GREAT SCOT: Sean Connery and
wife, 75th Annual Academy Awards, 2003 Alec Baldwin, his co-star in "The Hunt for Red October," called Connery "the most physically
beautiful man to stand in front of a camera." Take a gander at snapshots of
Connery at 23, nearly nude art model and
... more cocksure Mr. Universe contestant,
fronting the kind of easy, arrogant physicality few contemporary actors can
muster. Or consider his testosterone-oozing Zed in "Zardoz," provocatively decked out in thigh-high boots, skimpy
loincloth, bandoliers across his chest ... and little else! Even as ultrasuave
James Bond, there was something hard and dangerous, a little savage, behind
Connery's silkily seductive style. It's Clark Gable this great Scot always
recalled; dark-browed, quick with a sensualist's smile, up for every kind of
cinematic roguery. A big man at home in any period or costume, Connery's a
natural at playing kings: Richard the Lion-Hearted, Arthur, Agamemnon, a second
Alexander the Great. The actor the camera has always loved once said he'd "like
to be remembered as an old man with a good face -- like Picasso or Hemingway."
At 73, at the 75th Academy Awards, the old man with a very good face might have
stepped out of a time machine, laird of some ancient Scottish castle,
resplendent in lace and velvet and silver buttons. (Frank
Trapper/Corbis)Close