The Australian Women’s Weekly April 1992

SEAN CONNERY PUTS THE BOOT IN

            Sean Connery believes that if it hadn't been for a quirk of fate he could have become an Aussie Rules footballer instead of an actor.

            "It was 1942, the depths of the war," he recalled in Los Angeles the other day. "A lot of families were being evacuated from Edinburgh, where we lived, and we had decided to go to Australia. But then, just before we were supposed to leave, the ship we were meant to go on got torpedoed. My father decided the voyage was too dangerous, so we stayed.

            "I do think my life would have been a great deal different if I'd gone to Australia," he told The Weekly.

            "I never had much education -left school at 13- so I was lucky acting came along. If I'd gone to Australia, I'm sure it would have been sport Australian football. It's a marvelous game. I still think so."

            And then, just in case anyone should think he doesn't know his Aussie Rules, he added: "I could have been flying up there with Cazaly, or maybe got to be captain of Carlton -who knows?"

            Sean, sprawled on a couch in a luxury Los Angeles hotel, laughed at the thought. Despite his formidable appearance and overwhelming presence, he's a good-humoured man.

            He's also a man who likes to understand the world. When told that Australia was still in the economic doldrums, he wondered aloud whether the local obsession with sport could have something to do with it.

            "I mean, look at them here in America," he said. "Vast sums are spent on professional sport, and none of it produces anything people can use."

            Sean likes Australia and Australians. "Remember," he said, "I was once married to one." (His first wife was actress Diane Cilento. They divorced in 1973.)

            Sean likes a drop himself, although he tempers it with daily golf and tennis whenever he's not on the set: As a result, he's a lot fitter at 61 than most of the designer-water types he finds himself surrounded by in the film business.

            This has just stood him in good stead on his latest movie, "Medicine Man", in which he plays a dedicated research scientist searching for a cancer cure in the South American rainforest. Some of the more spectacular scenes in the movie take place high above the rainforest.

            The movie, though based on the ecological crisis facing the rainforests, is primarily an action-romance, as befits the original hero of the James Bond sagas. At one point, Sean has to rescue co-star Lorraine Bracco (pictured with Sean) after she falls off a cliff.

            "We spent days suspended 100 metres over the jungle," said Sean. "It was really us up there, and I found myself blessing the fact that our stunt co-ordinator, Fred Waugh, learnt his stuff by being a professional circus trapeze artist. It gave you confidence in the gear and the rigging."

            Confidence would not seem to have ever been a problem with Sean Connery, a man who absolutely radiates authority. (And other stuff too, according to co-star Lorraine: "I was lucky to be working with Sean," she said. "He was very supportive and very loving with me. He has the twinkle in his eye that every woman finds appealing, and I'm no exception. It's no wonder he's been named the sexiest man alive.")

            Sean's is a lived-in face. He makes no pretense about the accumulating years, the silly hairpiece he was forced to don for his James Bond roles having receded into history along with his hairline.

            Surprisingly, when asked about the heroic character he brings to most of his roles, Sean seemed embarrassed.

            "I don't think that comes from me," he said. "I think what it is, is that I deliberately choose heroic characters to play because I'm not heroic myself." Well, everyone is entitled to their own estimate.

            If Sean says he's not a hero, it's probably what he really thinks, because he's a man who tends to call a spade a spade.

            This has got him into trouble on occasion, most notably for a report dating all the way back to 1961, in which he was quoted as telling interviewer Barbara Walters it was "not the worst thing to slap a woman."

            "I actually said," Sean explains, with a wry, here-we-go-again look, "there is something that is worse than striking a woman. It is demoralising her, demeaning her. The same with a man.

            "I said that that is worse than smacking her -I didn't say punch, I said smack.

            "Look, it's something that happens, that's what I was saying.

            "There are so many causes. A guy lives in a tenement, three children, works all day, and he's got a problem with his wife.

            "He doesn't have a club to go to. He can't walk out, and if she wants some kind of confrontation, it's very difficult for it not to materialise. It builds and builds, and you can only take so much.  Nobody's perfect.

            "If someone in those circumstances is intent on a physical confrontation then it's going to happen. Because, in part, that's what she was looking for.

            "Now, Barbara wanted that to mean I was saying it was okay to beat up women. Well, I didn't mean that. It's not okay. But she spent two hours of tape trying to pin me with it."

            Having skirted that minefield to his own satisfaction, Sean, looking very relaxed and casual in green plain slacks and yellow long-sleeved sports shirt, stretched luxuriously on the hotel sofa - and proceeded to dig another hole for himself.

            "There was another thing I was asked about," he said. "About women at the golf club.

            "Well, my wife's a golfer (Moroccan artist Micheline, to whom Sean has been married since 1976) and I play with her.

            "But, honestly, I don't like playing golf with women. It's as simple as that.

            "It has nothing to do with being a male chauvinist pig or whatever. It's simply my choice.

            "And, yes, there are men's bars at Sunningdale and at St Andrew's in Scotland where I play golf, where women are not allowed, and that's absolutely right.

            "I think it's terrific."

            "There's no need for an explanation. I just don't want to."

-PAUL DOUGHERTY