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"I never disliked Bond, as some have thought. Creating a character like that does take a certain craft. I care about Bond, and what happens. It's simply natural to seek other roles."
― Sean Connery[src]

Sir Thomas Sean Connery, CBE Légion d'honneur, (25 August 1930 - 31 October 2020) was an Oscar winning Scottish actor who starred in many films and was best known as the original cinematic James Bond. He also played the Fake James Bond in From Russia with Love.

Connery was known for his trademark Scottish accent and his good looks, repeatedly mentioned as one of the most attractive men alive by magazines even after he was considerably older than more conventional sex symbols. Some considered him more handsome as an older man than when he was younger.

James Bond[]

007Connery

Sean Connery as James Bond 007.

Films[]

Connery was well known to audiences around the world for his role as James Bond. He first appeared as agent 007 in Dr. No (1962) and subsequently played Bond in several sequels.

Connery was discovered by Harry Saltzman after numerous names as possible contenders for Bond were thrown or ruled out, including Roger Moore, David Niven, Cary Grant, and many others. Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond pays tribute to Connery in his 1963 novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the followup novel You Only Live Twice, by stating that 007's surname as well as his father, was Scottish. Ironically, Fleming reportedly did not like the casting of Connery on the initial grounds that the stocky, 6'2" Scotsman was too "unrefined", but with some tutelage from director Terence Young, Connery won Fleming over. Young helped to smooth Connery's rough-and-tumble edges over (as Connery was from a working-class background, he was subsequently introduced by Young to the lifestyle of upper-class London, so Connery can understand the Bond character from a similar perspective), and then used Connery's imposing physique yet amazingly graceful, cat-like carriage so effectively in every scene. All this paid off and Sean Connery started receiving thousands of fan letters per week after the debut of Dr. No, effectively making him a Sex Symbol overnight. In addition, Fleming was so impressed with Connery's performance he later had James Bond's heratige matching with Connery's canon (see earlier).

Connery's favourite of the films was From Russia with Love, one of the most critically acclaimed in the series. He confirmed that, in a 2002 interview with Sam Donaldson for ABCNews.com (American Movie Classics erroneously cited Thunderball as Connery's favorite during its recent Bond retrospectives.)

In 1967 Connery quit the role of Bond, having grown tired of the repetitive plots, lack of character development and the general public's demands on him and his privacy (as well as fearing typecasting), which led Albert R. Broccoli to hire George Lazenby to assume the role in the 1969 film On Her Majesty's Secret Service. After the film's release, Lazenby backed out of a seven-film contract. Broccoli lured Connery back to the role with $1.25 million plus 12.5% of the film's profits, or about $6 million total to do so, then the highest salary for any actor. Connery reprised the official role just one last time in 1971 for Diamonds are Forever, then retired from the role shortly after that release.

Never Say Never Again[]

Due to, and at the height of, an ongoing legal battle between Broccoli's EON Productions and Kevin McClory (co-writer of Thunderball), McClory was allowed to create a remake of Thunderball after a 10-year span after the release of Thunderball. In the late 1970s McClory teamed with Connery to write an original James Bond film. The project never got off the ground due to further lawsuits brought about by United Artists; however, in 1983 Connery teamed with McClory again to play the role of secret agent James Bond 007 for the seventh and final time in the non-EON Productions film and remake Never Say Never Again. The title of the film has long believed to have derived from Connery's comments after the release of Diamonds Are Forever who, after filming it, claimed he would never play James Bond again (for the legal battle see the controversy of Thunderball).

From Russia With Love (2005)[]

Being Brosnan openly distanced himself from the role of James Bond and in spite of being optioned for another game from EA,[1] the series moved without him and signed Sean Connery for the role. One last official role as James Bond for Sean since his exit in Diamonds are Forever. He provided the voice and likeness for the video game adaptation.

