Sean Connery British Actor Born 1930 in Edinburgh

Early life

Thomas Sean Connery was born in Edinburgh on 25 August 1930. His father worked in a factory and drove a lorry, and his mother worked as a cleaner. As a boy he was known as Tommy, and he began using his middle name, Sean, in his teens. He grew quickly and reached a height of about 188 centimetres by the age of eighteen.

His first job was as a milkman for a local co-operative society. In 1946 he joined the Royal Navy, but he was discharged on medical grounds at nineteen. Back in Edinburgh he took a series of jobs, including lorry driver, lifeguard and artist's model at the Edinburgh College of Art. He also took up bodybuilding. Through that he heard about auditions for a touring production of the musical South Pacific, and he joined the chorus. By the time the tour reached Edinburgh he had been given a larger part, and he later played Lieutenant Buzz Adams.

Career

His first screen appearance was as an extra in the 1954 musical Lilacs in the Spring. Through the mid-1950s he worked in repertory theatre and television, taking a leading role in the BBC production of Requiem for a Heavyweight in 1957, and he moved on to small film parts such as No Road Back and Hell Drivers. He played leads in Another Time, Another Place (1958) and the Disney film Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959).

His breakthrough came in 1962 when he became the first actor to play James Bond on film, in Dr. No. He followed it with From Russia with Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967), left the role, and then returned for Diamonds Are Forever (1971). His seventh and final appearance as Bond came in Never Say Never Again (1983), a film made outside the main series. Wishing to avoid being typecast, he took other parts while Bond was at its peak, including Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964) and Sidney Lumet's The Hill (1965); he made five films with Lumet in all. In 1967 he directed the documentary The Bowler and the Bunnet.

In the 1970s he appeared in The Man Who Would Be King (1975), opposite Michael Caine, in Robin and Marian (1976), where he played the outlaw Robin Hood, in Murder on the Orient Express (1974) and in A Bridge Too Far (1977). He also appeared in Time Bandits (1981) as Agamemnon. After Never Say Never Again he made no films for about two years. His return came with The Name of the Rose and Highlander (both 1986), in which he often played an older mentor.

The late 1980s began a second phase of his career. In The Untouchables (1987) he played an Irish-American police officer, a part that earned him an Academy Award. He then appeared as Henry Jones, the father of Indiana Jones, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as Captain Marko Ramius in The Hunt for Red October (1990), and in The Rock (1996), Dragonheart (1996), where he voiced the dragon Draco, and Entrapment (1999). He starred in Finding Forrester (2000). His last live-action role was in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). He announced his retirement from acting in 2006 and returned briefly in 2012 to voice the title character in the animated film Sir Billi.

Recognition

For The Untouchables, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor. For The Name of the Rose he received the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. He shared the Golden Globe Henrietta Award for World Film Favorite in 1972 and also received the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the BAFTA Fellowship in 1998, a Golden Lion in 1998, the Kennedy Center Honors in 1999, the European Film Academy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2006. He was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 1987, and was knighted at Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh in July 2000. His record lists 27 wins and 14 nominations.

Personal life

Connery was married to the Australian actress Diane Cilento from 1962 to 1973, and their son is the actor Jason Connery. In 1975 he married the painter Micheline Roquebrune, and they were together until his death on 31 October 2020. He lived for many years in the Bahamas. He was a keen golfer and a long-time supporter of the Scottish National Party and of Scottish independence.