Sean Connery RIP
Although he had expressed unacceptably misogynist views in a number of interviews, the passing of Sean Connery is a moment for sadness, and for admiration of an astonishing career. We are particularly fond of his appearance as Hotspur in the BBC’s 1960 series of Shakespeare’s History plays, An Age of Kings, which we are delighted to have released on DVD. Here he is in episode 3 (and in the still above):
Sean Connery’s first appearance on BBC Television appears to be an episode of Dixon of Dock Green shown on 9 June 1956, when the actor was 25 years old. He took the lead in several notable BBC dramas, including starring as ‘Mountain’ McClintock in Rod Serling’s Requiem for a Heavyweight (31 March 1957), which no longer exists, and in Jean Anouilh’s Colombe (17 January 1960), opposite Dorothy Tutin, a recording of which we have, and which is delightful.
Just before An Age of Kings, he took the part of Bartley in a production for schools television of J.M. Synge’s Riders to the Sea (16 February 1960). And in 1961 he appeared as Alexander the Great in Terence Rattigan’s oddball Adventure Story (12 June 1961) and as Vronsky to Claire Bloom’s Anna Karenina in Rudolph Cartier’s distinguished adaptation (3 November 1961). The rest, as it were, is Bond, James Bond (Dr No premiered in London on 5 October 1962) — and history.
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