Sean Connery and James Bond got confused.
Sean Connery gave him his build and charm seven times.
James Bond passed him on to posterity.
The Scottish actor is dead at the age of 90, the BBC reported on Saturday, citing his family.
He did not deny any resemblance to this "perfect hedonist", "lover of women, wine and food", of whom he was the first performer in
James Bond against Dr. No
in 1961. When he spoke of him, it was was like a sidekick.
Sean Connery both loved and hated this 007 that stuck to his skin.
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Thomas "Sean" Connery was born August 25, 1930, in Edinburgh.
Her father is a sturdy fellow, a worker in a rubber factory.
Her mother is a cleaning lady.
The family lives in poverty.
Sean Connery would say years later: “I was born poor.
When I was nine, I worked seven days a week as a milk delivery boy.
It gives you a lot of respect for money. ”
It was his friends who renamed him "Sean", somewhat by chance, because he was inseparable from a young Irishman called Seanus.
He enlisted in the Navy at 16, and came out tattooed and hardened.
Sean Connery finds his way, becomes a lifeguard, a nude model for art students and then a coffin polisher.
The young man of almost 1m90 began to weight training and finished third in the Mister Univers 1950 competition.
Sean Connery in 1962 in "The Longest Day".
Vincent Rossell / Vincent Rossell / Bridgeman Images
At the same time, Sean Connery discovers the theater and the great authors.
He reads in quick succession Peter Ibsen, William Shakespeare, Leon Tolstoy, James Joyce or Bernard Shaw.
BBC Television allowed him to make his screen debut in 1957, in a TV movie about a boxer's misfortunes,
Requiem for Heavyweight
.
It was his first success.
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The "leap" forward
Sean Connery then enters under contract with the prestigious 20th Century Fox and turns in some minor films.
It was when he went to an audition for a low budget spy movie,
James Bond vs. Dr No.
that his career is transformed.
"You take me as I am or not at all," says Sean Connery.
The two producers Albert R. Broccoli and Harry Saltzman later recounted their surprise: "He was dressed like a tramp, his clothes were wrinkled, and he was not even wearing a tie."
Too happy with their find, they take it as it is.
But in order for him to soak up his role, director Terence Young asked him to sleep in costume ... In 1962, the film and the forms of Ursula Andress under the mango trees of the Caribbean became a worldwide success.
Then
Bons Kisses from Russia
is also a hit: the James Bond saga is launched.
Sean Connery and Ian Fleming during the filming of "Goldfinger" in 1963. Rue des Archives / Rue des Archives / BCA
Alfred Hitchcock hires him to star in
No Spring for Marnie
.
A success there too, but it disappoints the filmmaker.
Not "big bourgeois" enough for him.
Whatever, in 1964, with
Goldfinger
, the actor became a real international star.
Invited to Cannes, his arrival causes a sensation among the fairer sex who swooned over this new embodiment of virile beauty.
James Bond vs. Sean Connery
"James Bond has no father or mother," he said at the time.
He appeared out of nowhere, right in 007. So my job is to bring an icon to life! ”
And Sean Connery is - rightly - afraid of locking himself into this character.
After
we only live twice
in 1967, he slammed the door.
To pay court to Brigitte Bardot in the western
Shalako
.
He still agrees to put on Bond's tuxedo again for an astronomical stamp in
Diamonds Are Eternal
.
A sum that he invested in the Scottish International Educational Trust, a fund to help young people that he had just founded.
Sean Connery ended up earning his acting stripes.
We see it in productions with very different genres.
In 1974, he played in the very funny science fiction film
Zardoz
, decked out in red kangaroo briefs.
The following year, he became
The Man Who Wished to Be King
, under the direction of John Huston.
An adventure film, with philosophical accents, adapted from the work of Rudyard Kipling.
This role will remain his favorite.
The following year, he was Robin Hood opposite Audrey Hepburn in
The Rose and the Arrow.
The charismatic Sean Connery marries Micheline Roquebrune, met in Morocco in 1975. “I married my wife while playing golf, he confided.
She didn't speak English.
I did not speak french.
So there was no risk of getting into a boring conversation. ”
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The 1980s, the great decade
After refusing to
Live and Let Die
, he accepts one last time playing James Bond in
Never Again
, by Irvin Kershner.
This unofficial opus was released in 1983 opposite
Octopussy,
starring Roger Moore.
Both were close and complementary friends.
"I am a tender, Sean is a killer", commented Roger Moore, who died in May 2017.
In 1986, Sean Connery plays an investigating monk in the famous historical film
The Name of the Rose
, the adaptation of Umberto Eco's novel.
In
Brian de Palma's
The Untouchables
, he leaves orders for the Chicago of Prohibition, where he plays a rogue old cop.
And finally won an Oscar for a supporting role.
"I can say without lying that I would have preferred to win the US Open of Golf."
he amused himself by saying, true to his vow of independence.
Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in 1989. Rue des Archives / © Rue des Archives / RDA
Sean Connery has become a master.
Steven Spielberg offers him to play the father of Indiana Jones in
The Last Crusade
in 1989, alongside Harrison Ford.
They are only twelve years apart.
"He had to be challenged, and who could blame Indiana Jones if not James Bond?" Said the director.
Success is on all fronts: Sean Connery is elected, at 59, “the sexiest man of the year” by
People
magazine
.
It is in 2003, in the adventure film
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
, that we see him for the last time.
Tired of the movie industry and "the incompetence of all these idiots", he is definitely bowing out.
Legendary intransigence
Without taking pride in it, Sean Connery knew he was an exceptional actor.
When Steven Spielberg, who considered him one of the seven greatest living, offers him to become the father of Indiana Jones again in 2007, the actor refuses because the role is not generous enough.
Sean Connery has beautiful offer him "to kill the father" to make the scenario more dramatic, the project does not succeed.
We knew Sean Connery's intransigence.
“People incessantly resent him, he who is so honest, so steeped in ideals.
Yet I tried to instill in him a little cynicism, to convince him that the world was like that, ”testified Micheline Connery.
Remained discreet with the press, he nonetheless proclaimed his commitments loud and clear.
“There are three areas that are important to me: education, culture and Scotland,” he said.
He never gave up his accent, which he echoed with pride.
He had become one of the main patrons of the Scottish National Party.
In the 2014 referendum, always dapper, he said he would leave New York if his region left the United Kingdom.
Sean Connery has been a supporter of lost causes all his life.
And claimed a code of honor which had fallen into disuse, like a Cyrano de Bergerac in a three-piece suit.
"To have the eye which looks well, the voice which vibrates / To put, when it pleases you, his felt tip askew / (...) To work without concern of fame or fortune": here are some lines which would be well with the eternal spy of his majesty.
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