Rest In Peace, Sir Sean Connery

[Hardrock69]

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/...122645084.html

Sir Sean Connery has died at the age of 90, his family has said.

The Scottish actor was best known for his portrayal of James Bond, being the first to bring the role to the big screen and appearing in seven of the spy thrillers.

Sir Sean died overnight in his sleep, while in the Bahamas. It is understood he had been unwell for some time.

His acting career spanned decades and his many awards included an Oscar, two Bafta awards and three Golden Globes.

Sir Sean's other films included The Hunt for Red October, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade and The Rock.

He was largely regarded as being the best actor to have played 007 in the long-running franchise, often being named as such in polls.

His Oscar came in 1988, when he was named best supporting actor for his role as an Irish cop in The Untouchables.

He was knighted by the Queen at Holyrood Palace in 2000.

In August, he celebrated his 90th birthday.

[Rikk]

I fucking hate October 2020. Fucking Sean Connery. Jesus...who's next?

Paul McCartney?

Pete Townshend?

Diamond Dave...fuck it! I'm not even going there.

[Seshmeister]

What a fucking year...

The most famous Scotsman in the world or is that fucking Groundskeeper Willy these days?

Anyone wanting to do a deep dive on watching some of his movies apart from the obvious James Bonds or Untouchables I would suggest any of the following...

The Name of the Rose
The Man Who Would Be King
The Offence
The Hill

Apart from all the charisma, Connery was a fine actor.

[twonabomber]

I remember seeing Outland at the theater. Always liked that one.

Two of my favorite Connery moments: In Never Say Never Again, as Fatima Blush is about to shoot Bond and insists Bond admit that she was his best roll in the hay, Connery responds, "Well, to be perfectly honest, there was this girl in Philadelphia..."

And in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade:

Elsa: [to Indy] I'll never forget how vonderful it vas.

Professor Henry Jones: Why thank you. It was rather wonderful.

Elsa: [kisses Indy] Zat's how Austrians say goodbye.

Colonel Vogel: Und zis is how ve zay goodbye in Germany, Dr. Jones.

[punches Indy with the head of his cane; Indy's head smacks into Henry's behind him]

Indiana Jones: I liked the Austrian way better.

Professor Henry Jones: So did I.

[talking about how they both slept with the same woman]

Indiana Jones: It's disgraceful, you're old enough to be her... her grandfather.

Professor Henry Jones: Well, I'm as human as the next man.

Indiana Jones: Dad, I *was* the next man.

Professor Henry Jones: Oh... ships that pass in the night.

RIP...

[Rikk]

I fucking love OUTLAND.

I also love NAME OF THE ROSE. Great film.

THE UNTOUCHABLES is one of my all-time favorite films...and living in Chicago, it gives me great personal pride at all the great scenery and crazy history (though the film is obviously fiction, for the most part).

HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER...I watch that thing over and over again.

A BRIDGE TOO FAR...

His turn in INDIANA JONES...

All the great Bond films...and the couple he did that were not so great...

One film I've been meaning to give another chance is Hitchcock's 1964 film, MARNIE. Been meaning to give that another chance. Didn't love it the first time I saw it...but with Hitch, it's often worth another try or three...

[twonabomber]

I liked You Only Live Twice but that Pluto TV thing I use doesn't show it often. Maybe they will this week.

[Seshmeister]

Fuck but did people age in those days, even sex gods.

This is him in 1971 around the time of Diamonds Are Forever aged 41 so a lot younger than many of the posters here...

[Seshmeister]

The Rock was pretty good as I remember, I don't think I've seen that since it came out I think I'll revisit that one.

There seems to be a theme here with movies starting with the word 'The'

[Von Halen]

I prefer Matt Helm to James Bond.
I also prefer Austin Powers to James Bond.

[Nickdfresh]

Sad and this year sucks giant balls, but he was 90. Connery was great in whatever he was in and he shall be missed...

Especially on Jeopardy!!

[FORD]

[Seshmeister]

The 007 motif was a bit of a huge fucking fake alert.

Also he would have told him to fuck off in an entirely different way..

Pretty funny that Business Insider fell for it. Also is that not a kind of creepy name for a publication?


https://www.politifact.com/factcheck...preads-wake-h/

[FORD]

Bummer. I thought it was a good letter.

