Sean Connery - First Actor to Portray Spy-Hero James Bond 1930-

Everything I’ve done has had to be accomplished in my own cycle, my oivn time, on my own behalf, and with my own sweat.
—SEAN CONNERY

Over a hundred years ago famed vritcr Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) rote,

“All that I desire to point out is the general principle that Life Imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life.”

For actor Sean Connery it happened in reverse. As a child in Scotland, Connery delivered milk to help supplement the family’s income. One of his stops was the Fettes School in Edinburgh—the same school that novelist Ian Fleming’s fictitious debonair spy James Bond attended. Twenty-one years later Connery portrayed Fleming’s spy hero in the first James Bond film, Dr. No. The character, also known as Agent 007, became Conncry’s signature role.
The charismatic actor with the trademark Scottish brogue was born Thomas Sean Connery on August 25, 1930. His parents, Joe and Euphamia, were very poor, and the family lived in a tiny two-room flat in Edinburgh.
As a youngster, Thomas enjoyed playing tag and soccer. He was bigger than most of the boys and was a good fighter, so the local gang nicknamed him “Big Tarn.” When Thomas was eight, his parents had another child, Neil. Sean loved his role as big brother. As they grew older he and Neil became inseparable, often skipping school to fish at Union Canal.
Though attending school-full time, Thomas had two jobs by the time he was eleven. He worked in a pawnshop and at a dairy, which he preferred. He enjoyed driving the horse-drawn milk cart around town, delivering milk, and loved caring for the horses back at the stable. When Thomas turned thirteen, he quit school and went to work full-time. At sixteen he joined the Royal Navy, but was released after three years due to stomach ulcers.
Once home, Thomas had several jobs, including laying bricks, polishing coffins, modeling, and working as a lifeguard. While working as a nude model for the Edinburgh Art School, Thomas became interested in bodybuilding. He says he did it to impress the girls, but his gym mates thought he looked so good that they nominated him to represent Scotland in the 1950 Mr. Universe contest. Thomas made the nine-hour trip to London and, after flexing the muscles on his six foot two-inch body, placed third in the tall men’s division. By chance a casting director was at the event and offered Thomas a part in the stage musical South Pacific. Though he couldn’t sing or dance, Thomas accepted the offer.
It took only one rehearsal onstage for Thomas to be hooked. At that moment he decided to make acting his career. Feeling that he needed a stage name, he took his middle name plus Connery. Connery appeared in several more plays before being cast in the 1954 BBC television presentation Requiem for a Heavyweight. Moving on to film work, Connery made his (uncredited) film debut in Lilacs in the Spring in 1 955. He appeared in several films over the next few yeats, including A Night to Remember (1958) and Disney’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959).
Despite his acting credits, Connery was still a relative unknown until producers Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli cast him as James Bond in the 1962 screen adventure Dr. No. Connery won the part over Gary Grant, Rex Harrison, Trevor Howard, Patrick McGoohan, and Roger Moore, even though Bond author Ian Fleming hadn’t envisioned him in the role. The film was a box-office hit, and the Bond role made Connery a star. Banking on the success of Dr. No, Connery played Bond four more times in the next five years, including Goldfmger (1964), which grossed $51 million and Thun(terkall(l’:)65), which earned a whopping $63 million.
The James Bond movies were very popular, but Connery was becoming weary of playing the same character. After completing You Only Live Twice, Connery quit the role to spend more time with his family (he married Diane Cilento in 1962, and they had a son, Jason, in 1963} and indulge in his passion—golf. Connery would be coaxed into reprising his Bond role on two more occasions—in the 1971 box-office draw Diamonds Are Forever, and again in 1983’s Never Say Never Again. (Other actors that have been cast as Agent 007 include Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, and Pierce Brosnan.)
Though known best for his role as James Bond, Connery branched out working on other films, and was able to show his range as an actor. He has worked with some of the best directors in the motion picture industry including Alfred Hitchcock, Steven Spielberg, and Brian De Palma, and with some of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including Audrey Hepburn, Harrison Ford, and Robert De Niro.
Connery’s roles have been as varied as his costars, and his ability to play so many different characters has contributed to his longevity as an actor. From playing Harrison Ford’s father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), defecting Russian sub captain Marko Ramius in The Hunt for Red October (1990), ex-con John Patrick Mason in The Rock (1996), cat burglar Robert “Mac” MacDougaJ in Entrapment (1999), to reclusive writer William Forrester m Finding Forrester (2000), Connery brings an intensity and lighthearted wit to all his character portrayals. Expanding his skills beyond acting, Connery starting producing films in the 1990s as well. Life after Bond has been good for Connery. In 1987 he received a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, playing Irish street cop Jim Malone in The Untouchables. Two years later he was again nominated for a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Despite having long abandoned the toupee to cover his thinning hair, Connery was voted People magazine’s “Sexiest Man Alive” in 1989 and “Sexiest Man of the Century” in 1999.
Professional awards have continued to come Connery’s way. In 1995 he received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for “outstanding contribution to the entertainment field.” In 1999 Connery was the recipient of the twenty-second Annual Kennedy Center Honors for his lifetime contribution to arts and culture. Perhaps his most distinguished honor came in July 2000 when Queen Elizabeth II of rhe United Kingdom knighted him in his hometown of Edinburgh.
Sir Sean Connery has no plans to retire from making movies. In February 2002 he signed a contract with Twentieth Century Fox to star in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, a period-era X-Men-type film. The agreement also made provisions for Connery to appear in possible sequels. Still, he allows time for leisure activities, playing golf or watching the Glasgow Rangers, his favorite soccer team. Connery also enjoys spending time at his home in Marbella, Spain, with second wife French artist Micheline Roquebrune, whom he married in 1975 (Connery divorced Cilento in 1973).
At a press conference in 1996 Connery joked about his age saying, “How many senior citizens do you know who are making action movies these days?” Though a grandfather, Connery feels he still has lots of roles left in him. When asked about his desires beyond acting, he replied, “More than anything else, I’d like to be an old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or Picasso.”

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