Sean Connery

, Edinburgh Thomas Sean Connery was born at the Royal Maternity Hospital in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 25 August 1930; he was named after his paternal grandfather. Connery was of half-Irish and half-Scottish descent. He was brought up at No. 176 Fountainbridge, a block which has since been demolished. His mother, Euphemia McBain "Effie" McLean, was a cleaning woman. The daughter of Neil McLean and Helen Forbes Ross, she was named after her father's mother, Euphemia McBain, wife of John McLean and daughter of William McBain from Ceres in Fife. Connery's father, Joseph Connery, was a factory worker and lorry driver. Two of his paternal great-grandparents emigrated to Scotland from Wexford, Ireland, in the mid-19th century, with his great-grandfather James Connery being an Irish Traveller. His father was a Roman Catholic, and his mother was a Protestant. Connery had a younger brother Neil and was generally referred to in his youth as "Tommy". Although he was small in primary school, he grew rapidly around the age of 12, reaching his full adult height of at 18. Connery was known during his teen years as "Big Tam", and he said that he lost his virginity to an adult woman in an ATS uniform at the age of 14. He had an Irish childhood friend named Séamus; Connery's first job was as a milkman in Edinburgh with St. Cuthbert's Co-operative Society. In 2009, Connery recalled a conversation in a taxi: In 1946, at the age of 16, Connery joined the Royal Navy, during which time he acquired two tattoos. Connery's official website says "unlike many tattoos, his were not frivolous – his tattoos reflect two of his lifelong commitments: his family and Scotland. ... One tattoo is a tribute to his parents and reads 'Mum and Dad', and the other is self-explanatory, 'Scotland Forever'". He trained in Portsmouth at the naval gunnery school and in an anti-aircraft crew. He was later assigned as an Able Seaman on HMS Formidable. Connery was discharged from the navy at the age of 19 on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer, a condition that affected most of the males in previous generations of his family. Afterwards, he returned to the co-op and worked as a lorry driver, a lifeguard at Portobello swimming baths, a labourer, an artist's model for the Edinburgh College of Art, and after a suggestion by the former Mr. Scotland Archie Brennan, as a coffin polisher, amongst other jobs. The modelling earned him 15 shillings an hour. Artist Richard Demarco, at the time a student who painted several early pictures of Connery, described him as "very straight, slightly shy, too, too beautiful for words, a virtual Adonis". Connery began bodybuilding at the age of 18, and from 1951 trained heavily with Ellington, a former gym instructor in the British Army. While his official website states he was third in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest, most sources place him in the 1953 competition, either third in the Junior class or failing to place in the Tall Man classification. Connery said he was soon deterred from bodybuilding when he found that Americans frequently beat him in competitions because of sheer muscle size and they, unlike Connery, refused to participate in athletic activity which could make them lose muscle mass. Connery was a keen footballer, having played for Bonnyrigg Rose in his younger days. He was offered a trial with East Fife. While on tour with South Pacific, Connery played in a football match against a local team that Matt Busby, manager of Manchester United, happened to be scouting. According to reports, Busby was impressed with his physical prowess and offered Connery a contract worth £25 a week () immediately after the game. Connery said he was tempted to accept, 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". == Career ==

1951–1959: Career beginnings Seeking to supplement his income, Connery helped out backstage at the King's Theatre in late 1951. He also had a minor role in Gerald Thomas's thriller Time Lock (1957) as a welder, appearing with Robert Beatty, Lee Patterson, Betty McDowall, and Vincent Winter; this commenced filming on 1 December 1956 at Beaconsfield Studios. Connery had a major role in the melodrama Another Time, Another Place (1958) as a British reporter named Mark Trevor, caught in a love affair opposite Lana Turner and Barry Sullivan. During filming, Turner's possessive gangster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, who was visiting from Los Angeles, believed she was having an affair with Connery. Connery and Turner had attended West End shows and London restaurants together. Two Scotland Yard detectives advised Stompanato to leave and escorted him to the airport, where he boarded a plane back to the United States. Connery later recounted that he had to lie low for a while after receiving threats from men linked to Stompanato's boss, Mickey Cohen. In 1959, Connery landed a leading role in the director Robert Stevenson's Walt Disney Productions film ''Darby O'Gill and the Little People'' (1959), alongside Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, and Jimmy O'Dea. The film is a tale about a wily Irishman and his battle of wits with leprechauns. Upon the film's release, A. H. Weiler of The New York Times praised the cast (save Connery, whom he described as "merely tall, dark, and handsome") and thought the film an "overpoweringly charming concoction of standard Gaelic tall stories, fantasy and romance". He also had prominent television roles in An Age of Kings, a major BBC Television adaptation of Shakespeare's Henriad (playing Hotspur), as well Rudolph Cartier's 1961 productions of Adventure Story and Anna Karenina for BBC Television, co-starring with Claire Bloom in the latter. Also in 1961 he portrayed Macbeth in a CBC television film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Macbeth, with the Australian actress Zoe Caldwell cast as Lady Macbeth. 