Sean Connery Bio

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Sean Connery Pictures

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (born August 25, 1930), best known as Sean Connery, is an Academy Award, Golden Globe, and BAFTA Award winning Scottish actor and producer who is best known as the first actor to portray James Bond in cinema, starring in seven Bond films. In 1987, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables. Considered by many in Scotland to be the greatest living Scot, Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in July 2000.

Sean Connery: Early life

Thomas Sean Connery was born in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh to Euphemia "Effie" (née Maclean), a cleaning woman, and Joseph Connery, a factory worker and truck driver. His father was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent with roots in County Wexford, while his mother was a Scottish Protestant. He has a brother, Neil. He claims he was called Sean, his middle name, long before becoming an actor, explaining that when he was young he had an Irish friend named Séamus and that those who knew them both had decided to call Connery by his middle name whenever both were present.

His first job was as a milkman in Edinburgh with St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society. He then joined the Royal Navy, but was later discharged on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer. Afterwards, he returned to the co-op, then worked at other jobs, including a lorry driver, a labourer, artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, coffin polisher, and bodybuilder.

Sean Connery: Acting career

Connery in 1980

One of his major early film parts was in Another Time, Another Place (1958). However, star Lana Turner's gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, believed they were having an affair. He stormed onto the set and pointed a gun at Connery, only to have Connery take it away from him and twist his wrist, causing him to leave the set.

Connery landed a leading role in Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959). He also had a prominent television role in Rudolph Cartier's 1961 production of Anna Karenina for BBC Television, in which he co-starred with Claire Bloom.

When he was younger, Connery was a keen footballer, having played for a team called Bonnyrigg Rose. He was even offered a trial with successful East Fife. While on tour with the cast of South Pacific, Connery was involved in a football match against a local team that Matt Busby, manager of Manchester United, happened to be scouting. According to reports, Busby offered Connery a contract worth £25 a week immediately after the game. Connery admits that he was tempted to accept the offer, but he recalls "I realised that a top-class footballer could be over the hill by the age of 30, and I was already 23. I decided to become an actor and it turned out to be one of my more intelligent moves."

Sean Connery - James Bond (1962-1967;1971;1983)

Connery as James Bond in a publicity photo for From Russia with Love

Connery's breakthrough came in the role of secret agent James Bond. He played the character in seven Bond films: Dr. No (1962), From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971), and Never Say Never Again (1983), which was also a loose remake of Thunderball made by another company. All seven films were commercially successful.

James Bond's creator, Ian Fleming, doubted the 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. However, Fleming's girlfriend told him Connery had the requisite sexual charisma. Fleming changed his mind after the successful Dr. No premiere; he was so impressed, he created a half-Scottish, half-Swiss heritage for the literary James Bond in the later novels.

Connery's portrayal of Bond owes much to stylistic tutelage from director Terence Young, polishing the actor while using his physical grace and presence for the action. Robert Cotton wrote in one Connery biography that Lois Maxwell (the first Miss Moneypenny) noticed, "Terence took Sean under his wing. He took him to dinner, showed him how to walk, how to talk, even how to eat." Cotton wrote, "Some cast members remarked that Connery was simply doing a Terence Young impression, but Young and Connery knew they were on the right track."

In 2005, the film From Russia with Love (1963) was adapted by Electronic Arts into a video game, titled James Bond 007: From Russia with Love, which featured all-new voice work by Connery as well as his likeness, and those of several of the film's supporting cast.

Sean Connery - Beyond Bond

Connery in 1988

While making the Bond films, Connery also starred in other acclaimed films such as Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) and Murder on the Orient Express (1974). Apart from The Man Who Would Be King and The Wind and the Lion, both released in 1975, most of Connery's successes in the next decade were as part of ensemble casts in films such as Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and A Bridge Too Far (1977).

In 1981, Sean 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 as being "Sean Connery - or someone of equal but cheaper stature". However, when shown the script, Connery was happy to play the supporting role.

After his experience with Never Say Never Again in 1983 and the following court case, Connery became unhappy with the major studios and for two years did not make any films. Following the successful European production The Name of the Rose (1986), for which he won a BAFTA award, 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 would become a recurring role in many of his later films. The following year, his acclaimed performance as a hard-nosed cop in The Untouchables (1987) earned him an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Subsequent box-office hits included Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), in which he played the title character's father, The Hunt for Red October (1990) (where he was reportedly called in at two weeks' notice), The Russia House (1990), The Rock (1996), and Entrapment (1999). Both Last Crusade and The Rock alluded to his James Bond days. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas wanted "the father of Indiana Jones" to be Connery since Bond directly inspired the Indiana Jones series, while his character in The Rock, John Patrick Mason, was a British secret service agent imprisoned since the 1960s.

In recent years, Connery's filmography has included several box office and critical disappointments such as First Knight (1995), The Avengers (1998), and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), but he also received positive reviews, including his performance in Finding Forrester (2000). He also later received a Crystal Globe for outstanding artistic contribution to world cinema.

Sean Connery - Retirement

Connery stated in interviews for the film (included on the DVD release) that he was offered roles in both The Matrix and The Lord of the Rings series, declining both due to "not understanding them." CNN reported that the actor was offered up to 15% of the worldwide box office receipts to play Gandalf, which had he accepted, could have earned him as much as $400 million for the trilogy. After both series went on to become huge hits, Connery decided to accept the lead role in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, despite not "understanding" it either. In July 2005, it was reported that he had decided to retire from film-making, following disillusionment with the "idiots now in Hollywood" and the turmoil making the 2003 film.

In September 2004, media reports indicated that Connery intended to retire after pulling out of Josiah's Canon, which was set for a 2005 release. However, in a December 2004 interview with The Scotsman newspaper from his home in the Bahamas, Connery explained he had taken a break from acting in order to concentrate on writing his autobiography. At the Tartan Day celebrations in New York in March 2006, Connery again confirmed his retirement from acting, and stated that he is now writing a history book. On 25 August 2008, his 78th birthday, Connery unveiled his autobiography Being a Scot, co-written with Murray Grigor.

He was planning to star in an $80 million movie about Saladin and the Crusades that would be filmed in Jordan before the producer Moustapha Akkad was killed in the 2005 Amman bombings. Connery received the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 June 2006, where he again 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".

Sean Connery however did return to voice acting, playing the title character in the animated short, "Sir Billi the Vet", and, as noted above, in 2005 he recorded voiceovers for a new video game version of his Bond film, From Russia with Love.

Sean Connery: Personal life

Connery was married to actress Diane Cilento from 1962 to 1973. They had a son, actor Jason Connery. Connery has been married to French painter Micheline Roquebrune (born 1929) since 1975.

Connery, a keen golfer, owned the Domaine de Terre Blanche in the South of France for twenty years (from 1979) where he planned to build his dream golf course on the 300 hectares of land but the dream wasn't realised until he sold it to German billionaire Dietmar Hopp in 1999.

Connery was knighted in July 2000.

Sean Connery - Scottish National Party

Connery is a member of the Scottish National Party, a centre-left political party campaigning for Scottish independence, and has supported the party financially and through personal appearances.

His support for the SNP is illustrated by a comment from his official website:

Sean Connery - Accusations of abuse

In her 2006 autobiography My Nine Lives, as well as in subsequent interviews on radio and in print, Diane Cilento claimed that Connery had beaten her on several occasions. Connery vehemently denied the accusations.

In a December 1987 interview with Barbara Walters, he stated that it was okay for a man to slap a woman with limited force if it was required to calm her down or after being pushed into a "provocative situation."