Heartbroken family in Scotland voice hope of a memorial to star
Sir Sean Connery’s family hope a lasting memorial to the icon will be created in Scotland.
The actor best known for playing James Bond lived in the Bahamas but has always spoken of his love for his home country.
Sir Sean’s younger brother Neil Connery,
83 – who still lives in Edinburgh where they were born and brought up – was devastated by his brother’s death.
He was too upset to speak yesterday, but his wife, Elinor, said: “Neil is very sad and distressed at losing his older brother.”
Elinor said she and Neil plan to talk to her sisterin-law and nephew about a memorial in Scotland.
Elinor said: “It’s too soon to say, but we’ll be speaking to Sean’s wife Micheline and Jason, Sean’s son, about that. It would be lovely but it’s for his immediate family to decide upon.”
Sean Connery’s granddaughter Saskia Connery posted pictures of them posing together on Instagram along with an emotional tribute.
In one picture the pair are swimming together and in another Saskia is kissing Sir Sean on the side of his face as he smiles.
She said: “A surreal goodbye to my best friend, mentor and dear grandfather.
“Thank you for all the wishes and we will get back to you all soon.
“Heaven has gained the most legendary angel today.”
Meanwhile, there were tributes from a football club and dairy which Connery had been involved with as a young man in Edinburgh.
The store which first employed the Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade star when he was just a teenager also paid tribute to the man it called “undoubtedly our most famous employee”.
Connery worked in the dairy of the St Cuthbert’s Co-operative Society, now Scottish Midland (Scotmid) Co-operative, delivering milk around his home city.
The company posted an image on Facebook of a young Thomas S Connery’s employment record, which showed his start date as July 20 1944 and the date he left as January 7 1950.
The caption read: “Deeply saddened to hear the news that Sir Sean Connery has died.
“Undoubtedly our most famous former employee, in 1944 Thomas Sean Connery, 13, started work as a barrow worker in the St Cuthbert’s dairy.
“He left his role as a milk horseman in 1950 to pursue his acting career.”
He was the son of a factory worker who left school at 13 and went on to become one of Hollywood’s most charismatic stars.
Sir Sean Connery had the most humble of beginnings as he worked as a milkman and had a reputation for being more than able to hold his own on the tough streets of Edinburgh.
But the tattooed ex- bodybuilder secured his place in history in 1962 when he was cast as the first – and greatest – James Bond to grace the silver screen. It would lead to a glittering acting career spanning five decades and fame he could never have imagined growing up in a one- room tenement with no hot water.
An Oscar in 1988 for his part in The Untouchables and a long- overdue knighthood in 2000 cemented his claim to the title of Greatest Living Scot.
But Connery never embraced the Hollywood lifestyle, choosing instead to divide his time between homes in New York and the Bahamas and spend time with his family and playing golf.
He also never forgot his Scottish roots, as his longstanding friends Murray Grigor and Sir Angus Grossart recalled yesterday how he would talk fondly of his upbringing and his pride in his country.
Mr Grigor, a writer and filmmaker, said: “He had an extraordinary life and he lived it very well. He loved Scotland and he kept coming back here and doing very good works here.
“He grew up in a very impoverished style. At five or six, he would do messages for all the old people in the community.
“He said it took him until he was about 18 until he realised it was impoverished. He had to be told that by a social worker. He said ‘no, we had a very happy childhood’.”
Sir Angus added: “In private he was the least pretentious of people. There’s nothing he liked more than to be in Scotland and getting back to his roots and doing quite ordinary things. There was absolutely no vestige of the James Bond personality about him.
“He was robust, highly intelligent, very well read, and it was a side of him that not many people would have understood.
“He was great fun, and with his friends really quite self deprecating. A number of times I can remember he was as much pulling his own leg as pulling ours. He had a great sense of humour.”
He added: “We had many, many happy times. A lunch or a night out with Sean was always a memorable experience.
“He was remarkably proud of his modest upbringing. He would often discuss it.
“I remember a conversation talking about Tony Blair, who was the Prime Minister at the time and had gone to Fettes. Sean rather proudly said‘ of course, I went to Fettes, but I came up the drive in a milk float’.” Born
Thomas Sean Connery on August 25, 1930, he was the son of a factory worker and a domestic cleaner.
He would later become well- read but he left school without qualifications at 13, and worked as a milkman
and a lifeguard as well as having a three- year stint in the Royal Navy.
His love of bodybuilding and athletics meant he had a level of fitness that could have secured him a career as a footballer, as Matt Busby offered him a contract at Manchester United.
But, by then, Connery’s flair for acting had been spotted after he auditioned for a role in the chorus of the musical South Pacific in 1953.
Minor roles on both the stage and small screen soon followed, and in 1957 he landed his first lead part in Blood Money, playing a boxer whose career was on the wane.
But he was propelled to star dom almost overnight after being picked to play 007 – and it might never have happened if Bond creator Ian Fleming had had his way.
Producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman had acquired the film rights, and movie legends Cary Grant, Rex Harrison and Richard Burton had been in the running.
Broccoli’s wife Dana, however, favoured Connery, believing he had the charisma needed to play Bond in the first film, Dr No.
Fleming famously declared: “I’m looking for Commander Bond and not an overgrown stuntman,” but he would later be so convinced by Connery’s portrayal of the suave secret agent that he worked some Scottish ancestry into the character. Dr No was followed by six more Bond films with Connery as 007 – From Russia With Love ( 1963), Goldfinger ( 1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
Connery became frustrated with the repetitive plots and had quit after You Only Live Twice, only to agree to return when his successor George Lazenby failed to make the grade.
Most of his subsequent successes were as part of ensemble casts, in films such as The Man Who Would Be King, Murder On The Orient Express and A Bridge Too Far.
By the 1980s, his career was fading but he burst back on to top form with an Oscarwinning per for mance as a tough Irish policeman in The Untouchables in 1987. It was his only Academy Award.
Two years later he played the father of Harrison Ford’s whip- cracking hero in Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.
The 1990s brought performances in The Hunt For Red October (1990), Dragonheart ( 1996) and Entrapment, the 1999 love story/ thriller with Catherine Zeta- Jones, which Connery also produced.
By that point he was firmly regarded as an elder statesman of the film industry and in 2000 was knighted by the Queen – an honour said to have been delayed by his vocal support for the SNP.
Conner y, once voted the “greatest living Scot”, received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006, when he confirmed his retirement from acting.
Throughout his career he remained relatively guarded about his private life but was forced to deny claims of domestic abuse made by his first wife, the Australian actress Diane Cilento, before her death in 2011.
He was plagued by criticism of remarks he allegedly made in a Vanity Fair interview in 1993 when he suggested there were women who “want a smack”.
Connery was reported as saying: “There are women who take it to the wire. That’s what they are looking for, the ultimate confrontation.”
He and Cilento were married for 11 years and had one son, the actor Jason Connery.
Connery is survived by Jason and his second wife, French artist Micheline Roquebrune, whom he married in 1975.
In 2009 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Edinburgh Napier University in recognition of his acting achievements.
As one of the highestprofile supporters of Scottish independence, many expected Connery to make an appearance on the campaign trail in the run- up to the historic vote on September 18, 2014.
His words were used to galvanise support at the launch of the Yes campaign two years previously, when the star declared in a message: “The people of Scotland are the best guardians of their own future.”