IN MEMORY OF SEAN CONNERY, 1930-2020
Many things can be said about Sean Connery, nearly all of them extraordinary.
There’s little doubt that his heady mix of raw charm, swagger and dangerous manly sexual charisma landed him the role of the most iconic hero since the invention of cinema. Sean simply was James Bond.
Who could ever forget Connery’s cool reaction to casual torture at the hands of Goldfinger, or indeed his wry eyebrow raise at Ursula Andress’s bikinied entrance onto Dr No’s Caribbean island? The enduring genius of 007’s deadpan reaction to exotic thrills was set definitively by this inexperienced but magnetic actor. Fifty-eight years later, his subtle and canny choices as an actor are still achingly cool.
Since Sean Connery’s death, much has been written about him. His implausible ascent from Edinburgh milkman via artist’s model, bodybuilder, musical chorus boy to Oscar-winning movie star and then to wittily cantankerous Scottish icon is now the stuff of legend. A modern fairytale.
A “leading actor” is the common term for someone who can bewitch an audience through any single film. The mysterious combination of gift and talent required in any performer to “carry” a film is astonishing. Rarer yet are the movie stars who have commanded a franchise. They can be counted on a single hand in the history of cinema. Sean embodied and crafted 007. He seduced the world and the unique undying fascination with all things James Bond began with him.
Effortlessly delivering what we now think of as just “Bond” was akin to capturing lightning in a bottle. We often think of culture being reinvented by groups like the Impressionists or the Punks, or more rarely by a handful of individuals like The Beatles. Connery was one man on camera armed with little other than sharp tailoring, elegant lines and his wits. Few of the crew making Dr No gave it much chance of success. But audiences the world over immediately adored Sean as Bond in a way that nobody had seen before. Twenty-five films later, the brilliance of Connery still resonates deeply in everything that fans crave in a Bond film.
Ian Fleming’s literary character was unimpeachably brilliant, thrilling and elegantly styled in both prose and impact. Millions of readers were hooked, famously including President Kennedy who kept the books by his bed in the White House. Less well known is that despite a decade of trying, nobody could figure out how to make the leap from page to screen. In the ’50s, when Ian was thrilling his millions of readers, the idea of risking even a single film featuring a licensed assassin who was so sexual was unthinkable.
Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman, both inveterate showmen and risk-takers, took the gamble of their lives in the casting of the then totally unknown Connery. Nobody could have anticipated the supernova-like cultural impact of picking him to be Bond. The blockbuster era was born, and entertainment changed for good.
The visit to any set of a Bond film decades later is extraordinary both in scale and glamour, but to fully understand the experience it is the story off-camera which is so arresting. Talking to the young, brilliant crew you find something startling. Often these exceptional people are themselves the grandchildren of those in the same jobs who helped launch Connery into our global imaginations. The UK has overtaken California in making blockbusters and it is inconceivable that without these generations of crew forged in the shadow of the original 007 any of this would have been possible.
In 2022 the Bond films will enter their 60th year. It is only the occasional pandemic that can yet keep 007 from his next appearance. But you can rest assured: as night follows day, James Bond will return – as true as ever to the man who immortalised him on screen.