James Bond actor Sir Sean Connery has died aged 90.
Connery was the first actor to portray the character James Bond in film, starring in seven Bond films.
He featured in every film from Dr. No to You Only Live Twice, plus Diamonds Are Forever and Never Say Never Again, between 1962 and 1983.
In 1988, Connery won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in The Untouchables.
His films also include Marnie (1964), Murder on the Orient Express (1974), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), The Name of the Rose (1986), Highlander (1986), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Dragonheart (1996), The Rock (1996), and Finding Forrester (2000).
Connery has been polled in The Sunday Herald as “The Greatest Living Scot” and in a EuroMillions survey as “Scotland’s Greatest Living National Treasure”.
He received a lifetime achievement award in the US with a Kennedy Center Honor in 1999.
Connery was knighted in the 2000 New Year Honours for services to film drama.
When Connery received the American Film Institute’s Lifetime Achievement Award on 8 June 2006, he confirmed his retirement from acting. On 7 June 2007, he denied rumours that he would appear in the fourth Indiana Jones film, stating that “retirement is just too much damned fun”.
He was offered the role of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings series but declined it, claiming he didn’t understand the script.
Connery’s disillusionment with the “idiots now making films in Hollywood” was cited as a reason for his eventual decision to retire from film-making.
Connery also turned down the opportunity to appear as the Architect in The Matrix trilogy for similar reasons.
