Goodbye, Sean

 

Exactly five years ago today I was en route to Rio de Janeiro to fulfill a dream. Little I knew back then that five years on I would be saying goodbye to the first onscreen 007: Sean Connery, for many the best James Bond ever.

I have to admit I haven't enjoyed the Connery movies as a kid. I had watched GoldenEye and Tomorrow Never Dies, then began to discover the old Bonds: The Man With The Golden Gun, Live And Let Die, The Living Daylights and Moonraker in that order as far as I can remember. Then one day, my grandma rented me Goldfinger. I was bored out of my skull and the effect was much worse with Thunderball. 

Years later, fortunately, my tastes have changed. And now those two are films I particularly appreciate, particularly Thunderball. I guess it was a matter of growing up and undertsanding how the Bond of the 60s worked, how the art of moviemaking was different back then and how the pacing was much slower in comparison to the Pierce Brosnan movies.

But now I'm here to express my love for a true man, an icon. A man whose presence is felt on and off the screen. Someone I also came to admire in movies like Marnie, Wrong Is Right, The Untouchables, The Russia House, The Hunt For Red October and Entrapment, fascinating me with those performances.

While Brosnan is and will always be my favourite Bond, it's impossible to deny that it was Connery the one that set the pace, the one that embodied Ian Fleming's secret agent to perfection, and the one that turned him into a worldwide success. Every actor that succeeded him admitted that they were afraid to utter the immortal words "Bond, James Bond" in front of the camera, knowing they will be forever compared to Sean's introduction to Sylvia Trench at the Le Cercle casino in Mayfair, in 1962's Dr. No.

It's hard to expand on this subject because I'm as shocked as all of you are. He was 90, but the death of James Bond is always unexpected. It happened to me when I got a text message -from someone who isn't anymore in this world and will have tomorrow dedicated- simply read "RIP Roger Moore" amidst my hideous working routine of 2017. Once you pose with a Walther PPK in a tux and the world sees you and believes you are James Bond, you can't stop being James Bond - no matter how much you try to leave that image behind. This is why today, as well as on 23 May 2017, deep inside we feel that the invincible 007 has died.

All I will say, Sean, is that I hope that your second and eternal life is as fantastic as your first life was. And I hear Tropicana hotel is quite comfortable, hope St Peter checks you in there because you really deserve it.

Goodbye, Legend.