SIR THOMAS SEAN CONNERY died 31 October 2020

SIR THOMAS SEAN CONNERY DLitt St A died 31 Octobre 2020

Sean Connery (25 August 1930 – 31 October 2020) was a British national treasure, as well as Scotland’s most famous and popular man. A member of the Scottish National Party, Connery carried a tattoo ‘Scotland Forever’ dating from his days as a young man serving in the Royal Navy. The sentiment remained strong.

Connery always wore the Maclean of Duart tartan (hunting version) because his mother was a Maclean from the Inner Hebrides– like my own grandmother – and she was raised in Fife, so Sean Connery’s connections to St Andrews were strong. Golf was one of his passions. In 2013 Sir Sean agreed to headline St Andrews university’s 600th anniversary celebration and funding appeal, by starring in the anniversary promotional film Ever to Excel.

Connery was most famous, of course, for being the first actor to play James Bond. Author Ian Fleming did not approve the casting ; but he was so impressed by the acting ability of Sean Connery, that Fleming added some Scottish ancestry to Bond’s back story. His success in seven Bond films turned Connery into a major star. Many films followed, including Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Highlander (1986), The Name of the Rose (1986), The Untouchables (1988), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990)….. For The Untouchables he won an Oscar.

Connery never studied at university. His Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.) degree was an honorary award for his lifetime achievements. From a working class background –his father a lorry driver his mother a cleaning lady - Sean worked as a milkman, a sailor, a male model, even a coffin polisher before his acting career took off. Once it did take off, however, Sean Connery enjoyed the trappings of success (life in Marbella, in Barbados, in Los Angeles, celebrity golf tournaments around the world) but he came to feel constrained by his Bond identity. Success can be a burden.

Connery retired from acting in 2006. His achievements include one Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards (one being a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award), and three Golden Globes, including the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a Henrietta Award. He received a lifetime achievement award in the US with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999. Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama. As a child he grew early and was known during his teen years as "Big Tam." He claimed that he lost his virginity at the age of 14 with an army woman in uniform.

In addition to our Scotland, Fife and Maclean connections, I developed a personal relationship with the fame of Sean Connery who, at the age of 60 and with a trim white beard, was reckoned to be one of the world’s sexiest men. While I was working in Cambodia, disarming the Khmer Rouge, there were several occasions when I visited plush hotels to meet journalists, ambassadors or corrupt Cambodian generals. Every time I entered one of these sin houses, one of the waitresses would approach me very shyly to ask, ‘Are you a famous actor?’

I always replied by putting my finger to my lips, whisperring ‘Sshhh.’

I did not want to spoil their excitement. Who at the age of 60 would object to being mistaken for Sir Sean Connery? Not me, anyway. At the same time, it reminded me how grateful I am not to be in ‘public life.’

The funniest part of this affair, was watching Connery play Bond on films dubbed in Khmer, usually when I was racing along the mighty Mekong River in a cigar-shaped motor taxi containing 60 or 100 people crammed inside, and with my legs folded into a tiny seat designed for a 5-foot Khmer woman.

Why did Sean Connery sound so funny ? The Khmer language has variable registers, producing high-pitch variations in tone. Khmer belongs to the Mon-Khmer branch of Austroasiatic language family, and linguists claim that it is not a tonal language, but that it has different ‘head’ (high) and ‘chest’ (low) registers; whereas my Khmer teachers insisted on the importance of different tones. Linguists say Khmer is non-tonal, whereas Vietnamese is tonal. There are 33 Khmer consonents and 26 vowels that can be pronounced as ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ depending on a preceding consonent. In addition there are subconsonents which can change the pronunciation of the primary consonent. Anyhow, Khmer seems very tonal to my untrained ear. When I ordered a cup of tea one day, and received (from a very confused waitress) a jar of hot chili because my voice had gone up, instead of down, I concluded that Khmer has a complex system of tones. Too complex for my ears to grasp, but Sir Sean Connery did a grand job of speaking Khmer on film.

Watching the grave Sean Connery speaking on the television screen without his well-known Scottish baritone, and to hear him squeak in high-register Khmer tones was – to my ears – incongruously amusing.

By the time I was watching him in Cambodia, Connery and his French artist wife Micheline Roquebrune had retired to live in the Bahamas. According to an interview given by Micheline to the film magazine Première, they met in 1970 at a golf tournament in Marrakech when Big Tam was still married to his first wife. Micheline came around to his hotel chalet : the key was in the door and she came inside to find Sean lying on the bed reading the newspaper, naked. She took off her belt and began play-hitting him while dancing. He grabbed her, pulled her down onto the bed beside him, and the began a passionate affair with marriage in 1975 and a 45th wedding anniversary this year shortly before Connery died at the great age of 90.

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