As a child of the 1970s, I probably first took notice of the charasmatic leading man with the commanding Scottish brogue in Michael Crichton's 1978 Victorian-era adventure The Great Train Robbery with Donald Sutherland, one of the many matiness my mom and I enjoyed Saturday afternoons after errands.
I can then remember catching 1965's Thunderball on HBO at my dad's one summer afternoon in 1980. Roger Moore had been my only exposure to British superspy James Bond up until that point and I marveled at the fact that there were actually earlier, rather cool adventures with another dashing actor originating the role of 007.
From there Connery popped up in smaller, independently produced films the next few years, providing memorable turns in Time Bandits, Outland, Never Say Never Again, Higlander and In The Name of the Rose.
It wasn't until his Oscar-winning performance as Jimmy Malone in 1987's The Untouchables that Connery became a sought-after Hollywood A-lister at age 57, headlining major studio films like The Presidio, Indiana Jones and Last Crusade, Family Business, The Hunt For Red October, Rising Sun and The Rock. Seriously, the guy made a film a year for the next 13 years until age 70. Just remarkable.
Sean Connery meant different things to many genrations of film fans. To me, in addition to being the best Bond ever, he'll always be remembered as a towering prescence on screen, an actor who gave us some of the best and oft-quoted characters in the history of cinema and made every film he appeared in a little better and infinately more intresting.
