Juan Bedoian
10/31/2020 12:59 PM
Clarín.com
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Updated 10/31/2020 2:01 PM
As with myths, matter is less interested than dreams.
Saturday October 31, actor
Sean Connery
was no
longer earthly, but it stayed in that posthumous kingdom which moved 58 years ago when it first appeared impersonating an agent of British intelligence in the film
The Satanic Dr No
.
The hitherto unknown British actor flooded the screen with
an almost brutal magnetism
, an ironic smile that could be lethal, a perfect tuxedo and other tics that gave an unmistakable profile to the most famous spy of all time: James Bond.
The film (1962), based on a novel by Ian Fleming,
was weak
, Connery did not display the gifts of a great actor,
but it was a bombshell
.
More than the substance, the power of the film was on the surface - in the way Connery shaped that kind of masculinity that
captivated women as objects of desire and men as the prototype of the achiever
.
The Bond style was born, a British icon was born, a legend was born.
Look also
Actor Sean Connery dies at 90
Connery played the character six more times (between '62 and '83) and the series - the longest in movie history - continued to this day with other actors.
In the new millennium, Bond seems as immortal as the hero of '62 was who, at a gaming table, with a cigarette in his mouth, presented himself to the fatal girl:
"My name is Bond, James Bond
.
"
The unique image of Sean Connery resting on the bumper of his Aston Martin DB5 while filming scenes for James Bond vs. Golden Fingers, in the Swiss Alps.
A whole style.
/ Photo EFE
Perhaps it is as unfair as it is irremediable to begin the evocation of Connery with his most famous character.
Before Bond, Connery had made 12 movies
as a supporting actor, then another 50 that had him as a leading or supporting actor.
In several of them he showed himself as a good interpreter and even won an Oscar - as a "supporting actor - in 1987 with
Los intocables
, directed by
Brian De Palma
.
There he played the role of Jim Malone.
We are talking about 70 movies and 70 characters
on which the shadow of one, powerful and unforgettable hangs.
But that's how capricious artistic creation is, that's how capricious in life.
When Connery - at the time he was 32 years old - was chosen to play Bond, he knew it was an extraordinary stroke of luck, but did not imagine that it was also
some kind of conviction
.
Born Thomas Sean Connery in Edinburgh, Scotland (1930), his youthful adventures further enhance later fame: poor parents,
milk deliveryman at age 9, bricklayer, coffin polisher
, sailor disaffected by health problems and even
a nude model
in a School of Fine Arts.
He had what: he was a bodybuilder and in 1953 he came out third in the Tall Men category (almost 1.90 meters) in a Mr. Universe contest.
Connery once
confessed that he started smoking and lost his virginity at age 9
.
The boy already brought them to him.
At 23, he tried football and was on the verge of signing for Manchester United, but had already set his sights on show business in Great Britain and then in the United States.
It was an irregular income (among other roles, he was a bad guy in a terrible
Tarzan
movie
) and with some shocks.
In 1958, he had a major role in the melodrama
Mists of Restlessness
as a British journalist who has a love affair with
Lana Turner
.
He could have been a footballer, but the performance won the stop, although it did not mean that in 2005 the Party for Peace kicked off, with the great Ronaldinho as a privileged spectator.
/ AFP Photo
All sources assume that during filming, Turner's boyfriend, mobster Johnny Stompanato, believed she was having an affair with Connery.
They say that Stompanato broke into the footage and pointed a gun at Connery and they say that
Connery disarmed him and knocked him out
.
"I had to disappear for a while as Stomponato boss Mickey Cohen was very angry," Connery recounted.
In 1962, Albert Broccoli, the producer of the James Bond saga, was looking for a candidate for the role of the spy (they were about 200 applicants).
He was leaning towards someone established like Cary Grant, but in one of the tests, his wife Dana Natol, told Broccoli: "That is the perfect man for Bond."
And he pointed to Connery.
The actor who wanted to be something else
Sean Connery's first marriage was to actress Diane Cilento, with whom he had a son, Jason.
/ AFP Photo)
Does anyone remember a movie called
The Man Who Wanted to Be King
?
With the splendid direction of John Houston, it is based on a story by
Rudyard Kipling
that tells the brilliant madness of two men who entered the distant country of Kafiristan to realize their dreams.
The film (1975) speaks of an impossible mission: to become kings of a territory that they will conquer only based on their imagination and effort.
One of them, Daniel Dravot, is reincarnated as Alexander the Great and
the people turn him into a demigod.
But the story ends in disaster.
The movie is extraordinary and the actors, too.
Dravot is
Sean Connery
.
The other is
Michael Caine
.
The example is relevant because after his foray into the Bond series, Connery tried to reinvent himself, he
wanted to be something else so as not to be pigeonholed
in the role of the cold, calculating, ruthless and winning spy.
And show that he could be a worthy actor.
He did it with good results in
The Name of the Rose
(he plays a Franciscan friar), the adaptation of the novel by Umberto Eco;
in
The Untouchables
(an honest Irish policeman) or in
Discovering Forrester
(an old writer).
Previously, and in the midst of Bond's adventures, he had already worked under film greats with Hitchcock or Sidney Lumet.
Since 1975, Sean Connery has been in a relationship with Micheline Roquebrune.
/ Photo Jack GUEZ / AFP)
As if he wanted to demystify his reputation as an inveterate seducer (countless romances were attributed to him), his private life was strongly marked by
two women he married
: the actress Diane Cilento (from 62 to 73), with whom he had a son, and the Moroccan French painter Roquebrune Micheline with whom he lived from 75 until his death.
Meanwhile, the media continued to feed the legend: a Life magazine vote chose him as the "Sexiest Man Alive in the World" in 1990 (eye that he was 59 years old and wore a toupee since 30) and People magazine as "The Sexiest of the Century ”, in 1999.
Other data?
Connery was a fervent defender of Scotland and belonged to the Scottish National Party (for which he had been a spokesperson on more than one occasion), received numerous awards and honors, was awarded the title of Sir, played golf, loved football, in an interview His tongue
slipped away
and he
was accused of being a macho and misogynist
, and there were no shortage of rumors about his state of health.
In 2005 he announced that he was retiring from the cinema and, after circulating for years on the Marbella jet set,
he went to live in the Bahamas
, outraged by the taxes he had to pay in Great Britain.
Fiona Ufton, Sean Connery and Jason Connery on the actor's 89th birthday.
/ Photo: @fifibaggins
I mean, old Connery
was absolutely retired when his time came
.
Those earthly details are foreign to his alter ego.
Because James Bond does not die, he does not disheveled, he is always impeccable, he has permission to kill, he seduces women, he drives luxurious cars, he knows a lot about food and drink, and
his manhood transcends the screens
.
He keeps asking forever, with his cigarette in his mouth, his favorite drink:
“A vodka Martini;
mixed, not shaken ”
.
Because of its impact,
James Bond was a phenomenon similar to another of that time, The Beatles
, and embodied part of the culture and values of a Great Britain and a world that no longer exist.
But like diamonds,
that Bond is forever
.
IT IS
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