Today, I was greeted with the sad news that Sean Connery had died. It’s funny, but you never really expect your heroes to die.
When I was growing up, my Dad took me to see For Your Eyes Only, the latest installment in the James Bond movie franchise. At one point in the movie I heard my Dad say “He’s just a womanizer. What a shame”.
You see, my dad had seen James Bond movies when Sean Connery was portraying him. While that portrayal of James Bond showed him with women, it wasn’t in the classless way of the Roger Moore portrayal.
Connery’s Bond had swagger. Style. Class. And a dry, smooth wit that everyone wanted to have. His James Bond was a man’s man who drove cars that we all dreamed (and still do!) of owning. Connery’s Bond made being a spy look fun.
As I grew up, Sean Connery movies (not just James Bond) continued to influence me. Despite the occasional misstep (ummm…Outland, anyone? Anyone? And let’s try to forget Zardoz.), the roles Connery took on continued to teach me new lessons.
When I was a teenager, Connery’s portrayal of Juan Sanchez Villalobos Ramirez in the cult classic Highlander was moving to me. Sure, there’s plenty of cheese in the movie but Connery singing the Kyrie as he rows across the lake still comes to me in unguarded moments. I was also touched by how his character selflessly instructed the young Connor Macleod — even though it was possible they might one day have to face off as adversaries. To me, it was an example of what a mentor should be. And let’s not forget how he tried (unsuccessfully) to protect Connor Macleod’s wife from danger; even though he failed, he did what a man should do.
Then there was his turn as Jim Malone in The Untouchables. Connery’s Malone showed the kind of determination against evil that makes any man proud. He dies in the end, but he dies for a cause believed in. It would be a privilege to die that way, in my opinion.
Fast forward a few years to my studies of classics. There are two of Connery’s roles here that influenced me: his portrayal of William Von Baskerville in the adaptation of Umberto Eco’s The Name of The Rose and his portrayal of Professor Henry Jones, Sr. (Indiana’s father) in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade. Henry von Baskerville was the kind of Renaissance man that I found fascinating (and which helped fuel my studies of the classics), while I loved the cool, logical unflappability of Connery’s portrayal of Indiana Jones’s father and how his study of the classics informed his daily life. His effortless class was the perfect foil to Harrison Ford’s impetuous Indy.
A few years later, I loved Connery’s portrayal of John Connor in the adaptation of Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun. Once again, Connery played a man who lived by his wits rather than his gonads, and I found the character irresistible. This role fueled my interest in learning Japanese and learning more about Japan in general, an interest which I still have to this day.
Then, something unexpected happened: the Queen of England made him a knight. If there’s anyone who tried to show us what a knight was expected to be, it was Sean Connery in the roles I mentioned above. I remember thinking “It’s about time.” when I heard the news. It was fitting that he was knighted at the beginning of the new millennium, a time when we needed to be reminded of the values he portrayed.
I could continue to go on, but you get the idea. Although I never met him, Sean Connery played a huge role in my life as I grew up. There are other roles of his I could mention that touched me, but the ones I’ve mentioned are the ones I keep coming back to as I get older.
Goodbye, Sir Sean. You will be missed. Thanks for leaving us a legacy of films that show us how to live, if we pay attention to the lessons in them.
