MODERN Maturity January/February 2000

THE MAN HIMSELF

THE REAL SEAN CONNERY? JUST LOOK BENEATH HIS TOUGH-GUY EXTERIOR

BY ROBERT SELLERS

LEWIS GILBERT, DIRECTOR OF THE JAMES BOND movie You Only Live Twice, was on a visit to Paramount Studios in the mid-'80s when, all of a sudden, droves of women started running out of their offices and down the main corridor. Gilbert stopped one of them and asked her what was going on. "Sean Connery's coming! Sean Connery's coming!" she shrieked.

            "Paramount is used to big stars walking down that corridor," says Gilbert. "You never see women move out of their offices. It says something for Sean."

            In the '60s, he graced the covers of arguably more magazines than the Beatles or Jackie Kennedy. Four decades later, he's as popular as ever with an appeal spanning every culture, generation, and gender. A New Woman magazine survey recently rated him the century's sexiest man, above the likes of Paul Newman and Mel Gibson. Although his performance as James Bond elevated the superhero to a new standard-a sophisticated, coolly detached killer who makes every move with savoir faire-the man behind that image remains curiously elusive. Just who is Sean Connery?

            "When you're with Sean you learn pretty quickly what your own place in the galaxy is," friend Kevin Costner has said. "And it pales." Yet in spite of all he's achieved, there remains an endearing modesty to the actor, something that conflicts with his famous macho image. In 1991, when Connery was awarded the "Freedom of the City of Edinburgh" from his Scottish hometown (a British equivalent of the key to the city, only loftier), joining such illustrious previous recipients as Charles Dickens, Ulysses S. Grant, Winston Churchill, and Queen Elizabeth II, he was visibly overcome with emotion. Beneath that tough, uncompromising exterior lurks a shy, vulnerable side he rarely shows. By nature he is low-key, polite, soft-spoken-a gentle man who in his spare time writes poetry few are allowed to read.

            It is this dichotomy of personality that distinguishes Connery's acting. Looking as he does like a prizefighter who is also capable of erudite speech, Connery quickly cottoned to the possibilities of imbuing his characters with a shell of machismo that merely veiled an inner emotional core. It's a technique he's employed in most of his films, save for the role that first thrust him upon the world's consciousness-James Bond. Isn't it ironic that the role he'll forever be remembered for is so out of kilter with the rest of his career?

            Yet his 007 interpretation remains the blueprint others must follow, displaying just the right blend of humor, cruelty, and sexual power. It was the Bond role that first revealed Connery's gift for exciting women while simultaneously inspiring men. And the secret to Bond? "The person who plays Bond has to be dangerous," he has said. "If there isn't a sense of threat, you can't be cool."

            In an industry that thrives on artificiality, Connery refuses to be anything other than what he is. Terence Young, the first Bond director, once remarked that, with the exception of Lassie, Connery was the only star he knew who had never been spoiled by success.

            Something of a homebody, for the past 25 years he's been married to Micheline Roquebrune, a vivacious French-Moroccan artist. Their first meeting was on a golf course in Casablanca, so the omens looked good from the start for the golf-obsessed Connery. It's a relationship less turbulent than the one Connery had with his first wife, actress Diane Cilento, mainly because there aren't the conflicting demands of two acting careers. Micheline, 64, is a more conventional wife and homemaker than Diane was and has created a close-knit family unit incorporating her two sons and a daughter and Connery's son, jason, 37, from his marriage to Cilento.

            With Connery, what you see is what you get, which is one reason why he's so beloved by film crews. Even by the time of the early Bond films, Connery had garnered a reputation as a stickler for efficiency: arriving on time, being well-prepared, and expecting the same from his colleagues. If things are not done properly, he's liable to explode on the set. On the otherhand, he always finds time to help fellow performers, dispensing home-spun wisdom like an old sage.

            Once asked to list his virtues, Connery mentioned his sense of the value of money. Having never forgotten what it was like being poor, raised in a two-room flat with no hot running water, Connery knows money means power, and power in Hollywood is everything. He refutes the accusation that he's stingy, saying he's just careful. Before filming Zardoz in the early '70s, Connery was a guest at director john Boorman’s house, where he would often go around switching off unused lights and turning down the thermostat.

            Today he’s almost as well-known for being a fierce litigant as he is for his acting, having sued practically all the major studios.  Connery faced financial oblivion in 1978 when he and close pal Michael Caine sued Allied Artists over money owed them from The Man Who Would Be King.  The company hit back, claiming $21 million in damages for libel.  Had both actors lost it would have meant bankruptcy.  Their victory showed Hollywood that Connery could not be bullied.

            And then there’s his sense of morality.  He used his $1.25 million from Diamonds Are Forever to set up a charity trust after he learned of the high unemployment and poverty ravaging his homeland. His next goal is to establish Scotland's first-ever film studio near Edinburgh.

            As Connery approaches his 70th year, he is one of the few actors past retirement age who can still play leading men and credibly escape scorn for May-December screen romances. He's also become more subtle, able to say more with a cursory look or a raised eyebrow than most actors can with a long monologue. And he's become more business-savvy, forming his own production company, Fountainbridge Films, named after the slum district in Edinburgh where he was born. Fountainbridge recently signed a multiyear production pact with Sony Pictures Entertainment and a three-picture financing and distribution deal with Intermedia.

            With one home in Los Angeles and another in the Bahamas, Connery was asked by a reporter a few years ago where he'd choose to be buried. "Buried!" he roared. "I haven't even worked out if I'm going to die yet."