The Australian Women’s Weekly - January 1999

Licensed to THRILL

He might be pushing 70, but Sean Connery still has what it takes to melt hearts

He is balding and his beard is white but, at 68, he is still one of the screen’s greatest heroes and sex symbols.  Much younger actresses cheerfully admit to making fools of themselves in his presence.  And one of Hollywood’s fastest-rising actors tells how Sean Connery left him a phone message recently…and the younger man save the tape.

            "He's just a regular person, very straightforward and unaffected," says Gena Rowlands, the 62-year-old actress who plays Sean's wife in a new film, called Playing by Heart. "He relaxes people around him."

            But another co-star, Madeleine Stowe, tells it differently. She met Sean about nine years ago, when she auditioned for Medicine Man. As part of the audition, he asked her to dance, but she did not know how. Now living in Texas, Madeleine says she "felt like such a fool" that the rest of her audition went badly and Lorraine Bracco got the role.

            When the cast of Playing by Heart came together for a pre-production dinner, Madeleine prayed Sean would not even remember her. He did, however, and he also recalled her embarrassment about the dancing episode. During the shooting of Playing by Heart, he gave her personal lessons.

            Ryan Phillippe, just 23 and one of Hollywood's hottest new faces, received a congratulatory phone message after Sean had seen the finished version of the film.

            "I saved it so I could play it to my father," he says.

            The man whose trademark introduction, "Bond ...James Bond" was judged the top movie quote of all time by The Guinness Book of Film, is speaking to The Australian Women's Weekly in New York.

            His character in Playing by Heart, Paul, has to explain to his wife of 40 years a marital indiscretion that occurred 25 years previously, and somehow sound convincing. Asked if he's ever had to find such an explanation in his own life, Sean retorts: "You want to talk to me or my lawyer?"

            While no-one ever says never, he remains dismissive of speculation that he will soon be playing Bond again.

            MGM owns the Bond franchise and has Pierce Brosnan entrenched in the role, but Sony still holds the rights to one title -Thunderball- and a remake supposedly is in the pipeline, with some fuming to take place in Australia.

            "There is talk about it," Sean allows, "but I'm hearing most of it and not initiating it. There is no way I would be playing Bond again. No, no. I think that's finished for me."

            Of course, that's what he said before he was enticed to appear as the famous spy in Never Say Never Again -in fact, his comments were the inspiration for the title.

            A minute later, Sean admits he would "entertain it, like any other offer", but adds, "I doubt that they could afford it, but I would be willing to listen."

            According to the producers of the new Bond movie, that's exactly what Sean is doing. Tentatively titled Doomsday 2000 AD, the unofficial Bond movie is scheduled to start filming soon, and Sean's part is now simply down to money.

            For now, Sean appears more interested in making films under his own company banner, Fountainbridge Films, and the development of a studio in his native Scotland.

            Fountainbridge will release his next project, titled Entrapment and co-starring Catherine Zeta Jones, next year, but the studio is further away.

            In the meantime, he's lost none of his appetite for acting.

            “I think one's very fortunate to still be around at 68 and doing all the things one's doing and being well paid for it.”

            Not that everything in his life runs smoothly, however.  While he was still making Entrapment -ironically, about a cat burglar -his wife of 23 years, Micheline, preceded him to New York. While she was out at dinner one night, a thief relieved her of jewels valued at about $1 million.

            "There's absolutely nothing to report," Sean says of the police investigation. "It's a great loss."

            And one of his recent films was the big-screen version of the TV series The Avengers, one of 1998's box office stinkers.

           "I had quite a bit of fun on The Avengers until they put the film together," Sean says. Then, resuming his Bond mantle, he adds: "If ever there was a licence to kill, one would have used it on the director and the producer."

-LAWRIE MASTERSON