celebrity fundraiser | business speaker | celebrity speaking | celebrity speaker | comedians for colleges | special event entertainment | motivational speaker | keynote speaker | speaking engagement | corporate meeting speaker | convention speaker | conference speaker | convention entertainer | sports speaker | famous speaker | musician corporate event | technology speaker | celebrity entertainer | speaker bureau | political speaker |
Sean Connery
ONE of the most sought-after actors in Hollywood, Sean Connery has spun his unflappable charm and old-
style star quality into one of the most enduringly and endearingly dashing screen presences in the history of
celluloid.
In 1962 Sean would play James Bond in Dr. No, the first feature in what would prove an indefatigable and
immensely lucrative franchise in the decades to come. Producer Harry Saltzman awarded Connery the plum
part of agent 007 on the basis of a single interview and after watching him walk down the street.
(Incidentally, Connery has trained extensively in movement, and prepares for each role by working out how
the character should move, which is perhaps why he is so dead-on in each of his widely differing roles. In
Goldfinger (1964), From Russia, With Love (1964), Thunderball (1965), and You Only Live Twice (1967)
Connery became so dangerously identified with the star-making role that his concurrent performances in
non-Bond films, while uniformly creditable, were not enthusiastically endorsed by fans or critics. Grown
weary of his confining employment as the martini-quaffing, lady-slaying alter ego, he agreed to perform his
Bond duties one last time, in 1971's Diamonds Are Forever, only after demanding, and receiving, a then-
unprecedented salary of $1.25 million plus a percentage and vowing that he would "never again" play the
part.
Sprung from the trap the series had become, Connery sought to break out of his Bond typecasting by
accepting roles in such diverse pictures as the science-fiction flick Zardoz (1974), Sidney Lumet's stylish
adaptation of the Agatha Christie whodunnit Murder on the Orient Express (1974), John Huston's satisfying
Rudyard Kipling adventure adaptation The Man Who Would Be King (1975), the medieval romance Robin
and Marian (1976), and Peter Hyams' High Noon-esque sci-fi film Outland (1981). But just when it seemed
Connery had entirely forsaken the British Secret Service, he resurfaced as a much wiser and appealingly
more mature Bond in the prophetically named 1983 adventure Never Say Never Again. Though the film,
which was a loose remake of 1965's Thunderball, was rather pedestrian, Connery proved more popular than
ever in the role. In fact, Connery just seemed to be getting better and better with age.
In 1987's The Untouchables (his portrait of a tough-as-nails Prohibition-era Irish cop in the film garnered
him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar) and 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which he played
delightfully against type as Harrison Ford's irascible, tweedy archaeologist pop. More conventional leading
roles in the 1990 adaptation of John Le CarrT's The Russia House (as a British publisher who becomes
embroiled in a high-stakes international intrigue with Michelle Pfeiffer), 1990's The Hunt for Red October
(as a Russian sub commander), and 1993's Rising Sun (as an expert in all things Japanese) kept his superstar
patina buffed to high polish.
In the mid '90s, Connery divided his time between the middling medieval tales First Knight (1995) and
Dragonheart (1996) and the more successful contemporary action dramas Just Cause (1995) and The Rock
(1996). After a year's absence from theaters, he returned with a vengeance in the 1998 feature-film version
of the '60s cult TV classic The Avengers, in which he appeared in an atypical capacity as the villain to
Ralph Fiennes' natty agent Jonathan Steed and Uma Thurman's leather-clad amateur sleuth Emma Peel. In
1999, Connery starred in and produced Entrapment, a knotty love story-thriller, in which he played a cat
burglar who teams up with a beautiful female thief (Catherine Zeta-Jones) for equal measures of bank-
robbing and romance. As for upcoming projects, he has signed a first-look, multi-year deal with Sony
Pictures Entertainment under which he will produce and perhaps star in several films through his
Fountainbridge Films production company.
celebrity fundraiser | business speaker | celebrity speaking | celebrity speaker | comedians for colleges | special event entertainment | motivational speaker | keynote speaker | speaking engagement | corporate meeting speaker | convention speaker | conference speaker | convention entertainer | sports speaker | famous speaker | musician corporate event | technology speaker | celebrity entertainer | speaker bureau | political speaker |