Sean Connery (1930 - 2020) was a Scottish actor who became internationally famous as the first screen James Bond and sustained a long career in character and leading roles afterwards. [1] He played Bond in seven films between 1962 and 1983 and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Untouchables in 1988. He was knighted in 2000 and received the BAFTA Fellowship, the Kennedy Center Honors and the AFI Life Achievement Award. [2]
Early life
Thomas Sean Connery was born on 25 August 1930 in the Fountainbridge district of Edinburgh, the son of a factory worker and lorry driver and a cleaner. [1] He left school at about the age of thirteen and worked as a milk deliveryman, labourer, lifeguard and coffin polisher, and served briefly in the Royal Navy before being discharged on medical grounds.
He took up bodybuilding and competed in the Mr Universe contest in the early 1950s, and he had a trial with East Fife football club, but chose acting instead. He worked in the chorus of a touring production of South Pacific and took small parts in British television and film through the late 1950s, including a lead in the 1957 television play Requiem for a Heavyweight. [2]
James Bond
Connery was cast as Ian Fleming's secret agent in Dr. No, released in 1962, on the recommendation of the producers despite his lack of established stardom. [3] The film's success led to From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) and, after a break, Diamonds Are Forever (1971). He returned to the part once more in the independently produced Never Say Never Again in 1983.
The role made him one of the most recognisable actors in the world and defined the character's screen presentation. Connery grew wary of the typecasting and the loss of privacy it brought, and repeatedly stepped away from the series.
Wider film career
Alongside Bond he pursued other work, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964), Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965), and John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) opposite Michael Caine. In the 1980s he entered a period of renewed success, winning a BAFTA award for The Name of the Rose (1986) and the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of the Chicago policeman Jim Malone in Brian De Palma's The Untouchables (1987). [4]
He went on to play Indiana Jones's father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), a Soviet submarine commander in The Hunt for Red October (1990), and leading roles in Highlander, The Rock, Entrapment and Finding Forrester (2000). He also worked as a producer on several of his later films. [1]
Later life
Connery effectively retired from acting after the poor reception of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003, confirming his retirement publicly in 2006. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II at Holyrood in 2000, having long been a public supporter of Scottish independence and the Scottish National Party. [2]
He lived for many years in Spain and then in the Bahamas, where he died at Lyford Cay on 31 October 2020 at the age of ninety.
Legacy
Connery's Bond established a template that later actors in the role were measured against, and his subsequent work, marked by a distinctive Scottish voice he never disguised, gave him a second career as a leading character actor. [4] He was repeatedly named in popular polls as the definitive Bond, and received lifetime achievement honours from the American Film Institute, the European Film Academy and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.
