Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 21, 1992 TAG: 9202210277
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANA KENNEDY ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
SEAN CONNERY: THE FATHER OF MANLY MEN
He's still tall, dark and handsome. Unlike Samson, his presence is just as potent without a full head of hair. When he walks over to pour himself a cup of steaming tea, he ignores the dainty spoon nestled in the saucer. He plunges a large hand into the cup, squeezes the teabag with fingers, tosses it aside and takes a big gulp.The name? Connery. Sean Connery.
At 62, Connery is beginning his fourth decade as an actor with the vigor and commercial appeal of a man half his age. In his latest film, the adventure-drama "Medicine Man," he portrays an eccentric biochemist who has discovered a cure for cancer in the Amazon rain forest. His love interest, Lorraine Bracco, is young enough to be his daughter. Don't worry. Connery never comes across as paternal.
His career has spanned more than 30 years of serious theater and films, but Connery has grown accustomed to the visceral reaction he evokes as one of the screen's most enduring sex symbols.
When People magazine called two years ago to get his response to the news that he had been anointed "The Sexiest Man Alive," Connery was not impressed.
"I told them there are very few who are dead," he said.
Connery in person is more complex than the debonair, tongue-in-cheek rogue he made famous - superspy James Bond. But like Bond, he knows what he wants and he gets it.
For one, don't make the mistake of ordering him a martini, shaken not stirred. "I don't drink martinis," Connery barks. "Give me a vodka with a lime tonic. Or, give me a Scotch."
Though he may be as quick-witted as Bond, Connery is more serious and businesslike. From the time he dropped out of school at 13, Connery has had to make his own way - without many compromises.
"All the choices I've made were mine, both the wrong ones and the right ones," says Connery, who started a scholarship fund in Scotland after he cut a deal to do "Diamonds Are Forever" for $1 million, tax free.
His way has served him well. In addition to seven wildly successful Bond films, Connery has starred in such movies as "Marnie," "Murder on the Orient Express," "The Wind and the Lion," "A Bridge Too Far" and "The Hunt for Red October." He won an Academy Award for best supporting actor for "The Untouchables" in 1987.
In between films, he lives like Dr. No in retirement, in an elegant villa in Marbella, Spain, with his second wife.
But Connery is not one to lapse into sentimentality. He keeps his eye on the bottom line.
"I have very little memory of the past," Connery says pleasantly, "which is strange for someone who's in litigation a lot."
Litigation? Connery smiles evenly again. His black Scottish eyebrows, which match his charcoal suit and big black shoes, arch slightly. Leaning back in his chair, he exudes the calm confidence of a big, powerful man who's never worried too much about what others think of him.
Connery explains. Ever since he began making movies, he has hired an auditor to check the books and make sure he was getting all money due him.
"I've been doing it since the very beginning," he says. "It used to be a policy to blackball people who were difficult in that way."
Not that it stopped Connery. He first faced off against Jack Warner at Warner Bros. over a film Connery made with Joanne Woodward, "A Fine Madness." The film ran over budget, and Connery learned that Warner wasn't planning to pay him for a week of overtime.
"My agent told me to drop it, forget it," he recalls.
He didn't. Connery sued Warner, and the case was settled out of court. Connery was paid what he was owed, with interest.
"Not too long after that I was in France, and a friend invited me to a party one night,' he says. "It turned out it was Jack Warner's birthday party. My friend opened the door, and Warner was standing there. He asked us if we knew each other. Warner said, `Yeah, the sonofabitch sued me for $50,000.' But Warner didn't stay mad. It was just business to him."
It apparently has been just business for Connery as well, ever since he made his debut in a stage production of "South Pacific" in 1951.
Most people think Arnold Schwarzenegger was the first to parlay a bodybuilding career into movie fame. But Connery, who left Scotland to pursue bodybuilding in London, is the true father of all manly men. He missed out on being named Mr. Universe but got the part in "South Pacific" partly because of his physique.
But Connery says he was no where near the level of today's bodybuilders - or even some of his fellow contestants.
"When I stood next to some of them at Mr. Universe, I looked like a girl," he says.
A girl? If that statement sounds sexist, well, Connery has heard that charge before. Every since Connery talked about hitting women on a Barbara Walters TV special several years ago, he's been stamped as a unrepentant cave man.
Not true, says Connery. He insists the statements he made to Walters were taken out of context.
"What I had said was that you could do worse things to a woman," he says. "You could take their identity away and reduce the person to nothing. Barbara was looking for something, and she edited it in such a way that I came out like a wife beater, which I'm not."
Connery says he meant to explain his belief that couples sometimes get into physical confrontations that are more complicated than simply victim and victimizer. When emotions run high, he said, anything can happen.
"I was in Coventry once, and I saw a man hitting a woman across the street from me," Connery says. "I ran over and pulled him off. There was no doubt that if he had continued, she'd be in serious trouble. But then she hauled off and hit me!"
Has a woman he was involved with ever hit him? Connery nods.
"And when they hit you, you're aware that if you do anything in response, you can do real harm," he says. "But it's hard to control yourself."
But Connery was able to control himself when he unexpectedly ran into Walters a few days after the special aired.
"She was a little embarrassed," says Connery, pausing for a beat and with a sly smile worthy of James Bond, "but not for long."
NOW SHOWING: Sean Connery stars in "Medicine Man," at Valley View Mall 6 and Salem Valley 8.