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Sean Connery - Obituary: The Man of Men

2020-10-31T18:20:32.223Z


Sean Connery was one of the best film actors in history - and definitely the most casual. Now he died in the Bahamas at the age of 90.


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Sean Connery as James Bond

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Bettmann Archive / getty Images

The best thing about Sean Connery was that he kept his boyish, often mischievous, self-deprecating smile into his last roles.

It seemed to know about the things of life and the certainty of death.

He played men who fought battles and waged wars, killing with all weapons man had ever invented, pistols, swords, knives, even cars.

And yet he still had a boyish charm that will outlast him and will continue to shine on canvases and screens.  

Today it was announced that Connery has passed away in the Bahamas - his adopted home for many years - around two months after his 90th birthday.

The man who brought 007 to life on screen over sixty years ago, who appears to be buried at sea at the beginning of the Bond film "You Only Live Twice" (1967), only to be resurrected a few minutes later. Film "Highlander" (1986) played an immortal nobleman, should be dead?

An absurd notion.

Almost 20 years ago, Connery retired from the film business.

He obviously felt that he had played enough.

Enough roles anyway.

Apparently he never got enough of playing golf.

He preferred to do this in warmer climes than in his Scottish homeland.

He knew that wind and weather can get in your bones there since he was a milk boy in his native Edinburgh.

He spent more time in Almería in southern Spain or in the Bahamas.

Every now and then he would return to Edinburgh to be celebrated. 

For example, in August 2008 when he presented his autobiography at the literature festival there.

It could only have one title: "Being a Scot".

The staunch Scot, who lived in the Bahamas at the time because taxes were lower there than in his homeland, who had advertised Japanese whiskey because the fee was right, returned to celebrate his country's achievements.

Because Connery turned 007 into a casual hedonist, far removed from the snobbery of the hero in Fleming's novels, he could become a figure of identification for millions of people.

I flew there for SPIEGEL to meet him, one of my idols since my youth.

Unfortunately, I had to find out on site that Connery only wanted to speak to Scots.

In the end I got no closer than six meters to him.

He strode through the enthusiastic crowd and graciously greeted them to the right and left. 

As 007, he embodied a determination, strength and a coldness that was strangely attractive.

Ian FIeming, the author of the original, had probably envisioned a completely different actor.

Not a Scottish proletarian, but an English gentleman, urbane and educated.

Cary Grant or David Niven had been in discussion when the producers wanted to cast the leading role for the first 007 film "James Bond Chases Dr. No".

But these stars were too expensive.

So Connery, who also worked as a coffin polisher and had been offered a contract by Manchester United because of his footballing talent, got the role.

The fact that he was actually a bad cast should have been the key to his success.

Connerys Bond has nothing but contempt for the so-called better circles, and that is exactly what makes him look so sexy.

For him, high society is only a means to an end, in order to get better champagne, faster cars and more beautiful girls.

Because Connery turned 007 into a casual hedonist, far removed from the snobbery of the hero in Fleming's novels, he could become a figure of identification for millions of people.

He jetted around the world for us, gambled at the card table for us, played golf for us.

And he did all of this with the greatest possible ease.

For me, Bond often shimmers through when I see Connery in a film, no matter what he plays, a Russian submarine captain with a bushy beard ("Hunt for Red October", 1990) or a master thief ("Tempting Trap", 1999 ).

He went to places where one would not expect 007, for example to a monastery ("Der Name der Rose", 1986).

For me, like a shadow, Connerys Bond flits through the scenes in all these films.

But it doesn't bother, on the contrary, it's like a 3-D effect that gives the images depth.

The most exciting phase of his career, however, began when Bond was over, when he finally wanted to get rid of him, after "Diamond Fever" (1971).

He was able to embody in its pure form what had always been just one ingredient in the Bond cocktail: brutality in "His Life in My Violence" (1973) or virility in "Zardoz" (1974).

Above all, however, he shot three masterpieces in rapid succession, which are among the most beautiful films of the 1970s: "The man who wanted to be king", "The wind and the lion" (both 1975) and "Robin and Marian" (1976) .

Three films about men who are great heroes and at the same time always seem like little boys who win and fail, mythical characters who learn that triumph does not last long, but who defy fate with absurdity.

Connery was also a bad cast in "Der Wind der Löwe", a Scot who plays a Berber, from today's perspective downright outrageous.

And yet his portrayal in the film is as amusing as it is touching.

"James Bond Chases Dr. No"

 (1962) - Sean Connery and Ursula Andress

When Connery's Berber prince Raisuli plays chess against a woman in one scene, an American woman (played by Candice Bergen), when he realizes that he is losing to her and puts his eyes on the level of the pawns as if he had to fight From the perspective of your soldiers, it becomes a wonderful snapshot of the war between the sexes.

At some point, Connery began to play mentors and surrogate fathers of the heroes who have now been embodied by younger stars such as Harrison Ford, Dustin Hoffman or Nicolas Cage.

It was always a pleasure to watch him do it, this mixture of life experience and lacony.

For his role as Jim Malone in "The Untouchables," Connery won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor in 1988 - in the film, Kevin Costner was the young hero Eliot Ness.

When he was at the 2001 Berlinale with one of his final films, Finding Forrester, Connery insisted that 17-year-old actor Rob Brown, who starred alongside him, go on stage before him.

When Connery heard applause burst through the curtain, he was thievingly happy and - as it is reported - performed a little joyful dance for his colleague behind the stage.

By then he probably already knew that he would stop soon and wanted to pave the way for the younger one. 

Maybe one should watch "Highlander" again tonight, certainly not one of his best films, and yet one of his most beautiful roles.

It's great how Connery plays a nobleman who ended up in the Scottish highlands and who cannot die.

Connery gives the character the serenity of having nothing to lose and at the same time the sadness of being condemned to a thousand years of loneliness.

Eternal life, as Connery shows us in his very own, incomparable way in the film, is perhaps not even worth striving for.

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Source: spiegel

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