1962–1983: James Bond and stardom ) while filming Goldfinger in 1964 Connery's breakthrough came in the role of the fictional British secret agent James Bond. He was initially reluctant to commit to a film series, but understood that if the franchise succeeded, his film career would greatly benefit. Between 1962 and 1967, Connery played Bond in Dr. No, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball, and You Only Live Twice, the first five Bond films produced by Eon Productions. After departing from the role, Connery returned for the seventh film, Diamonds Are Forever, in 1971. Connery made his final appearance as Bond in Never Say Never Again, a 1983 remake of Thunderball produced by Jack Schwartzman's Taliafilm. 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. The choice of Connery for the role of James Bond owed much to Dana Broccoli, wife of the 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 Connery had the requisite sexual charisma, and Fleming changed his mind after the successful Dr. No premiere; he was so impressed that he subsequently gave the character a Scottish heritage, with his father stated as being from Glencoe in the Scottish Highlands in the 1964 novel You Only Live Twice. The tutoring was successful; Connery received thousands of fan letters a week after the opening of Dr. No, and he became a major sex symbol in film. Following the release of the film Dr. No in 1962, the line "Bond ... James Bond", became a catchphrase in the lexicon of Western popular culture. The film critic Peter Bradshaw writes, "It is the most famous self-introduction from any character in movie history. Three cool monosyllables, surname first, a little curtly, as befits a former naval commander. And then, as if in afterthought, the first name, followed by the surname again. Connery carried it off with icily disdainful style, in full evening dress with a cigarette hanging from his lips. The introduction was a kind of challenge, or seduction, invariably addressed to an enemy. In the early 60s, Connery's James Bond was about as dangerous and sexy as it got on screen". 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 should 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. 1964–1986 '' (1964) 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". Connery also shocked many people at the time by asking to see a script, something he 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 had not asked to see even one of Hitchcock's scripts, Connery replied: "I'm not Cary Grant". Hitchcock and Connery got on well during filming, and Connery said he was happy with the film "with certain reservations". In The Hill, Connery wanted to act in something that wasn't Bond related, and he used his leverage as a star to feature in it. While the film wasn't a financial success it was a critical one, debuting at the Cannes Film Festival winning Best Screenplay. The first of five films he made with Lumet, Connery considered him to be one of his favourite directors. The respect was mutual, with Lumet saying of Connery's performance in The Hill, "The thing that was apparent to me – and to most directors – was how much talent and ability it takes to play that kind of character who is based on charm and magnetism. It's the equivalent of high comedy and he did it brilliantly." In the mid-1960s Connery played golf with the Scottish industrialist Iain Maxwell Stewart, a connection which led to Connery directing and presenting the documentary film The Bowler and the Bunnet in 1967. The film described the Fairfield Experiment, a new approach to industrial relations carried out at the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Glasgow, during the 1960s; the experiment was initiated by Stewart and supported by George Brown, the First Secretary in Harold Wilson's cabinet, in 1966. The company was facing closure, and Brown agreed to provide £1 million (£13.135 million; US$15.55 million in 2021) to enable trade unions, the management and the shareholders to try out new ways of industrial management. in Robin and Marian (1976) 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 FavoriteMale" in 1972. He appeared in John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) opposite Michael Caine. Playing two former British soldiers who set themselves up as kings in Kafiristan, both actors regarded it as their favourite film. The same year, he appeared in The Wind and the Lion opposite Candice Bergen who played Eden Pedecaris (based on the real-life Perdicaris incident), and in 1976 played Robin Hood in Robin and Marian opposite Audrey Hepburn, who played Maid Marian. The 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 played a British Army general in Richard Attenborough's war film A Bridge Too Far (1977), co-starring Dirk Bogarde and Laurence Olivier. In 1974, he starred in John Boorman's sci-fi thriller Zardoz. Often called one of the "weirdest and worst movies ever made" it featured Connery in a scarlet mankinia revealing costume which generated much controversy for its un-Bond-like appearance. Despite being panned by critics at the time, the film has developed a cult following since its release. In the audio commentary to the film, Boorman relates how Connery would write poetry in his free time, describing him