[Seshmeister]

Bummer. I thought it was a good letter.

He could be an awkward grumpy bastard but he would never have said 'I AM FUCKING JAMES BOND'.

He spent half his life trying to play that down if anything...

[Hardrock69]

I had forgotten about Name Of The Rose. The novel was fucking awesome, so no surprise the movie was good.

One of my favorites: ZARDOZ!!!!

[twonabomber]

Some intro and dispelling rumors of his death in 1993!

[ZahZoo]

Sad... another great passing. RIP

[Hardrock69]

I prefer James Bond to James Bond.

[twonabomber]

So, according to Rolling Stone, we've lost the last real guitar hero and now the last real movie star. All in a month...

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...field-1077690/

[Terry]

To be honest, because of my age and when the particular films in the series were being released, I always associated Roger Moore more as James Bond than Connery. Only because those Moore Bond films were the films getting more airplay on network tv back in the 1970s and cable in the early 1980s. The only Connery Bond film I've seen from start-to-finish is Never Say Never Again, which I enjoyed just as much as any of the Moore ones.

Thus, when I think of Connery, I'm more apt to think of Never Say Never Again, or The Hunt For Red October, or The Untouchables, or Outland...or even The Rock than I am of the original series of 007 films Connery did. If memory serves, Connery was also in The Anderson Tapes, which was also a good flick.

Can't say as it's too shocking or whatever re: Connery's passing....or that I'm too sad about it, in that he was 90, lived a good life, went out in his sleep.

[twonabomber]

Can't say as it's too shocking or whatever re: Connery's passing....or that I'm too sad about it, in that he was 90, lived a good life, went out in his sleep.

at his home in the Bahamas...

[Terry]

at his home in the Bahamas...

A lot better ending than most will experience.

[Seshmeister]

I knew about this but was reminded again tonight...Connery was the real deal.


The Time Sean Connery Punched a Real Mobster in the Face

Sean Connery's onscreen tough guy persona had an element of truth to it, and he once took on a notorious mob enforcer and won.

By Tony Sokol
November 2, 2020



“Isn’t that just like a wop, brings a knife to a gunfight,” Sean Connery said in his Academy Award-winning his role The Untouchables in 1987. This, from a man who only brought his fists to one in real life.

In the Brian De Palma film, Connery played Officer Jim Malone, a tough old Irish cop chasing gangsters in Al Capone-era Chicago. But Connery also took on a mobster in real life as a tough young Scottish actor. In 1957, Connery was shooting the film Another Time, Another Place in London. His co-star was Lana Turner, a Hollywood sex symbol whose boyfriend was a mob enforcer who looked so much like a gangster he could have come out of central casting with his penchant for lime green suits and pistol cufflinks. Connery hadn’t yet earned his double-0 status as James Bond, but he put on a real-life performance which has become Hollywood mythology.

Turner’s career had taken a downturn and she was shooting Another Time, Another Place in England. The film told the story of an American journalist who has an affair with a British war correspondent who is 10 years younger than her. Turner chose Connery to play the love interest.

Connery had only been acting for three years, and this was only his seventh film. He’d also been making his mark on TV and the stage, a job he got after competing in the 1953 Mr. Universe bodybuilding contest as “Mr. Scotland.” He came in third in the junior section. Connery came from the tough Fountainbridge district of Edinburgh’s West End. He joined the Royal Navy when he was 16, but was furloughed with an ulcer three years later. To pay the bills, he took on a series of jobs which included posing nude for art students.

With a backstory like this, it was only natural gossip would spread that the two onscreen lovers didn’t end their scenes when the director called cut. Tabloids ran photos of Connery escorting Turner to shows on the West End and dining out at London’s fanciest restaurants. Reports were picked up by Hollywood papers, where they were read by Turner’s boyfriend.

Her boyfriend Johnny Stompanato was a mob bodyguard and enforcer who quickly got a reputation around Tinseltown as a violent mug with a thing for Hollywood starlets. Frank Sinatra had to ask Mickey Cohen to tell Stompanato to stay away from Ava Gardner. The loyal Cohen treated Johnny Stomp like an untouchable made man, and advised the Chairman of the Board to go back to his wife and kids.

The jealous Stompanato wasn’t too happy about Turner and Connery’s on-camera coupling, so when he heard the rumors, he went into a rage. He called Turner, threatened to kill or disfigure her, and boarded a plane for London to deal with Connery. Lana’s father, the bootlegger and gambler John Virgil Madison Turner, was the victim of a gangland execution when she was younger, and the “Sweater Girl” took such threats seriously. When Johnny Stomp landed, Turner told him to stay away from the set.


Stompanato ignored her and showed up at the studios in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire, where Turner and Connery were filming. He caught a scene where the pair were embracing on a couch. After a few retakes, he walked into the frame, pointed a pistol at Connery, and told him to take his hands off Turner.

The future Bond grabbed the enforcer’s wrist in a swift move, twisted it until the gun came loose, and then decked him with one punch. Turner called Scotland Yard to escort Stompanato from the set, and he was deported for breaking England’s gun laws. While the whole thing was supposedly caught on camera, no footage has ever surfaced.

Some time after the film wrapped, Connery, under a seven-year contract to 20th Century Fox, went to Los Angeles to make Darby O’Gill And The Little People (1959) for Walt Disney. He soon learned about one of the biggest Hollywood scandals. Johnny Stomp had been killed at Turner’s rented Beverly Hills home on April 4, 1958. Turner’s 13-year-old daughter Cheryl Crane stabbed Stompanato to death with a butcher knife after witnessing him attack her mother and threaten to mess up her face. The killing was ruled justifiable homicide at trial but Stompanato’s family sued Turner for $7 million.

After Stompanato’s death, passages from his personal letters to Turner were published in the Hollywood press. Some of the letters mentioned his feelings about Connery taking the actress and her daughter to London vaudeville shows. Cohen, who was convinced Lana had actually murdered Stompanato, did not like the publicity, and had vowed revenge on anyone who had anything to do with his former bodyguard’s death.

Connery was staying at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel while making the Disney film. Depending on reports, he either got a call from Mickey Cohen or one of his henchmen with the message “Get out of town or a contract will be put on your life.” While Connery had proved himself a brave Scotsman, he had no way to gauge how serious the threat was. On the advice of Disney executives, he checked into the San Fernando Valley’s cheap Bel Air Palms Motel until the heat was off.

The scandal didn’t tarnish Connery’s reputation as much as his performance in Darby O’ Gill and the Little People, though. Critics may have jeered, but Cubby Broccoli’s wife saw it and recommended Connery be hired to play James Bond in Dr. No (1962) based on the film.


https://www.denofgeek.com/movies/the...r-in-the-face/

[FORD]

That's one Hell of a story. If it was about any other famous actor, I'd probably think it was bullshit made up by a publicist. But I can actually picture Connery taking down a mob thug like that.

[Seshmeister]

So, according to Rolling Stone, we've lost the last real guitar hero and now the last real movie star. All in a month...

https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/...field-1077690/

Good article apart from it needs a search and replace done with English -> Scottish.

[Seshmeister]

That's one Hell of a story. If it was about any other famous actor, I'd probably think it was bullshit made up by a publicist. But I can actually picture Connery taking down a mob thug like that.

There is another Connery story which has less providence than that one but I really hope and think is true as well and made me laugh tonight so I'm going to try and track down a second source.

"I used to work for the police in Liverpool some years back and one of the guys I worked with was a high ranking firearms officer. He attended a fancy dinner once in Dubai with police chiefs from all over the UK. There were a few guest speakers there the most interesting of which was Sean Connery. Being a huge James Bond fan my friend was a bit awestruck and when Sean Connery took a seat at a table directly behind him, he knew he would have to build up the confidence to speak to him. Some time later after a few drinks he built up the confidence to speak to him and found him to be a very down to earth and pleasant guy. They shared a whisky and talked about the Bond movies for a while until my friend moved on to the real issues. Thinking he would only get one chance to speak to Mr Connery he asked him 'Who was the best woman he had ever slept with?'

'Ah but a gentleman would never reveal that' Mr Connery said.

He thought no more of it and the night carried on for a few more hours. Just as the night was finishing he felt a tap on his shoulder and heard his excellent voice whisper in his ear -

'Vanessa Redgrave, 1965, up the arse.'"

[Seshmeister]

Some intro and dispelling rumors of his death in 1993!

Connery was definitely aging slower than Letterman...

[FORD]

Letterman looks older than he should now with that Amish beard (or whatever you want to call it.) So does Michael Stipe.