Sean Connery

Sean Connery (1930- ), British actor. Connery was born in Edinburgh and employed in various manual jobs until a body-building course helped land him a job in the chorus of the London production of South Pacific (1951). Small parts in films began in 1954, and he played his first leading role in Another Time Another Place in 1958.

Chosen from several other actors to play the secret agent 007 James Bond in Dr. No (1962), based on the novel by Ian Fleming, Connery grew superbly into the character in the five Bond films that followed, bringing a sense of humour to the part. He eventually gave up the role and went on to tackle more challenging parts, for example, in The Hill (1965), directed by Sidney Lumet. Other films that followed include Murder on the Orient Express (1974), A Bridge Too Far (1977), and Time Bandits (1981). He returned as Bond in Never Say Never Again (1983), in which he had a financial interest and which, significantly, was not made by the old Bond team. His role in The Name of the Rose (1986), an adaptation of the Umberto Eco novel, won him a Best Actor award from the British Film Academy.

Connery won an Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Supporting Actor in The Untouchables (1987), and went on to star in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), as the hero’s father; The Hunt for Red October (1990); The Russia House (1990); Medicine Man (1992); Rising Sun (1993); First Knight (1995); Dragonheart (1996), as the voice of Draco; The Rock (1996), of which he was also the executive producer; The Avengers (1998); Entrapment (1999); Finding Forrester (2000); and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). In 1996 he was awarded the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement Award. His autobiography, Neither Shaken Nor Stirred, was published in 1994. Connery was awarded a knighthood in 1999.