connery

03 Nov

The Closest Sean Connery Ever Came To Playing Sherlock Holmes

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In the course of his nearly 50-year career on the screen, the late Sean Connery portrayed many famous characters, both fictional and non-fictional. Among those were, of course, Ian Fleming’s suave spy James Bond in seven films; Daniel Druvot in 1975’s The Man Who Would Be King; King Arthur in 1995’s First Knight, Robin Hood in 1976’s Robin and Marian; Dr. Henry Jones Sr. in 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and many more. One role Connery never got to play was Arthur Conan Doyle’s legendary detective, Sherlock Holmes. But he did come close, playing a character who was…

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02 Nov

Sean Connery Cursed Out Disney Executives to Save The Rock, Says Michael Bay

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Director Michael Bay’s The Rock remains a quintessential summer movie season offering. Having been released in 1996—one of the best years for action blockbusters—Bay’s classic squared off the Top 4 box office earners, just behind classics like Independence Day, Twister and Mission: Impossible. Interestingly, while the onscreen grizzled gravitas of the recently passed Sean Connery complemented its interminable onslaught of pulse-pounding action, it appears that the late, great star also contributed to the film in an existential way. It turns out that Connery, who, of course, co-starred in The Rock alongside Nicolas Cage, played an instrumental role behind the scenes…

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02 Nov

Sean Connery and Michael Caine are Godlike in The Man Who Would Be King

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“I’ll stand one day before the Queen, not kneel, mind you, but stand like an equal, and she’ll say ‘I’d like you to accept the Order of the Garter as a mark of my esteem, cousin,’” Sean Connery’s ex-British soldier Daniel Dravot proclaims in the 1975 period adventure film, The Man Who Would Be King. And with those words, and the epic death scene which followed, Connery completed the saga of a long-germinating work from one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors. John Huston was Hollywood royalty. His father, Walter, was an acting icon, and his offspring have all gone on…

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02 Nov

From Russia With Love’s Game Adaptation Let Sean Connery Be James Bond One Last Time

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In his final film appearances as James Bond, the late Sean Connery reminded us all that even the world’s greatest secret agent (and the legendary actor who brought him to life) can’t elude the effects of time. While 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever and 1983’s infamous Never Say Never Again (which was not produced by Eon Productions) aren’t always remembered as the worst James Bond movies, there is something bittersweet about them. Sean Connery may have been three years younger than eventual Bond successor Roger Moore, but it’s challenging to watch his final film appearances as Bond without thinking that he…

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02 Nov

How Sean Connery Helped Pioneer Internet Memes

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It’s a well-covered aspect of Sean Connery lore that the legendary Scottish actor and alpha James Bond retired from acting following 2003’s disastrous The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.  “The last one I did, [director Stephen Norrington] was given $85 million to make a movie in Prague, but unfortunately he wasn’t certified before he started because he would have been arrested for insanity,” Connery told an interviewer in 2007. “So, we worked as well as we could, and [I] ended up being heavily involved in the editing and trying to salvage.” It’s a testament to how bad that film was and…

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02 Nov

How Sean Connery’s Singing Voice Helped Him Land James Bond

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It’s an unusual sight for James Bond fans. Standing in a gloriously green Technicolor field by a California stream intended to pass for Ireland, Sean Connery cuts a more rugged approximation of Walt Disney masculinity, taking breaks between a swing of his scythe to sing, “She’s my dear, my darling one, my smilin’ and beguilin’ one, I love the ground she walks upon my darling Irish girl.” To be charitable, Connery’s attempt at an Irish lilt was no more convincing in 1959’s Darby O’Gill and the Little People than it would be three decades later for his Oscar winning turn…

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02 Nov

The Time Sean Connery Punched a Real Mobster in the Face

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“Isn’t that just like a wop, brings a knife to a gunfight,” Sean Connery said in his Academy Award-winning his role The Untouchables in 1987. This, from a man who only brought his fists to one in real life.  In the Brian De Palma film, Connery played Officer Jim Malone, a tough old Irish cop chasing gangsters in Al Capone-era Chicago. But Connery also took on a mobster in real life as a tough young Scottish actor. In 1957, Connery was shooting the film Another Time, Another Place in London. His co-star was Lana Turner, a Hollywood sex symbol whose…

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02 Nov

How an Overlooked British Classic Boasted Sean Connery’s Finest Performance

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“He moved like a panther.” This was the observation which convinced producers Albert R “Cubby” Broccoli and Harry Saltzman to cast Sean Connery, a relatively unknown young actor from Edinburgh, in the lead role of the first James Bond picture, 1962’s Dr No. It was this decision which was to forever change the face of movie stardom and blockbuster film-making. The choice was not, initially, a popular one with 007 author Ian Fleming; where his books had imagined Bond as the archetypal upper-class English gentleman, the gruff Scottish Connery brought a transatlantic insouciance and a palpably working-class edge to the…

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31 Oct

James Bond Producers, Daniel Craig, Hugh Jackman, and More Pay Tribute to Sean Connery

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With the death of Sean Connery at the age of 90, tributes from those connected to his career have begun to pour in. While the actor’s largest legacy comes from his time as the first (and some still say best) James Bond, the tributes span his career, and even come from corners of Hollywood who never worked alongside him. Here is a small sampling… James Bond producers Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli released a statement via the official 007 social media accounts. “We are devastated by the news of the passing of Sir Sean Connery. He was and shall…

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31 Oct

Sean Connery, Acting Icon and Original James Bond, Dies at 90

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Sean Connery, one of the truly iconic actors of Hollywood, died overnight in the Bahamas at the age of 90. No cause of death was announced. The Scottish actor’s career spanned five-decades in which he played a wide range of unforgettable characters, many of them iconic on their own. But he will always be known as the first, best and most recognizable actor to play the British Spy with the license to kill, James Bond. He played Agent 007 in seven movies, beginning with the first James Bond movie Dr. No in 1962. But Connery was no mere espionage agent,…

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