Sean observed that Scots stressed words differently from the English and said, “So because of my word stress I was able to get away from the original Bond character and take the sting out of those bad-taste jokes that crop up in the films. Terence Young and I worked hard on the character to get in some humour: it certainly isn’t in the books I’ve read.”

Sean was born Thomas Connery on 25th August, 1930 in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh. The family lived in a tenement and were so poor that the new baby’s cot was the bottom drawer of the wardrobe. At 13, Big Tammy, as he was called, quit school and took a variety of jobs – labourer, milkman, cement mixer, coffin polisher, steel bender and printer’s devil, then joined the Navy.
He was given a medical discharge after three years, due to an ulcer, and drifted into various jobs again, as a lifeguard and a male model at Edinburgh School of Art before becoming Mr Scotland in 1953 and representing his country in the Mr Universe contest (above left). He then applied for a job in the chorus of the stage show of ‘South Pacific’ and was asked how he’d like to be billed. He said: Thomas Sean Connery, which they thought was too long and they truncated it to Sean Connery.

A number of film parts came along, including ‘Action of the Tiger’ and ‘Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure,’ but his first major role was opposite Lana Turner in ‘Another Time, Another Place’ in 1958 and the following year he appeared in Disney’s ‘Darby O’Gill and The Little People.’ More artistically satisfying were his roles on television, including the part of Mountain McClintock in BBC TV’s version of Rod Serling’s ‘Requiem for a Heavyweight’ and Count Vronsky in ‘Anna Karenina’ opposite Claire Bloom. In 1961 Sean signed his original contract to make one Bond film a year until 1967 and for ‘Dr No’ he was paid £5,000. Despite its relatively low budget, ‘Dr No’ had high production values and was a major success, particularly in Europe. ‘From Russia With Love’ consolidated the popularity of the series, but the third film ‘Goldfinger', brought Bond into the big time. President John F.Kennedy had rated the book ‘From Russia With Love’ as number nine in his all-time Top Ten favourite books, which popularised Bond overnight in the States. ‘Goldfinger’ was a sensational hit in America and, at one New York cinema, it was screened constantly 24-hours a day. 'Bondmania' was sweeping the world!

‘Thunderball’ was initially plagued by legal problems. Some years earlier when Fleming had been trying to bring Bond to the screen, he’d collaborated on a screenplay with Kevin McClory and Jack Wittingham and later adapted it as the book ‘Thunderball’, without their permission. McClory had considered making ‘Thunderball’ on his own with Richard Burton, but came to an agreement with Eon (Saltzman and Broccoli), which involved him in the fourth film on condition that he would not revive Bond again as a film project for at least ten years.

The American actor John Gavin, a Rock Hudson type, was selected to appear as Bond in ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ and was to be given a multi-picture contract. A week before filming, Connery agreed to take on the role and Gavin was paid off. Sean had been given an offer he couldn’t refuse. David Picker, President of United Artists had guaranteed him $1 ¾ million, plus a percentage of the profits, and agreed to provide financial backing to two films of Sean’s choice. Sean was 20lbs heavier than in his last Bond outing and was fuller in the face, with bushier eyebrows, but the scriptwriter Tom Mankiewicz was to comment, “It was the only time in any of his films that he looked mature and there was an old pro’s grace about him. He was reputedly offered $5 million to return to Bond in ‘Live And Let Die,’ but refused. Clint Eastwood turned it down, Broccoli vetoed Burt Reynolds for the part and the role of Bond passed on to Roger Moore.

With his ten-year restriction over, Kevin McClory began to make plans to rework the ‘Thunderball’ plot for the screen. He initially involved Len Deighton as his co-writer on the project, ‘James Bond of the Secret Service.’ Then he approached Sean to become involved in the writing of the screenplay. They were talking of having Sean as M, with Roger Moore as Bond. Sean said, “The three of us did a screenplay and put all sorts of exotic events in it. You remember the aircraft that were disappearing over the Bermuda Triangle? We had SPECTRE doing that. There was also this fantastic fleet of planes under the sea – and they were going to be used to attack the financial centre of New York by going through the sewers of New York – which you can do – right into Wall Street. There were going to be mechanical sharks in the bay, a take-over of the Statue of Liberty and the main line of troops on Ellis Island. All that sort of thing.”

The title had now been changed to ‘Warhead,’ there was talk of Sean reappearing as Bond, with Orson Welles as a villain and Trevor Howard as M. Then the Fleming Estate sued and Paramount pulled out of the venture, but the fact that Sean was now involved came to the attention of Jack Schwartsman, executive vice president of Lorimer. He was able to raise the money from 25 independent backers and the legal action faded because the script had been restricted to the plot defined in ‘Thunderball. One of Connery’s friends remarked, “It was clever of McClory to involve Sean as he is now quite pleased with the script. Once Sean wrote it he started to care about the character he’d previously got fed up with playing.” It was Sean’s second wife Micheline who suggested the title ‘Never Say Never Again’, humorously referring to Sean’s vow that he would never play James Bond again!