Sean Connery, the rugged, sardonically assured Scotsman who won an Academy Award and portrayed James Bond seven times, proving to the world that nobody could do it better, has died. He was 90.
Connery’s son Jason told the Associated Press on Saturday that his father died peacefully in his sleep overnight in the Bahamas where he lived, having been “unwell for some time.”
“A sad day for all who knew and loved my dad and a sad loss for all people around the world who enjoyed the wonderful gift he had as an actor,” he told the BBC.
A man with the Midas touch when it came to Agent 007, Connery laid down the Bond blueprint by starring in the first five United Artists movies to feature Ian Fleming’s British superspy: Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963) — said to be the actor’s personal favorite — Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965) and You Only Live Twice (1967). That fulfilled his original contract.
After Connery rebuffed an offer of $1 million and said he was finished with Bond, George Lazenby stepped in to star in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but the Australian actor was one and done. Connery then accepted a then-record $1.25 million salary — plus a promise that UA would fund two non-Bond films for him — to return as 007 in Diamonds Are Forever (1971).
“Fed up to here with the whole Bond bit,” Connery said as he spurned a $5 million payday to star in Live and Let Die (1973), handing over the reins to Englishman Roger Moore. But Connery would portray 007 one last time, at age 52, in the aptly titled (and unofficial Bond film) Never Say Never Again (1983) at Warner Bros.
Asked to account for the phenomenal success of the Bond films, Connery told Playboy in a November 1965 interview that “timing had a lot to do with it.”
“Bond came on the scene after the war, at a time when people were fed up with rationing and drab times and utility clothes and a predominately gray color in life,” he said. “Along comes this character who cuts right through all that like a very hot knife through butter, with his clothing and his cars and his wine and his women.
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter