Author Christopher Bray has said that Scottish actor Sean Connery was the “best actor that Bond ever had”.
The legendary actor, who shot to fame in the movies based on Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels, turned 80-years-old on August 25.
And Bray - who releases the biography The Measure of a Man, based on the actor’s life over the last 50 years on, on September 2 this year – paid huge tribute to him, claiming that Sean’s portrayal of 007 was the reason the movies turned into a massive hit.
“He is far and away the best actor that Bond ever had. Remember, he created the role. If you read the Ian Fleming novels, Bond doesn’t really exist. If fact Fleming himself called him a ‘cardboard booby’ on which he just hung his own peculiar fantasies. It was up to Connery to flesh that out,” Bray explained.
He added: “I think that what he did most of all is add what is absolutely missing from the Fleming novels - a sense of humour. He (Connery) can’t say anything without mocking Bond at the same.
“I think if they’d played it straight like the Bond of the Felming novels, I don’t think they’d have had the movies that they had, they wouldn’t have had the success that they’ve had. Also I don’t think they’d have had it if it had been anyone other than Sean.”
Following his time as James Bond, Connery went on to appear in a number of other movie roles, most of them much less successful. He then decided to quit acting, and recently said that he doesn’t ever think he’ll step in on stage or in front of the camera again – something which Bray believes is a big mistake.
“I think he was unwise to jack the career in five or six years ago, I think he could have gone on, and could have been going on for the past ten or 12 years as one of the cinema’s great old men,” Bray said.
“But that would involve a move into character parts rather than the big hero. And in his last picture six or seven hears ago, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – mega flop by the way – he still insisted on being the big hero. The producer famously said ‘he wants a bigger explosion in every film this guy’, and he wasn’t joking.”
Bray also discussed Sean's rise to fame from humble beginnings, how he thinks he is coping with turning 80, and what he makes of the patriotic Scot failing to live in his home country.
A LICENCE TO KILL:
