Sean Connery

Sir Thomas Sean Connery (25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a Scottish actor. Connery was the first actor to portray the fictional British secret agent James Bond in motion pictures, starring in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983. He originated the role in Dr. No (1962) and continued starring as Bond in the Eon Productions films From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967) and Diamonds Are Forever (1971). His final appearance in the franchise was with Never Say Never Again (1983), a non-Eon-produced Bond film.

Connery is also known for his work with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Sidney Lumet and John Huston. Their films in which Connery appeared included Marnie (1964), The Hill (1965), The Offence (1973), Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and The Man Who Would Be King (1975). He also acted in Robin and Marian (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Time Bandits (1981), Highlander, The Name of the Rose (both 1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart, The Rock (both 1996) and Finding Forrester (2000). His final film roles were The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003) and Sir Billi (2012).

Connery received numerous accolades. For his role in The Untouchables (1987), he received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (making him the first Scottish actor to win a major Oscar) and the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. In the same year, Connery received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role in The Name of the Rose. As producer of Art, he won the Tony Award for Best Play in 1998. Connery also received honorary awards such as the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1987, the BAFTA Fellowship in 1998 and the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999. He was made a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France and a knight by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama in the 2000 New Year Honours.

Early life and education

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. The remainder of his family was of Scottish descent, and his maternal great-grandparents were native Scottish Gaelic-speakers from Fife and Uig on Skye. 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 6 ft 2 in (188 cm) 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; when the two were together, those who knew them both called Connery by his middle name Sean, emphasising the assonance of the two names. Since then Connery preferred to use his middle name.

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:

When I took a taxi during a recent Edinburgh Film Festival, the driver was amazed that I could put a name to every street we passed. "How come?" he asked. "As a boy I used to deliver milk round here", I said. "So what do you do now?" That was rather harder to answer.

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 (equivalent to £882 in 2023) 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. During a bodybuilding competition held in London in 1953, one of the competitors mentioned that auditions were being held for a production of South Pacific, and Connery landed a small part as one of the Seabees chorus boys. By the time the production reached Edinburgh, he had been given the part of Marine Cpl. Hamilton Steeves and was understudying two of the juvenile leads, and his salary was raised from £12 to £14–10s a week. The production returned the following year, out of popular demand, and Connery was promoted to the featured role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams, which Larry Hagman had portrayed in the West End.

While in Edinburgh, Connery was targeted by the Valdor gang, one of the most violent in the city. He was first approached by them in a billiard hall where he prevented them from stealing his jacket and was later followed by six gang members to a 15-foot-high (4.6 m) balcony at the Palais de Danse. There, Connery grabbed one by the throat and another by the biceps, cracking their heads together. From then on, the gang treated him with respect and he had a "hard man" reputation.

Connery met Michael Caine at a party during a production of South Pacific in 1954, and the two later became close friends. During this production at the Manchester Opera House, Connery developed a serious interest in the theatre through the American actor Robert Henderson, who lent him copies of the Henrik Ibsen works Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, and When We Dead Awaken and later listed works by the likes of Proust, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bernard Shaw, Joyce, and Shakespeare. Henderson urged Connery to take elocution lessons and got him parts at the Maida Vale Theatre in London. He had already begun a film career, having been an extra in Herbert Wilcox's 1954 musical Lilacs in the Spring with Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle.