Alexander the Great

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)