as "a man of great depth and intelligence" and possessing the "most extraordinary memory". In 1981, Connery appeared in the film Time Bandits as Agamemnon. The casting choice derives from a joke Michael Palin included in the script, which describes the character's removing his mask and being "Sean Conneryor someone of equal but cheaper stature". When shown the script, Connery was happy to play the supporting role. In 1981 he portrayed Marshal William T. O'Niel in the science fiction thriller Outland. In 1982, Connery narrated ''G'olé!, the official film of the 1982 FIFA World Cup. That same year, he was offered the role of Daddy Warbucks in Annie'', going as far as taking voice lessons for the John Huston musical before turning down the part. Connery agreed to reprise Bond 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 the 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. 1987–2006 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 a BAFTA nomination and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor and 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 father of Indiana Jones, and received BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Harrison Ford said 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 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. The failure of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was especially frustrating for Connery. He sensed during shooting that the production was "going off the rails", and announced that the director, Stephen Norrington, "would have been arrested for insanity". Connery 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 turned down the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings films, saying he did not understand the script. He was reportedly offered US$30 million along with 15% of the worldwide box office receipts, which would have earned him US$450 million. He also turned down the opportunity to appear as Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series and the Architect in The Matrix trilogy. In 2005, he recorded voiceovers for the From Russia with Love video game with the recording producer Terry Manning in the Bahamas, and provided his likeness. Connery said he was happy the producers, Electronic Arts, had approached him to voice Bond. Retirement in 2008 When receiving the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 June 2006, Connery confirmed his retirement from acting. This was because of he had become disillusioned with the "idiots now making films in Hollywood". On 7 June 2007 Connery denied rumours that he would appear in the Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull film, saying "retirement is just too much damned fun". In 2010 a bronze bust sculpture of him was placed in Tallinn, Estonia, outside the Scottish Club, whose membership includes Estonian Scotophiles and a handful of expatriate Scots. In 2012 he briefly came out of retirement to voice Sir Billi in the Scottish animated film Sir Billi. Connery served as executive producer for an expanded 80-minute version. The film received negative reviews. == Personal life ==

in 1954 During the production of South Pacific in the mid-1950s, Connery dated a Jewish "dark-haired beauty with a ballerina's figure", Carol Sopel, but was warned off by her family. He then dated Julie Hamilton, daughter of documentary filmmaker and feminist Jill Craigie. Given Connery's rugged appearance and rough charm, Hamilton initially thought he was an appalling person and was not attracted to him until she saw him in a kilt, declaring him to be the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. He also shared a mutual attraction with jazz singer Maxine Daniels, whom he met while working in theatre. He made a pass at her, but she told him she was already happily married with a daughter. Connery was married to the Australian actress Diane Cilento from 1962 to 1973, though they separated in 1971. They had a son, the actor Jason Connery. Connery illustrated the cover of Cilento's 1967 novel: The Manipulator. Connery was separated in the early 1970s when he dated Dyan Cannon, Jill St. John, Lana Wood, Carole Mallory, and Magda Konopka. In her 2006 autobiography, Cilento alleged that he had abused her mentally and physically during their relationship. Connery cancelled an appearance at the Scottish Parliament in 2006 because of controversy over his alleged support of abuse of women. He denied claims he told Playboy magazine in 1965, "I don't think there is anything particularly wrong in hitting a woman, though I don't recommend you do it in the same way you hit a man". In 2006, Connery told The Times, "I don't believe that any level of abuse of women is ever justified under any circumstances. Full stop". celebration in Washington, D.C. When knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000, he wore a green-and-black hunting tartan kilt of his mother's MacLean clan. Connery was married to the French-Moroccan painter Micheline Roquebrune (born 4 April 1929) from 1975 until his death. The marriage survived a well-documented affair Connery had in the late 1980s with the singer and songwriter Lynsey de Paul, which she later regretted due to his views concerning domestic violence. Connery owned the Domaine de Terre Blanche in the South of France from 1979. He sold it to the German billionaire businessman Dietmar Hopp in 1999. He was awarded an honorary rank of Shodan (1st dan) in Kyokushin karate. Connery relocated to the Bahamas in the 1990s; he owned a mansion in Lyford Cay on New Providence. Connery was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at