Sean Connery, the Scottish actor who was catapulted to superstar status after playing the suave but steely secret agent James Bond, died. He was 90.
The actor starred as 007 in films such as “Dr. No” and “Thunderball” before carving out a niche later in life playing grizzled older men, including Indiana Jones’s father in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and a Russian submarine commander in “The Hunt for Red October.”
But it was his role as the secret agent with the license to kill that turned Mr. Connery into an international superstar, tapping into the changing social and sexual mores of the era that enabled him to be seen as much an object of lust for the audience as the lovers he pursued on screen.
Thomas Sean Connery was born on Aug. 25, 1930, in Edinburgh. His father, Joseph Connery, was the son of Irish immigrants and worked in a rubber factory. His mother, Euphemia McBain McLean, was a cleaner.
He delivered milk in his younger years in the streets around his home, which included some of Scotland’s roughest slums and where he was known as “Big Tam.”
