The Scottish actor was best known for his portrayal of James Bond, being the first to bring the role to the big screen and appearing in seven of the spy thrillers. …
His acting career spanned seven decades and he won an Oscar in 1988 for his role in The Untouchables.
Sir Sean’s other [non-Bond] films included The Hunt for Red October, Highlander, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Rock.
(BBC, October 31, 2020)
Every movie fan worth their salt has played the parlor game of naming their favorite James Bond. As it happens, the Guardian published the results of a survey to name “the best Bond ever” just this past August.
Unsurprisingly, Connery won with 44 percent of the vote. Surprisingly, Timothy Dalton and Pierce Brosnan were the runners up with 32 and 23 percent, respectively.
For what it’s worth, here is the rather oblique way I declared my iconoclastic favorite in “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo,” August 19, 2010:
The irony is not lost on me that people said casting someone other than Sean Connery to play James Bond would be disastrous. After all, Craig himself has proved to be the most
popular[profitable] Bond ever!
In fact, I needed to see Daniel Craig in only the first two of his Bond films to conclude that he was the first Bond to
- emulate Connery’s physical magnetism, which keeps fans riveted to his action scenes; and
- surpass Connery’s emotional intelligence, which allows fans to relate to his vulnerabilities.
Frankly, from the art of seduction to derring-do action, Craig’s Bond makes Connery’s look more Johnny English than James Bond. What’s more, it was bad enough that Connery’s was a male chauvinist pig.
But am I the only one who remembers that Connery himself was one in real life? I mean, here he is on point during a Playboy Interview for the November 1965 issue:
I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong about hitting a woman—although I don’t recommend doing it in the same way that you’d hit a man. An open-handed slap is justified if all other alternatives fail.
Of course, it might seem unfair to drudge up such an old quote. Except that a shocked and appalled Barbara Walters of ABC News asked in 1987 if he still held that opinion. He proudly replied “I haven’t changed my opinion.”
That said, as the opening quote makes clear, there was far more to Connery than his pioneering role as James Bond. Indeed, what I found most commendable about him was the vanguard role he played in real life as the spokesman for Scottish independence.
But the irony was not lost on me that he undermined, if not betrayed, that cause by kneeling before the British queen to receive an empire-affirming knighthood. Not to mention the added irony that Connery spent more time living in my mother country of The Bahamas than he spent living in his.
Reports are that he died peacefully in his sleep on Friday in Nassau – where he filmed both Thunderball (1965), his fourth Bond film, and Never Say Never Again (1983), his last.
Connery suffered a prolonged bout of dementia. He was 90.
Farewell, Mr. Bond.
Related commentaries:
Dragon Tatoo… Scottish independence… knighthood…