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Sean Connery Appreciation: Screen Legend Left Audiences Shaken, Stirred, as Bond and Beyond
The Industry Nov 02, 2020
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Getty Every actor wants to work. And a small percentage of those actors get to work in films that people remember; and a much smaller percentage get to play an iconic character over the course of several films; and an infinitesimal percentage manage to find success by tackling other roles after becoming famous as that iconic character. Which brings us to Sean Connery, who died this week at the age of 90. His portrayal of super-spy James Bond was as essential to the 1960s as The Beatles. (Even though, in “Goldfinger,” Connery’s Bond cracked that drinking warm champagne was “as bad as listening to the Beatles without earmuffs.”)
He wasn’t technically the first Bond — Barry Nelson played the Ian Fleming character in an American TV adaptation of “Casino Royale” in 1954 — but Connery invented an action hero who was overtly sexual in a way that his predecessors hadn’t been, although still able to dispatch the bad guys with ruthless efficiency, all the while never spoiling the crease in his tuxedo. Connery himself came from working-class origins, having been a milkman and a lifeguard before flirtations with professional bodybuilding and football on his way to an acting career. […]
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