After catapulting to fame as the first ever James Bond, Sir Sean Connery had a glamorous and varied Hollywood career spanning 50 years which secured him prestigious awards including an Oscar and two Baftas.
Following Sir Sean’s death aged 90, the PA news agency takes a look back at his silver screen highlights.
After his first major appearance in 1957 British gangster film No Road Back, the former milkman became a Hollywood star as the first James Bond in 1962 film Dr No.
Sir Sean played Bond in seven films – Dr No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963), Goldfinger (1964), Thunderball (1965), You Only Live Twice (1967), Diamonds Are Forever (1971) and Never Say Never Again (1983).
Famous for his dry one-liners and action-packed scenes, he set the scene for the womanising protagonist for decades to come.
His top Bond moments include the first “The name’s Bond, James Bond” line during a poker scene in Dr No, the Goldfinger scene where he is captured and threatened with a laser cutter after his Aston Martin crashes into a concrete wall, and the Orient Express brawl in From Russia With Love.
The actor took a break from Bond after You Only Live Twice, which fulfilled his original contract, and George Lazenby stepped in to star in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service in 1969.
However, he returned as 007 in Diamonds Are Forever in 1971 before handing over the reins to Roger Moore.
He did return to 007 one last time, in 1993 at the age of 52, in the unofficial Bond film Never Say Never Again.
In August 2020 he was voted the best ever Bond, seeing off competition from stars including Daniel Craig, Roger Moore and Pierce Brosnan in the poll for RadioTimes.com.
Most of his subsequent successes were as part of ensemble casts, in films such as The Man Who Would Be King, Murder On The Orient Express and A Bridge Too Far.
In the 1980s a slipping career was revived with Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987), with his role as a tough gangbusting Irish policeman who mentors Kevin Costner’s Eliot Ness winning him an Academy Award for best supporting actor.
In 1988 he won his first British Academy Film Awards (Bafta) for his role as a Franciscan friar in European mystery drama The Name of The Rose, and a decade later was recognised as one of the silver screen greats by a Bafta Fellowship Award for lifetime achievement.
Sir Sean also starred as the father of the leading role in Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade in 1989, and received a Bafta nomination for best supporting actor.
The 1990s brought performances in The Hunt For Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996) and Entrapment, where he played the villain as art thief in 1999 love story/thriller with Catherine Zeta-Jones, which Sir Sean also produced.
In 2006, Sir Sean received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award, when he confirmed his retirement from acting.
