Bond, James Bond

 I was shaken and stirred to hear of the passing of screen legend Sean Connery:

Sean Connery, the irascible Scot from the slums of Edinburgh who found international fame as Hollywood’s original James Bond, dismayed his fans by walking away from the Bond franchise and went on to have a long and fruitful career as a respected actor and an always bankable star, has died in Nassau, the Bahamas. He was 90.

His death, in his sleep either late Friday or early Saturday, was confirmed by his family.

“Bond, James Bond” was the character’s familiar self-introduction, and to legions of fans who have watched a parade of actors play the role — otherwise known as Agent 007 on Her Majesty’s Secret Service — none uttered the words or played the part as magnetically or as indelibly as Mr. Connery.

Irascible?   I'm not saying there isn't support for that adjective, it just seems odd as the fourth word in his obituary, given that it takes nineteen words to find "Bond."  That Pravda obit is nonetheless worthwhile, if only for the reminder of his significant filmography above and beyond the world's most famous secret agent.

On the course yesterday, one of my playing partners called Connery his favorite "Bond".  I felt compelled to correct him, to the effect that the Scot wasn't just the best or favorite Bond, but rather that he simply was James Bond.  From George Lazenby to Daniel Craig, those that came later were playing Sean Connery as much as they were playing Bond, and the toungue-in-cheek charm of the franchise quickly avaporated.

That reference to the slums of Edinburgh (Edinburgh is so picture-postcard pretty that it's quite the shock to think of it as having slums unless, of course, they mean Glasgow), is no joke:

He was born Thomas Sean Connery on Aug. 25, 1930, and his crib was the bottom drawer of a

With Michael Caine in The Man Who Would Be King.

dresser in a cold-water flat next door to a brewery. The two toilets in the hall were shared with three other families. His father, Joe, earned two pounds a week in a rubber factory. His mother, Effie, occasionally got work as a cleaning woman.

At the age of 9, Thomas found an early-morning job delivering milk in a horse cart for four hours before he went to school. His brother, Neil, had been born in December 1938, and the usual meals of porridge and potatoes had to be stretched four ways. Once a week, if the family had a sixpence to spare, Thomas would walk to the public baths and swim “just to get clean.”

Like the months that 12-year-old Charles Dickens spent working in a factory that made shoe blacking, Mr. Connery’s deprived childhood informed the rest of his life. When he was 63, he told an interviewer that a bath was still “something special.”

Of course, it's Connery's connection to the game of golf that warrants our attention here, especially because when James Bond became a golfer, he became your humble blogger's kind of golfer:

I never had a hankering to play golf, despite growing up in Scotland just down the road from Bruntsfield Links, which is one of the oldest golf courses in the world. It wasn't until I was taught

enough golf to look as though I could outwit the accomplished golfer Gert Frobe in Goldfinger that I got the bug. I began to take lessons on a course near the Pinewood film studios, and was immediately hooked on the game. Soon it would nearly take over my life. I began to see golf as a metaphor for living, for in golf you are basically on your own, competing against yourself and always trying to do better. If you cheat, you will be the loser, because you are cheating yourself. When Ian Fleming portrayed Auric Goldfinger as a smooth cheater, James Bond had no regrets when he switched his golf balls, since to be cheated is the just reward of the cheater.

During the filming of Goldfinger, I learned the essential challenge of links golf in Royal Dornoch in the northeast Highlands. Ever since then I have been drawn to links golf and its enduring challenges, and I've learnt to play a variety of shots under constantly changing conditions. It's quite naked golf. There aren't many trees, or other features, to aid your alignment. Much is left to the imagination and to picturing the shot. Then there's the wind, always a factor on a links course. You're required to play run-up shots and to work the ball this way and that.

 Those are his own words, from a piece he wrote for Golf Today titled, Bond Golf and Me.

And, apparently, stayed our kind of player:

A passionate golfer — he discovered the game about the same time he discovered James Bond — he was the only player at the Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles who carried his own bag.

Back to Goldfinger, as this National Club Golfer explains the actor's reaction to our game:

As part of the narrative, Connery’s Bond would be required to do battle on the golf course with the legendary villain Auric Goldfinger, who was himself portrayed by the accomplished golfer

and actor Gert Fröbe.

This was integral to the film’s plot, and as a result Connery was required to undertake intensive levels at a course near the Pinewood Film Studios. Here, the Scot became suddenly and completely hooked on the game, laying the foundation for a passion that has remained with Connery throughout the remainder of his life.

Connery’s perspective on golf was also formulated during this time, as he became fascinated with its insular nature and the need for players to rely solely on themselves. This requires a mindset that drives players to compete tenaciously with themselves, as they strive to improve their game and overcome the challenge posed by others.

Connery also revelled in the part of the scene where Goldfinger is revealed to be a smooth and seasoned cheat, with Bond himself responding by seamlessly switching golf balls. Neither Connery or Bond share any regrets regarding this move, with the actor claiming that “to be cheated is the just reward of the cheater”.

And here is that great scene:

A couple of my typically wry reactions to watching this scene again after the passage of many years.  First, how funny is it that in introducing Oddjob as his incompetent looper, Goldfinger notes that golf is not yet the national sport of Korea.... Well, it is now.

I was similarly struck by Bond's reference to the match being "all-square."  Please, James, the USGA and R&A, in their infinite wisdom, have determined that "all-square" is too complex and archaic a term for millennials and general movie audiences, so the scene needs to be dubbed to conform to the updated Newspeak dictionary.   Of course there's no shortage of archaic terms in that clip, none more so than "Slazenger."

Personally, my memories of Connery (excluding 007, of course), are two supporting roles in which he absolutely steals the show.  First, opposite Kevin Costner:

Mr. Connery won a best-actor award from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts for “The Name of the Rose” (1986), based on the Umberto Eco novel, in which he played a crime-solving medieval monk, and the Academy Award as best supporting actor for his performance as an honest cop on the corrupt Chicago police force in “The Untouchables” (1987). Mr. Connery taught himself to understand that character — Jim Malone, a cynical, streetwise police officer whose only goal is to be alive at the end of his shift — by noting the other characters’ attitudes toward him.

If they send one of yours to the hospital, send one of theirs to the morgue.  This one as well:

He relished his role as Harrison Ford’s eccentric father in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989) — even though Mr. Ford was only 12 years younger than he was.

That was casting magic.

Here's the fitting conclusion to that NYT obit:

In addition to his wife and his son Jason, his survivors include a stepson, Stephane, and his brother.

On July 5, 2000, Mr. Connery was knighted at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh by Queen Elizabeth II. It was a knighthood that had been vetoed for two years by officials angry at his outspoken support for the Scottish National Party and his active role in the passage of a referendum that created the first Scottish Parliament in 300 years.

The palace is less than a mile from the tenement in Fountainbridge where Mr. Connery grew up. He never removed the “Scotland Forever” tattoo that he placed on his arm when he was 18. Nor was he ever tempted to deny his identity or turn himself into an English gentleman. As he told The Times in 1987, “My strength as an actor, I think, is that I’ve stayed close to the core of myself.”

In further golf linkage, Jason Connery directed the film adaptation of Tommy's Honour.

RIP.