Woman’s Day February 5, 2001

Sir Sean Connery

I slept in the family wardrobe

Is this why he always switches off lights in other people’s empty rooms?

As a very young boy in Scotland, Thomas Sean connery was put to bed each night in the bottom drawer of the family wardrobe.  “When my brother Neil came along,” recalls Sean Connery, “he got the wardrobe and I graduated to the settee.”

            About living in Edinburgh during the Depression, he says, “Every house had coal, so there was a lot of smoke.  We lived in a tenement – no electricity or hot water, six floors up, four flats per floor, one hallway toilet for each two flats.  My dad was a labourer who brought in $2 a week.”

            Of his rags-to-riches journey, Sean, 70, says, “Something incredible was to happen to me as a young man in my early 20s.”  You’d think his most important life change – in 1953 – was his break in the chorus of South Pacific in London’s West End.

            But Sean refers to an event that gave him more than money.  “I’d met an American in the cast, Robert Henderson, who helped me by giving me a list of books.” He ticks off the works: “George Bernard Shaw, An Actor Prepares and My Life in Art by Stanislavsky, all of Thomas Wolfe, all of Oscar Wilde, all of Ibsen, Remembrance of Things Past by Proust, and Joyce’s Finnegans Wake and Ulysses.  Those first books were tough going, but the power of those works does seep through.  Plus, I had a dictionary at my side,” he laughs, face turning bright red.

            “I spent my South Pacific tour in every library in Britain, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  On nights we were dark, I’d see every play, meet the actors and learn.

            “It’s the books, the reading, that can change one’s life,” says Sean who celebrates a love for literature by producing and starring in his latest film, Finding Forrester.

            The quiet drama is about fictional author William Forrester who tutors a young African-American student, played by newcomer Rob Brown.  Sean’s character penned a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, then disappeared.  His book continued to thrill generations of readers and became a classroom staple, but the man himself remained an enigma.  Of the movie’s theme, Sean says, “Literacy’s an important issue.  We have a generation that doesn’t read nearly enough.”

            The 187cm-tall veteran actor is still one of the sexiest men in cinema.  It’s not that he looks younger than he is, it’s just that he continues to look better than anyone else his age, and his enormous physical presence is fuelled by a powerful self-assurance.

            A former Mr Universe contestant, Sean inaugurated the longest-running series in film history as Agent 007.  He went on to star in Marnie, Murder on the Orient Express, A Bridge Too Far, The Man Who Would Be King, The Name of the Rose, The Hunt for Red October and First Knight.

            Sean then developed a taste for being the boss and, in 1992, he executive produced Medicine Man.  Now he prefers to produce most of his projects, including Rising Sun, Just Cause, The Rock and Entrapment, through his company Fountainbridge Films.

            Obviously, the once-voted Sexiest Man Alive, who was also discharged after three years in the British Royal Navy with bleeding ulcers, has come a long way from sleeping in a drawer.

            Today, Sean lives in splendid, self-imposed exile in Spain’s Marbella, the Bahamas and Monte Carlo, with his second wife, French artist Micheline Roquebrune, 66.  The couple have been together since 1975, despite accusations that Sean had an affair with make-up artist Nina Kraft five years ago.  Singer Lynsey de Paul also hinted at having an affair with him.

            Off-screen relationships aren’t the kind of thing you ask Sean about, but there are a few things we do know about his private life.  His only son, Jason – from his first marriage to actress Diane Cilento – is married to actress Mia Sara.

            Sean also gets involved with many charities – he even set up the Scottish International Education Trust, funded by his fee from 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever.

           Asked to list his virtues, Sean mentions his sense of the value of money.  Never forgetting what it was like to be poor, he knows money means power, and power in Hollywood is everything.

            He refutes accusations he's stingy, saying he's just careful. Before filming Zardoz in the early '70s, Sean was a guest at director John Boorman's house, where he'd often go around switching off lights in empty rooms.

            In an industry that thrives on artificiality, Sean refuses to be anything other than what he is -after receiving a knighthood last year, Terence Young, the first Bond director, once remarked that, with the exception of Lassie, Sean was the only star he knew who'd never been spoilt by success.

            Director Steven Spielberg agrees. "There are only seven genuine movie stars in the world today and Sean is one of them.”

            In the immortal words of James Bond creator Ian Fleming, "You only live twice.” And despite his genuine modesty, Sean's packed more living into 70 years, than 007 could shake a martini at.

            As Sean enters his eighth decade, he's one of the few actors past retirement age who can still play leading men -and credible romances. He's also more subtle and can say more with one raised eyebrow than most actors can with a long monologue.

            Asked by a reporter where he'd choose to be buried, Sean roared, "Buried! I haven't even worked out if I'm going to die yet.”

Story: Gill Pringle