Skyfall[]

According to director Sam Mendes, the idea of approaching Connery to portray the part of Kincade in the 2012 film Skyfall was very briefly considered. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Mendes noted that there "was a very brief flirtation with that thought, but it was never going to happen, because I thought it would distract."[2]

Reception[]

Over 40 years since he first played the role, Connery is still widely regarded as the definitive cinematic incarnation of James Bond, despite credible interpretations of the character by the likes of Roger Moore, Pierce Brosnan, and what many believe to be a more authentic literary performance by Timothy Dalton. Connery's own feelings on Bond in interviews has run the gamut from bitter resentment to great fondness. At one point he joked he hated Bond so much that he'd have killed him, but he has also stated that he never hated Bond, he merely wanted to pursue other roles. Certainly, when the James Bond series was at its peak in the mid-1960s, his association with the 007 image was so intense that fine performances in his non-Bond films, such as Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie and Sidney Lumet's The Hill, were being virtually ignored at the time. When asked if he'd ever escape the identification, he replied "It's with me till I go in the box." At another point, he stated that he still cared about the future of the character and franchise, having been associated with the icon for too long not to care, and that all Bond films had their good points.

Bond Filmography[]

Trivia[]

  • Sean Connery, as a youth, had a job delivering milk to Fettes College, Edinburgh, Scotland. This was James Bond's second school.
  • Had a tattoo from his time in the Royal Navy that said "Scotland Forever" on his forearm. This was often hidden by make up and camera angles in the Bond films.
  • Wore a toupee in all the James Bond movies (excluding Dr. No). He began losing his hair at twenty one. In most other films, he never wore a wig. Off screen he never hid the fact he was losing his hair.
  • The first American television role was as a porter in an episode of The Jack Benny Show.
  • Took on the role of Zed, in John Boorman's cult science fiction film Zardoz. He had been finding it hard to get work after Bond in the seventies and feared he was typecast. He took a major paycut to appear in the film, but actually received a double salary - Boorman says the producers had budgeted for Sean Connery to have his own driver. Connery offered to drive himself and took that wage too. In the film he appears in a Zapata moustache, wears thigh high boots and wears a red thong.
  • Darrell Hammond plays Connery in the Celebrity Jeopardy sketches on Saturday Night Live. In these sketches, Connery is the contestant on all but two of the sketches, where he insults host Alex Trebek (played by Will Ferrell) of withering invective and sexual innuendo, and answers no questions right. The sketches aired twice a season on SNL from 1996–2002, and returned once more when Ferrell guest-hosted in 2005.
  • Starred in Never Say Never Again with Klaus Maria Brandauer. Coincidentally, Brandauer was originally considered to play Marko Ramius in The Hunt for Red October.
  • The film Highlander has gained some notoreity, for having the Scotsman Sean Connery playing a Spaniard/ancient Egyptian in his usual accent, while the lead Scottish role is played by Christopher Lambert with a French accent.
  • Did not play a Russian captain in The Hunt for Red October, despite what many sources say. Marko Ramius is supposed to be from Lithuania, back when it was part of the USSR, and actually dislikes the Russians for historical reasons. This is a significant plot point.
  • George Lucas has said on multiple occasions that Connery's portrayal of the character James Bond was one of the primary inspirations for his Indiana Jones character. As a tribute to this, when casting his third Indiana Jones film, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Lucas chose Connery for the role of Indiana's father, with his reasoning being "Who else could play Indiana Jones' father, but the guy who inspired all of this in the first place, James Bond himself!"
  • Following the death of Roger Moore, Sean Connery is second actor to pass away three years after.

External links[]

References[]

  1. MI6-HQ Staff (2005). James Bond 007: "From Russia With Love" by EA Games (en). MI6-HQ. Retrieved on 2024-01-25.
  2. Ryan, Mike. "Sam Mendes, 'Skyfall' Director, On Bringing Humor Back To James Bond & Flirting With The Idea Of Casting Sean Connery", Huffington Post, 11/05/2012. Retrieved on 30/01/2013. (in English) 
Preceded by:
None
James Bond actor
1962-1967
Succeeded by:
George Lazenby
1969
Preceded by:
George Lazenby
1969
James Bond actor
1971
Succeeded by:
Roger Moore
1973-1985


Wikipedia logo 1024x684 This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Sean Connery. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the James Bond Wiki, the content of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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