an investiture ceremony at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh on 5 July 2000. He had been nominated for a knighthood in 1997 and 1998, but these nominations were reportedly vetoed by Donald Dewar owing to Connery's political views. Connery had a villa in Kranidi, Greece. His neighbour was King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, with whom he shared a helicopter platform. Michael Caine (who co-starred with Connery in The Man Who Would Be King in 1975) was among Connery's closest friends. Growing up, Connery supported the Scottish football club Celtic F.C., having been introduced to the club by his father who was a lifelong fan of the team. Later in life, Connery switched his loyalty to Celtic's bitter rival, Rangers F.C., after he became close friends with the team's chairman, David Murray. He was a keen golfer, introduced to the game by his friend Iain Stewart. The golf scene saw him wear a Slazenger v-neck sweater, a brand which Connery became associated with while playing golf in his free time, with a light grey marl being a favoured colour. The record major championship winner and golf course designer Jack Nicklaus said, "He loved the game of golfSean was a pretty darn good golfer!and we played together several times. In May 1993, Sean and legendary driver Jackie Stewart helped me open our design of the PGA Centenary Course at Gleneagles in Scotland". Political views Connery's Scottish roots and his experiences in filming in Glasgow's shipyards in 1966 inspired him to become a member of the centre-left Scottish National Party (SNP), which supports Scottish independence from the United Kingdom (in 2011, Connery said "The Bowler and the Bunnet was just the beginning of a journey that would lead to my long association with the Scottish National Party"). and through personal appearances. In 1967, he wrote to George Leslie, the SNP candidate in the 1967 Glasgow Pollok by-election, saying, "I am convinced that with our resources and skills we are more than capable of building a prosperous, vigorous and modern self-governing Scotland in which we can all take pride and which will deserve the respect of other nations." His funding of the SNP ceased in 2001, when the British Parliament passed legislation prohibiting overseas funding of political activities in the United Kingdom. In the run-up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Connery's brother Neil said Connery would not come to Scotland to rally independence supporters, since his tax exile status greatly limited the number of days he could spend in the country. After Connery sold his Marbella villa in 1999, Spanish authorities launched a tax evasion investigation, alleging that the Spanish treasury had been defrauded of £5.5 million. Connery was subsequently cleared by officials, but his wife and 16 others were charged with attempting to defraud the Spanish treasury. == Death and legacy ==

Connery died in his sleep on 31 October 2020, aged 90, at his home in the Lyford Cay community of Nassau in the Bahamas. although they did not disclose the cause of death, his son Jason said he had been unwell for some time. A day later, his widow revealed he had dementia in his final years. Connery's death certificate was obtained by TMZ a month after his death, showing the cause of death was pneumonia and respiratory failure, and the time of death was listed as 1:30 am. His remains were cremated, and the ashes were scattered in Scotland at undisclosed locations in 2022. Following the announcement of his death, many co-stars and figures from the entertainment industry paid tribute to Connery, including Sam Neill, Nicolas Cage, Robert De Niro, Michael Bay, Tippi Hedren, Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman, George Lucas, Shirley Bassey, Kevin Costner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Barbra Streisand, John Cleese, Jane Seymour and Harrison Ford, as well as the former Bond stars George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, and the family of the late Roger Moore. Connery's longtime friend Michael Caine called him a "great star, brilliant actor and a wonderful friend". The James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli released a statement saying Connery had "revolutionized the world with his gritty and witty portrayal of the sexy and charismatic secret agent. He is undoubtedly largely responsible for the success of the film series and we shall be forever grateful to him". and a 2011 EuroMillions survey named him "Scotland's Greatest Living National Treasure". He was voted by People magazine as the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989 and the "Sexiest Man of the Century" in 1999. If the non-Eon Bond movie Never Say Never Again is included, Connery shares the record for the most portrayals as James Bond with Roger Moore (with seven apiece). In June 1965, Time magazine observed "James Bond has developed into the biggest mass-cult hero of the decade". In 2024, the Edinburgh International Film Festival established an annual award in Connery's honour. The Sean Connery Prize for Feature Filmmaking Excellence is a prize of £50,000 given to the makers of a film chosen by audience vote from a short-list of ten feature films that receive their world premieres at the festival each year. == Awards and honours ==

Honours • 1987: Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters from France • 1999: Kennedy Center Honors • 2000: Received Knighthood from Queen Elizabeth II • 2005: European Film Awards Lifetime Achievement Award • 2006: AFI Life Achievement Award == References ==