Connery Part 1 - Big Tam to OO7
Nicky and I love films. Along with books, music and the odd video game, films are a significant cornerstone of an enduring 20+ year friendship and arguably, one of the factors that led us to do the Culture Swally.
As is undoubtedly the case with most long-standing friendships, there are several movies close to both our hearts which we bonded over in the early years of our relationship. Our shared love of Scottish classics such as Trainspotting, Shallow Grave and, of course, Gregory’s Girl informed many enthusiastic conversations in the pubs of Aberdeen in the late 90s and early 2000s.
Naturally, our love for film isn’t limited to homegrown classics. Movies such as Ghostbusters, Tim Burton’s original Batman and Top Gun have been the basis of many a blether over the years. The sequel to the latter, 2022’s Maverick, formed part of a long overdue reunion with our oft-mentioned “Mutual Friend” in Aberdeen that year.
One film we’ve long admired is 1987’s The Untouchables. Based on the classic US TV Show, written by David Mamet and directed by Brian De Palma, the movie stars Kevin Costner as idealistic, crusading Treasury Agent, Elliot Ness, fighting the good fight against Robert De Niro’s master bootlegger, Al Capone, in Prohibition era Chicago.
Nicky will usually actively avoid any movie set before the 1960s, no matter how well reviewed. I’ll leave it to him to explain why. Don’t expect his explanation to make any sense. But he loves The Untouchables for a significant reason, an Oscar winning performance from Sean Connery.
For Scottish people of our, our parents’ and our grandparents’ generations, it’s difficult to describe how important a figure Connery was. I can’t think of comparative Scottish actor working in the 60s, 70s or 80s who became an international household name and as well known for their nationality as their performances in film.
Rather than write a straight profile of the great man, I’m going to focus on my personal top 3 favourite Connery performances. I could spend months writing about him and barely touch the sides of his extraordinary career. There’s also a wealth of biography both in print and online which you can check out, if you want to know more.
However, before I get to my faves, here’s a very brief summary of how Thomas Connery of Fountainbridge in Edinburgh made his way from a typical Scottish tenement flat to one of the most recognisable figures in the history of Hollywood and cinema.
“I’m an actor, it’s not brain surgery. If I do my job right, people won’t ask for their money back”.
Born in 1930 to a Protestant mother and a Roman Catholic father, Connery would take a stretch in his teens, reaching, what was surely uncommon for the time, 6ft 2 and leading to the nickname of “Big Tam” among his peers.
Wee Tam in the early 1940s. Before he became Big Tam.
He joined the Navy when he was 16 but was discharged 3 years later, on medical grounds. Upon returning to Edinburgh, he drifted through a number of odd jobs (See what I did there Bond fans?) including lorry driving, life guarding and working as an artist’s model. He’d always been athletic and was reportedly a very good footballer. When he was 19, he became involved in bodybuilding, participating in contests and entering a Mr. Universe competition in the early 1950s.
While attending a bodybuilding competition in London in 1953, a competitor told him that a production of the Rogers and Hammerstein musical, South Pacific, was holding open auditions. Connery had had a parttime job working backstage at Edinburgh’s Kings Theatre, so decided to try his luck.
He was ultimately cast in a small role as a member of the Seabees Chorus Boys but, by the time the production reached Edinburgh, he’d landed the much more significant part of Marine Cpl. Hamilton Reeves.
Over the following years, he built a respectable career as a working actor. The American actor Robert Henderson encouraged him to take elocution lessons and fostered a burgeoning interest in the theatre.
Connery would appear in varying sized roles on the stage and screen throughout the decade. His first film role saw him play the character of Spike, a gangster with a speech impediment in the movie No Road Back. This led to his first lead role in a BBC production of Requiem for a Heavyweight alongside future Alf Garnett actor, Warren Mitchell and inaugural Doctor Who companion, Jacqueline Hill.
Taking one on the chin in 1957’s Requiem for a Heavyweight.
He landed his first leading film role the following year, in 1958, starring opposite Hollywood superstar Lana Turner in Another Time, Another Place. It was during the production of this film that the seeds of legend were first sown.
The film was being shot in location in Cornwall in the south of England and Connery and Turner had been spotted out on the town in London, attending shows, dinners and the like. Turner’s jealous boyfriend, the gangster Johnny Stompanato confronted Connery on set and is reported to have pointed a gun at the Scots actor. Connery, in full Big Tam mode, is said to have disarmed Stompanato before putting the man flat on his back.
In 1961, he won the role which, despite the celebrated and storied career he would subsequently go onto to enjoy, he’ll be forever best remembered for, James Bond.
“I had no grand plan. Everybody talks about how they knew the Bond films were going to be a success. But it simply isn’t true”.
The producers, Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli couldn’t see it at first. Neither could Bond creator Ian Fleming. Fleming is reported to have said; “I’m looking for Commander Bond. Not an overgrown stuntman”. It was Broccoli’s wife Dana who saw Connery’s potential and persuaded her husband that Sean was the man for the job.
The first Bond film, 1962’s Dr No, was a commercial and critical success. Even the initially sceptical Fleming, after attending the film’s premiere conceded that Connery was Bond. He would go as far as to incorporate Scottish heritage into Bond’s backstory in subsequent 007 novels.
With his easy charm, rugged good looks and physicality, for many, Connery’s Bond is the definitive interpretation of the super spy and shagger extraordinaire. Doctor No redefined the spy movie and made Connery an overnight, international star.
Sizing up demure Sylvia Trench in Doctor No (1962)