop alongside Kevin Costner's Eliot Ness. The film also starred Charles Martin
Smith, Patricia Clarkson, Andy Garcia, and Robert De Niro as Al Capone. The
film was a critical and box office success. Many critics praised Connery for
his performance including Roger Ebert who wrote "The best performance in
the movie is Connery... [he] brings a human element to his character; he seems
to have had an existence apart from the legend of the Untouchables, and when
he's onscreen we can believe, briefly, that the Prohibition Era was inhabited
by people, not caricatures." For his performance Connery received the Academy
Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Connery starred in Steven Spielberg's Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), playing Henry Jones, Sr., the title
character's father, and received BAFTA and Golden Globe Award nominations. Harrison
Ford stated that Connery’s contributions at the writing stage enhanced the
film. "It was amazing for me in how far he got into the script and went
after exploiting opportunities for character. His suggestions to George [Lucas]
at the writing stage really gave the character and the picture a lot more
complexity and value than it had in the original screenplay." His
subsequent box-office hits included The Hunt for Red October (1990), The Russia House (1990), The Rock (1996),
and Entrapment (1999). In 1996, he voiced the role of Draco the dragon
in the film Dragonheart. He also appeared in a brief cameo as King
Richard the Lionheart at the end of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).
In 1998, Connery received the BAFTA Fellowship, a lifetime achievement award
from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
Connery's later films included several
box office and critical disappointments such as First Knight (1995), Just
Cause (1995), The Avengers (1998), and The League of
Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003); he received positive reviews for his
performance in Finding Forrester (2000). He also received a Crystal
Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema. In a 2003 poll
conducted by Channel 4 Connery was ranked eighth on their list of the 100
Greatest Movie Stars. The failure of The League of Extraordinary
Gentlemen was especially frustrating for Connery, who sensed during
shooting that the production was "going off the rails" announced that
the director, Stephen Norrington should be "locked up for insanity",
and spent considerable effort in trying to salvage the film through the editing
process, ultimately deciding to retire from acting rather than go through such
stress ever again.
Connery was offered the role of Gandalf in
The Lord of the Rings series but declined it, claiming he did not
understand the script. Connery was reportedly offered $30 million along
with 15 percent of the worldwide box office receipts for the role, which – had
he accepted – would have earned him $450 million. Connery also turned down
the opportunity to appear as the Architect in The Matrix trilogy for
similar reasons. Connery's disillusionment with the "idiots now making
films in Hollywood" was cited as a reason for his eventual decision to
retire from film-making. In 2005, he recorded voiceovers for a new video game
version of his Bond film From Russia with Love. In an interview on the
game disc, Connery stated that he was very happy that the producers of the game
(EA Games) had approached him to voice Bond. It was recorded by Terry
Manning in the Bahamas, as well as his likeness, and those of several of the
film's supporting cast.
Retirement
When Connery received the American Film
Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 June 2006, he confirmed his
retirement from acting. On 7 June 2007, he denied rumours that he would appear
in the fourth Indiana Jones film, stating that "retirement is just
too much damned fun". In 2010, a bronze bust sculpture of Connery was placed
in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. The work is located outside Tallinn's
Scottish Club, whose membership includes Estonian Scotophiles and a handful of
expatriate Scots. Connery briefly came out of retirement in 2012 by voice
acting the title character in the animated movie Sir Billi the Vet.
Connery served as executive producer for an expanded 80-minute version.
Death
Connery died in his sleep on 31 October
2020, aged 90, at his home in Nassau in the Bahamas. His death was announced by
his family and Eon Productions that same day. His son Jason stated that he
"had been unwell for some time"
