{"id":3227,"date":"2020-11-07T07:42:25","date_gmt":"2020-11-07T07:42:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/?p=3227"},"modified":"2020-11-07T07:42:27","modified_gmt":"2020-11-07T07:42:27","slug":"ive-been-expecting-you-mr-bond-st-peter-at-the-gates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/2020\/11\/07\/ive-been-expecting-you-mr-bond-st-peter-at-the-gates\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00b4I\u00b4VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU, MR. BOND\u00b4. St. Peter at the Gates."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00b4I\u00b4VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU, MR. BOND\u00b4.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Peter at the Gates.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

by Norman Warwick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sir Thomas Sean Connery\u00a0(August 25, 1930\u00a0\u2013 October 31, 2020) was a Scottish actor and producer. He is best known as the first actor to portray the character\u00a0James Bond<\/a>\u00a0in film, starring in seven episodes of the franchise (every film from\u00a0Dr. No<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0You Only Live Twice<\/a>, plus\u00a0Diamonds Are Forever<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Never Say Never Again<\/a>) between 1962 and 1983.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Sean Connery<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

After beginning his career, though, in smaller theatre and television productions, it was his breakout role as British secret agent James Bond that brought international recognition. Although the Scotsman did not like the off-screen attention the role gave him, the success brought film offers from famed directors such as Alfred Hitchcock<\/a>, Sidney Lumet<\/a> and John Huston<\/a> for dramatic roles, which made him a successful actor and major film star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those films included Marnie<\/a>, The Hill<\/a> and Murder On The Orient Express<\/a>. There still more successes to follow with The Man Who Would Be King<\/a>,  A Bridge Too Far<\/a>,  Highlander<\/a> and The Name of the Rose<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Untouchables<\/a> in 1987, was a high profile work with Kevin Costner and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade<\/a>, in which he played a scatter-brained excitable professor as Indian\u00b4s father, played by Harrison Ford, was a rollicking adventure yarn with an unforgettable airplane fight and some wonderful one liners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Hunt for Red October<\/a>\u00a0,\u00a0Dragonheart<\/a>,\u00a0The Rock<\/a>, and\u00a0Finding Forrester<\/a>\u00a0were included in his fourth decade of film-making before. Connery retired from acting in 2006.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An Academy Award<\/a>, two BAFTA Awards<\/a> (including a Fellowship Award<\/a>), and three Golden Globes<\/a>, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award<\/a> and a Henrietta Award<\/a> were recognition of his talents. He was also a recipient of the US Kennedy Center Honors<\/a> lifetime achievement award in 1999 before being knighted<\/a> in the following New Year Honours<\/a> List for services to film drama.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connery was polled in a 2004 Sunday Herald<\/a> edition as \u00b4The Greatest Living Scot\u00b4]<\/sup><\/a> and in a 2011 EuroMillions<\/a> survey as \u00b4Scotland’s Greatest Living National Treasure.\u00b4  He was voted by People<\/a> magazine as both the  \u00b4Sexiest Man Alive\u00b4 in 1989 and the  Sexiest Man of the Century\u00b4 in 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connery\u00b4s death is the loss of a true icon of The Cinema. The actor, who has passed away aged 90, was, suggests The Guardian, \u00b4the first and finest James Bond\u00b4 as they described him as \u00b4a mercurial hero with dancing eyes and a dangerous smile.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Few actors could have escape the type-casting and public perception such an all-defining role usually brings about, but he did so with seeming effortlessness. Far from being the peak of his career, Bond was merely a starting point as, through the decades that followed, he lit up the screen as a tough guy, a kindly monk, a space sorcerer in glowing orange cod-piece and Indiana Jones\u2019s dad. Nothing too stereo-typical there !<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, He was always playing Sean Connery in a way \u2013 and it was never less than irresistible. One newspaper, in tribute to Connery, published a top ten of his  \u00b4best\u00b4 performances that made interesting reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding Forrester, made in 2000 was placed at tenth with the journalist praising Connery for his portrayal of <\/strong>a man who has seen and done it all, that trademark gruffness suffused in melancholy.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The list included at number 9 the 1974 film Zardoz, in which Connery is \u00b4never less than compelling.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Time Bandits, a 1981 film, saw <\/strong>Connery \u00b4radiate an unexpected charm as Greek king Agamemnon in Terry Gilliam\u2019s surrealistic comedy about a young boy who finds himself hopscotching across the centuries. Essentially it\u2019s Monty Python inventing\u00a0Bill & Ted\u2019s Excellent Adventure\u00a0\u2013 but Connery\u2019s warm and respectful performance helps elevate the film above mere sci-fi eccentricity. Gilliam was chuffed to get him, too.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rock in 1996 was a typically <\/strong>ludicrous Nineties action movies and an example of Connery maintaining dignity as all around him are struggling to be heard over explosions and gunfire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

For Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, made in 1989 and sixth on this top ten list, Connery was just 12 years older than Harrison Ford when the two teamed up as father-and-son Henry and Indiana Jones (right)<\/strong>. The newspaper describes this as \u00a0a pairing forged in B-movie heaven\u00b4\u00b4 \u00a0and watching the two stars berate and nag one another while battling Nazis and pursuing the Holy Grail will never grow old. Connery had retired from acting by the time Spielberg came to make the ghastly\u00a0Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull\u00a0in 2008 \u2013 and surely didn\u2019t regret turning down the director.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After ending the eighties with a number of excellent appearances, Connery starred in The Hunt For Red October in 1990. <\/strong>He was never more imperious than when playing a Soviet nuclear submarine captain in this fast paced adaptation of the Tom Clancy bestseller. Surely, nobody has ever looked as impressive in a fur hat with a USSR naval insignia as Connery does here. And he enjoys crackling chemistry with Alec Baldwin\u2019s Jack Ryan, airlifted aboard Typhoon-class sub\u00a0Red October<\/em>\u00a0as Connery and crew attempt to defect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Connery in The Untouchables<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Not quite reaching the top three in this list is the 1987 release of The Untouchables. An Irish cop with a Scottish accent proved a winning combination for Connery, who bagged a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for Brian De Palma\u2019s gangsters v G-men masterpiece. As you would want and expect from a De Palma film starring Robert De Niro as Al Capone,\u00a0The Untouchables<\/em>\u00a0is completely over the top. \u00a0But there is style to its silliness and Connery is roaring on all cylinders as Jimmy Malone, mentor to Kevin Costner\u2019s Eliot Ness. He also has the opportunity to deliver one of his finest ever monologues: \u201cThey pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That\u2019s the Chicago way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In third place on the list, though, is The Man Who Would Be King made in 1975. <\/strong>Connery and Michael Caine are the perfect double act in John Huston\u2019s adaptation of the Rudyard Kipling novella about two rogue soldiers from British India who try to pass themselves off as divine entities in a remote province of Afghanistan. Connery never looked more impressive on screen than when stomping about here in a pith helmet, with magnificent mutton chops. There\u2019s a chilling conclusion, too, as his supposedly divine Daniel Dravot is revealed to have feet of clay and flesh that bleeds all too easily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Umberto Eco
(Photo by Hannelore Foerster
Getty Images)<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Name of The Rose (1986), a film adaptation of a novel by Umberto Eco, <\/strong>showed how Connery could go \u201csmall\u201d as well as \u201cbig\u201d in his acting. He is sensational as a Franciscan friar with a streak of Sherlock Holmes. The film poses deep questions about faith and morality, while functioning, too, as a thrilling whodunnit. And it wouldn\u2019t have worked without Connery, excelling as a man of God negotiating the perils and contradictions of the mortal world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Top of the top ten, though, has been selected because, more than 50 years on, Connery is still the definitive Bond. Those who follow in that role role are forever doomed to wrestle with his mould-setting performance. All his Bond movies were classics \u2013 with the possible exception of 1983\u2019s non-canon\u00a0Never Say Never Again<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 but the consensus is that\u00a0Goldfinger<\/em>\u00a0is first among equals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connery\u2019s genius was to combine menace with a twinkling Celtic wit. His Bond was a loaded weapon. Yet there was a wryness to his performance that told you that both spy and actor were in on the joke.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sliding into Connery\u2019s tuxedo, other actors would try, and largely fail, to combine the deadliness with the humour, typically erring too far one way or the other. When we think of James Bond this is what we think of: Sean Connery ordering a martini, holding a Walther PPK double-action pistol or, as in Goldfinger<\/em>, zipping around in an Aston Martin DB5. Wherever Connery is now, it\u2019s tempting to imagine him back at the wheel, a knowing smile on his face, eyes narrowed toward the horizon.  a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sean Connery<\/a>\u00a0may have played\u00a0James Bond<\/a>\u00a0in seven films, but he wasn\u2019t always happy to be associated with the role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the role was the actor\u2019s breakthrough after a decade of smaller stage and TV roles, he is said to have found it a drag being so synonymous with the British spy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2004, The Observer reported that the actor once said he was \u00b4fed up\u00b4 with the character, stating: \u00b4I have always hated that damned James Bond \u2013 I’d like to kill him.\u00b4<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Connery\u2019s friend, Sir\u00a0Michael Caine<\/a>, once revealed in Andrew Yule\u2019s book\u00a0Sean Connery: Neither Shaken Nor Stirred\u00a0that \u00b4you didn\u2019t the raise the subject of Bond\u00b4 around him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b4He became synonymous with Bond,\u00b4 said Caine. \u00b4He’d be walking down the street and people would say, ‘Look, there’s James Bond.’ That was particularly upsetting to him. He was, and is, a much better actor than just playing James Bond \u00b4<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Connery\u2019s genius was to combine menace with a twinkling Celtic wit. His Bond was a loaded weapon. Yet there was a wryness to his performance that told you that both spy and actor were in on the joke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3236,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,75,13,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aata","category-cinema","category-literary","category-performing-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3237,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3227\/revisions\/3237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aata.dev\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}