Dakota Beacon

NOTE:  The following was written last night, October 31, 2020.

Today we got the sad news of the death of Scottish actor Sean Connery.  He was 90 - hard to believe!  Over the course of a stellar career, Connery specialized in suspenseful action films.

He was the first - and the definitive - James Bond.  Every subsequent portrayal aimed for Connery’s flair but none really came close.

Born Thomas Sean Connery in Edinburgh, Scotland, on August 25, 1930, his was a “working class” family, his mother a cleaning lady, a Protestant, and his father a lorry driver and factory worker, a Catholic.  If you’re thinking that “Connery” sounds Irish, you’re right - his great grandfather emigrated to Scotland from Ireland.  Some of his forebears were speakers of Scottish Gaelic.  

His first job was as a milkman.  At 16, in 1946, he joined the Royal Navy.  Upon his discharge, at age 18, he took a variety of jobs - lifeguard, laborer and artist’s model at the Edinburgh College of Art . . . and coffin polisher.  An athlete, he was a bodybuilder and played (British) football.  He was in a touring company of South Pacific when he was offered a contract to play football professionally.  He later recalled that, although tempted, he realized his athletic career would be at an end by age 30 and he wouldn’t have many years to play professionally.  He said it was one of his “more intelligent” decisions to remain an actor.  His introduction to the theater was as a backstage laborer.  He found out that auditions were being held for a production of South Pacific.  He began in the chorus but was promoted to the lead role of Lt. Buzz Adams  

Through the 1950s Connery made many contacts in film and theater among the top level of British and American actors and directors, remarkable for his good looks and his reputation as a “tough guy”, earned in a fight with some of Edinburgh’s worst gang members.  In 1959, he was cast as Michael McBride in the whimsical and romantic Disney production of Darby O’Gill and the Little People, with an all-star cast.  He truly became a superstar with his portrayal, in 1962, of James Bond.  Bond’s creator, Ian Fleming, didn’t really see him as right for the role - he was thinking of a more patrician persona - Connery was obviously someone who worked out, with a muscular physique, and of course, his Scots accent wasn’t what Fleming had envisioned in his more posh character.  He was persuaded, however, and Connery was so good that Fleming incorporated Connery’s own heritage into the character of James Bond.  The rest is history.  In all, Connery played Agent 007 in seven Bond films and became a household name.  

Sean Connery had what few actors have - a magnetic screen presence.  I always used to wonder why Gary Cooper was such a huge star - I had seen some of his movies on the late show as a kid.  Then one time I saw him on the big screen in one of his first (silent) films - The Winning of Barbara Worth (1926).  Immediately I realized that he had this quality - one’s eyes followed him on the screen - he was always the person one watched in any scene.  Sean Connery shared this quality.  He was bound to become a star.  More recently, we all saw him as Indiana Jones’ erudite and whimsical but scholarly and eccentric professor father, Henry Jones, Sr.  Between these two franchises - 007 and Indiana Jones, Connery was cast as mature, adventurous characters - Richard the Lionheart, an American policeman in Elliot Ness and many other dashing characters - in The Man Who Would Be King (1975) he played a fortune-seeking adventurer who, with his bosom companion, played by Michael Caine, set off for a distant mountain-girded kingdom that was in search of a god.  Connery became their god - for a while, anyway.   In The Wind and the Lion (1975) he played a swashbuckling desert chief, Raisuli.  

In 2006 he received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award and announced his retirement.  Among his many honors was a knighthood, awarded him in 2000. He was a strong supporter of Scottish Independence and, of course, cut quite an impressive figure in a kilt.

He died in his sleep at age 90, today - October 31, 2020, at his home in Nassau in the Bahamas, having been in poor health for a period of time.  He will be missed and long remembered.

“Shaken, not stirred.” - a montage of classic 007 scenes:  https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+-+sean+connery&docid=608043579900952637&mid=999C0DD823F397873EA7999C0DD823F397873EA7&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

As Henry Jones, Sr., Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dxh-_GR5Ns

Singing in Darby O’Gill and the LIttle People:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So9yHpHOAiI

Sean Connery in his own words:  https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+-+sean+connery&docid=608047995154989331&mid=B5DCA64B943C9701E4FCB5DCA64B943C9701E4FC&view=detail&FORM=VIRE

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