HELLO! October 6, 1990 Number 122

SEAN CONNERY

EXCLUSIVE

THE TOP BRITISH ACTOR AND HIS WIFE MICHELINE INVITE HELLO! TO THEIR SUMPTUOUS VILLA IN MARBELLA

            Sixty years ago Euphemia, the wife of a Scots-Irish labourer, Joseph Connery, returned from Edinburgh's Royal Maternity Hospital to their tenement “stair” in Fountainbridge in the centre of the city, bearing her newly-born son, Thomas.

            Today the world knows him as Sean Connery, celebrated and bankable -one of the exclusive elite of actors whose presence virtually guarantees box-office success.

            No reminder is needed that Sean leapt to international fame in 1962 when he introduced James Bond to the screen in Dr No and then went on to play Ian Fleming's suave secret agent in a further half-a-dozen films unti11983.

            But he has long since sloughed off the James Bond persona, having delivered many fine dramatic performances -for example, in Sidney Lumet's The Offence, John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King and Brian De Palma's The Untouchables which brought him an Oscar.

            This Sunday he receives the highest accolade that his colleagues in the British film industry can bestow, the BAFTA-Shell Tribute Award which will be presented to him by the Princess Royal at the Odeon, Leicester Square.

            The award is highly prestigious and is given to a British actor or actress who has made an outstanding contribution to the cinema. Previously only Dirk Bogarde and Julie Andrews have been recipients.

            "I'm very honoured to be receiving it," says Sean.

            Although he has been a star for almost 30 years and has never given a performance at less than full strength, Connery's career would now seem to be in top gear. Recently he delighted audiences as Harrison Ford's father in Indiana Jones And the Last Crusade, as Dustin Hoffman's father in Family Business and as a Russian submarine commander in The Hunt For Red October.

            Soon he will be seen with Michelle Pfeiffer in the film of John Le Carre's The Russia House and next year in Highlander 2. In January he starts a film in Guatemala, scripted by Tom Schulman who wrote Dead Poets Society, to be directed by John McTiernan. Sean is executive producer as well as star and every night he spends an hour on the telephone talking to his associates in Los Angeles.

            Yet, a year ago, it was suggested that his career was finished because of a serious throat condition.

            "It was a scare until we knew what it was," he told HELLO! "I was ordered to go on a month's silence by the doctors."

            Some non-malignant polyps were removed. "I've had it done three times now and it's perfectly all right.  But to say we were alarmed initially is putting it very mildly.”

            Happily, that famous voice with its mellow Scottish accent is as hypnotic as ever, and his powerful golf swing is still deadly.  His handicap is between six and 10.  He gets on the course as often as he can, and it is his principal form of relaxation, especially as in Marbella the clubhouse is five minutes from his home.

            In seeking why, at 60, he has come into his prime, a contented man, able to work on his own terms, one need look no further than his French born wife Micheline.  They have been together 17 years, each having been previously married. His son Jason is now an established actor, while her sons are respectively a contemporary art expert in London and a microchip specialist in California's Silicon Valley, and her daughter is a physiotherapist in Nice.

            "To be perfectly honest, I'm not house-trained," he admits. "None of the kids when I grew up were ever in their houses. There's no question that that influences you. I spent most of the time in the street or playing football. I'd hardly see my father because he went off to work and came back late.

            "There was no social fabric in our house. This place in Spain is like a hidey-hole for me. What little stuff I have, I have it here with me. Until Micheline I never really bothered with possessions.

            His wife Micheline is petite, auburn-haired, green-eyed, vibrant. Her upbringing could not be more different from his. He grew up in some poverty in Edinburgh, learning the virtues of self-sufficiency at an early age. Even at nine he was working a milk-round before going on to school. "I left school at 13, and I was working on a milk-cart with a horse, seven days a week, until I was 16 when I went into the navy. I had always wanted to go in the navy."

            At 19, he was invalided out with a duodenal ulcer, and went back to Edinburgh and a variety of jobs. "Then I started body-building, and modelling in the life class at the art college. I applied for a job in a show with Anna Neagle at the Empire, as a "super" as they called them. An extra. Then I went in for the Mr Universe contest in London. And from there into acting."

            Micheline's background, in contrast to his, is a wealthy one and much of her childhood was spent in a house full of servants in Tunisia. "But I went to a French Catholic boarding school, and I was brought up very strictly by my parents. There was no nonsense. Sean and I have the same ideas."

            They met as winners of a golf tournament in Casablanca 20 years ago. "For me Sean was exotique. And I think Sean found me also exotic. But I have learned so many things from Sean that were great. I said to him: 'Don't cut your salad with a knife.' And he said:  'Why?' And I said: 'Because it is not done.' And he said: 'Why?' It is just his way to be so direct and questioning when he wants to know the reason for things. That is how Sean is.

            "He is a fantastic learner, he knows how to listen, which is very rare."

            Their home in Marbella is all Micheline's creation. In 1973 it was just a tumbledown collection of separate bungalows on the water's edge, but over the years it has been transformed.

            The main villa is filled with leafy inner courtyards and the constant splash of fountains while, outside, terraces and stairways suddenly offer surprising blue views of the Mediterranean. It's exquisite, but it is also a place that is clearly lived-in -a proper home, with books and newspapers, family snapshots, and deep comfortable chairs to sink into. Two Siamese cats, Hector and Luna, roam around in their stately feline manner, carefully inspecting visitors.

            The house faces south towards the sun and the sea, and a low wall covered with bright bougainvillea separates the garden from the beach.

            There is a sandy hollow where the Connerys practise their bunker shots. Curving white walls form intricate windbreaks and protect a kitchen garden where tomatoes and vegetables are grown for the table.

            At the far extremity of the property is a large, detached, self-contained study for Sean with its very own bathroom and kitchen-bar. "It was my surprise birthday present for him," says Micheline.

            Micheline is a talented painter . She has an airy, bright studio reached across a vine-shaded terrace from the master bedroom. Her sense of colour and her composition is acute. One eye-catching painting of Sean has a tiny head surmounting a gigantic body. "You know how when he comes into a room he dominates it with his sheer physical presence? I very much wanted to capture that feeling."

            Where did she think Sean derived his sense of purpose and inner discipline that has brought him, after a long and arduous career to a state of contentment and harmony with himself. Micheline has no doubts. "Oh, he gets it from his late mother. She was very strong. I once painted her, look," she produced a striking portrait of a proud, grey-haired Scottish lady, dressed in her Sunday best.

            "I probably have got it from her," said Sean. “I've always liked work. And when you've done a lot of films you realise that there are certain basic truths, tenets you have to go with otherwise the whole thing starts to fall apart. That's why I put myself above the line. I talk to the writer, the director, the cinematographer. I need to know why I am expected to be in such a place, say such a line, I need to know what my character is supposed to be thinking. And other characters too. It's not something that can be plucked out of the air, it's got to be worked on.

            “I realise now that I've been acting like an executive producer on my films for years without ever being credited for it.”

INTERVIEW: RICHARD SCOTT
PHOTOS: TERRY O’NEILL