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| Real Name: Thomas Sean Connery | ||||
| Birthday: August 25, 1930 | ||||
| Place of Birth: Edinburgh, Scotland | ||||
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Sean Connery Biography And Filmography: This classy, masculine Scottish leading actor successfully broke free from the lucrative boundaries of James Bond to become one of the most recognized and admired sexy celebrities of Hollywood. Sean Connery had been a bodybuilder, model and choir boy before moving on to group, television and film work in the 1950's. After dropping out of school at age thirteen, Connery spent much of his free time in libraries as he started performing in plays. Connery beat out many far larger, and more expensive, names to play Ian Fleming's super spy James Bond in "Dr. No" (1962), which made Sean a leading 1960's movie icon and celebrity. Connery was able to show the instinctive brutality of the character, while still maintaining his calm and cool shrewdness and humor.
Connery did some of his best work over the course of his partnership with director Sidney Lumet in the war drama "The Hill" (1965), as a prisoner in a military prison. Next was the crime drama "The Anderson Tapes" (1971), as an ex-con masterminding a big time robbery, followed by the crime thriller "The Offence" (1973), as a London detective who beats a suspect to death. Appearing in a more high profile film, Connery played the role of Colonel Arbuthnot in "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), as part of an all-star cast. Connery was then hired and cast in the crime comedy "Family Business" (1989), where the actor portrayed the conceited father-figure of a criminal mob with Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick as his son and grandson. Sean Connery tried to shake the "007" persona several times, but audiences seemed to only see him as his James Bond character. "Diamonds Are Forever" (1971) marked the start of his 12-year vacation from James Bond films. Connery took the opportunity during this period to star in a wide range of attention-grabbing adventure films including John Boorman's "Zardoz" (1974), John Huston's "The Man Who Would Be King" (1975) with Michael Caine, John Milius' "The Wind and the Lion" (1975), Richard Lester's "Robin and Marian" (1976) with Audrey Hepburn, and, in a critical supporting role, Terry Gilliam's "Time Bandits" (1981) about a young boy who accidentally joins a band of dwarves as they jump from time-period to time-period looking for treasure to steal. Still attractive and charming, Sean Connery wore his hairpiece and returned to his most well-known role for the fittingly titled "Never Say Never Again" (1983) with Kim Basinger, which proved to be a box-office smash hit. Sean Connery followed up with the fantasy film, "Highlander" (1986) and the international hit "The Name of the Rose" (1986) with Christian Slater before scoring with an Oscar-winning supporting role in Brian De Palma's version of "The Untouchables" (1987) with Kevin Costner and Robert De Niro. Playing Malone, a sly and clever old Irish cop, Connery easily out-shone Kevin Costner, the film's apparent leading man. The success of this film placed Connery confidently back on the A-list of present Hollywood leading men and sexy celebrities, though often in fatherly roles and usually playing older than his actual age. Sean Connery then had another break-out smash hit in Steven Spielberg's third film in the Indiana Jones series, "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" (1989), as the proud and ill-tempered father of Harrison Ford. Though he has been a lasting presence all the way back to the stars of the Hollywood studio system, Connery has also been a serious actor who carefully prepares for his roles. He has trained at length in "character movement" and has said that he never takes a role until he has worked out how the character should move. Connery has achieved amazing subtleties of characterization within a wide range of parts.
One of the most in-demand actors in the movie industry, Connery has kept busy despite of whether his films do well or not. He has been an advocate of the "always keep working" school in part because of his financial support of the Scottish National Theater. Proving that Connery is an audience favorite was established in 1991 with his guest role as King Richard the Lionhearted in "Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves" with Morgan Freeman. His appearance in the finale, as Kevin Costner and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio get married, caused audiences worldwide to cheer ardently, even though Connery was doing nothing particularly huge. Another smash hit for Connery was the action thriller portraying the Russian captain in "The Hunt for Red October" (1990) set in 1984, the USSR's best submarine captain in their newest sub violates orders and heads for the USA. Next he appeared as a London publisher in "The Russia House" (1990) with Michelle Pfieffer, and then the film "Medicine Man" (1992), about an eccentric scientist working for a large drug company who is working on a research project in the Amazon jungle. The last marked his debut as an executive producer, a role he also performed on "Rising Sun" (1993), in which Connery teamed with Wesley Snipes in a police drama with worldwide consequences. In 1995 and 1996, Connery switched between medieval epics, as King Arthur in "First Knight" and the voice of Draco the dragon in "Dragonheart", and rough modern-day action dramas, as a famous attorney attempting to prove a man innocent of murder in "Just Cause" with Scarlett Johansson, and a government agent with knowledge of Alcatraz in the box-office bonanza "The Rock" with Nicolas Cage. Connery turned evil as a man determined to control the world's weather in the big screen version of "The Avengers" (1998) with Uma Thurman, and then added his charm to the role of an aging cat thief in "Entrapment" (1999). In 2000, Sean Connery played the role of a solitary author who mentors a gifted young playwright in "Finding Forrester" (2000). The actor would not appear on screen again until 2003, when he surfaced in the Victorian era action adventure "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" with Peta Wilson, based on the comic book series. Connery played the fictional hero Allan Quatermain, a Victorian forerunner to Indiana Jones, who leads a group of characters taken from popular books of the late 19th Century. The actor apparently clashed with director Steve Norrington, and their off-screen strain didn't help the on-screen value of the finished film.
Rumors flew that Connery was on the verge of a formal retirement from the movie business when he unexpectedly dropped out of 20th Century Fox's "Josiah's Canon" and walked away from a $18.5 million paycheck, but in 2005 he announced plans to revisit his role as James Bond one last time for Electronic Arts' videogame based on the 007 adventure From "Russia with Love." Sean Connery once again lent his voice talents to the comedy short-film "Sir Billi the Vet" (2006), an animated short about an eccentric veterinarian (Connery) working in a remote Scottish village.
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Sean
Connery sporadically escaped his James Bond roles to take on a wider range of roles in other
features such as Alfred Hitchcock's "Marnie" (1964), and "A Fine
Madness" (1966), and "The Molly Maguires" (1970), about
secret group of Irish emigrant miners, known as the Molly Maguires. 
