Sean Connery — calling him “Sir Sean” was reportedly a sure way to get him to leave the room — died last weekend at the age of 90. Connery was a film legend, who worked in over 60 movies — many in the leading role — whose unique combination of smoldering intensity and silky smoothness came to define suave. (His private life was another story, but such is the gap between image and reality that makes the film industry what it is.)
That persona was evident in his earliest screen appearances but it emerged and crystallized when he became James Bond, British secret agent 007. Connery played Bond in seven Bond films, starting with “Dr. No” in 1962. The role grated, however, and fearing that it would define him, Connery said in 1967 while filming “You Only Live Twice” that he was moving on. He was lured back, first to make “Diamonds are Forever” in 1971 and then 12 years later for “Never Say Never Again,” whose title mocked his intent to move beyond Bond.
For many in my generation, Connery’s best-known work followed the Bond years. He won an Academy Award in Brian De Palma’s “The Untouchables,” playing the Irish cop who guided Kevin Costner’s naive Federal Agent Eliot Ness through prohibition-era Chicago and helped him jail Al Capone (a rotund Robert De Niro). Those who prefer more action and less style probably recall him as Indiana Jones’ father in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” or as an ex-con in “The Rock” (with Nicholas Cage), or as the Soviet submarine commander who wants to defect in “The Hunt for Red October.”