THE RELUCTANT SPY

THE SOFT BUT distinctive Scottish burr, the sharply etched features and world-weary gaze, the smooth charisma that goes hand-in-hand with sudden violence; for many of us, James Bond is Sean Connery. “The thing that is indisputable is that Sean Connery is the reason why this series took off,” says Bond producer Barbara Broccoli. “I don’t think we would be here 58 years later if the leading actor in the first film had not pulled it off in such a way as Connery did.”

The actor, who was 32 when he won the role in the modestly budgeted adaptation of Ian Fleming’s spy thriller (1962), had lived his fair share of life before being catapulted into legend. The son of a lorry driver, he had been a champion body builder, a milkman, a day labourer, a bouncer and an almost-professional footballer. When he became an actor, first in the theatre and later on the screen, his early roles tended to be similarly tactile: he played a boxer, a soldier and the like. His rough-and-readiness