Sean Connery

1951–1959: Career beginnings

Seeking to supplement his income, Connery helped out backstage at the King's Theatre in late 1951.^[29] During a bodybuilding competition held in London in 1953, one of the competitors mentioned that auditions were being held for a production of South Pacific,^[29] and Connery landed a small part as one of the Seabees chorus boys. By the time the production reached Edinburgh, he had been given the part of Marine Cpl. Hamilton Steeves and was understudying two of the juvenile leads, and his salary was raised from £12 to £14–10s a week.^[35] The production returned the following year, out of popular demand, and Connery was promoted to the featured role of Lieutenant Buzz Adams, which Larry Hagman had portrayed in the West End.^[35]


While in Edinburgh, Connery was targeted by the Valdor gang, one of the most violent in the city. He was first approached by them in a billiard hall where he prevented them from stealing his jacket and was later followed by six gang members to a 15-foot-high (4.6 m) balcony at the Palais de Danse.^[36] There, Connery singlehandedly launched an attack against the gang members, grabbing one by the throat and another by the biceps and cracking their heads together. From then on, he was treated with great respect by the gang and gained a reputation as a "hard man".^[37]


Connery first met Michael Caine at a party during the production of South Pacific in 1954, and the two later became close friends.^[35] During this production at the Opera House, Manchester, over the Christmas period of 1954, Connery developed a serious interest in the theatre through American actor Robert Henderson, who lent him copies of the Ibsen works Hedda Gabler, The Wild Duck, and When We Dead Awaken, and later listed works by the likes of Proust, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Bernard Shaw, Joyce, and Shakespeare for him to digest.^[38] Henderson urged him to take elocution lessons and got him parts at the Maida Vale Theatre in London. He had already begun a film career, having been an extra in Herbert Wilcox's 1954 musical Lilacs in the Spring alongside Errol Flynn and Anna Neagle.^[39]


Although Connery had secured several roles as an extra, he was struggling to make ends meet and was forced to accept a part-time job as a babysitter for journalist Peter Noble and his actress wife Marianne, which earned him 10 shillings a night.^[39] He met Hollywood actress Shelley Winters one night at Noble's house, who described Connery as "one of the tallest and most charming and masculine Scotsmen" she had ever seen, and later spent many evenings with the Connery brothers drinking beer.^[39] Around this time, Connery was residing at TV presenter Llew Gardner's house. Henderson landed Connery a role in a £6 a week Q Theatre production of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, during which he met and became friends with fellow Scot Ian Bannen.^[40] This role was followed by Point of Departure and A Witch in Time at Kew, a role as Pentheus opposite Yvonne Mitchell in The Bacchae at the Oxford Playhouse, and a role opposite Jill Bennett in Eugene O'Neill's play Anna Christie.^[40]


During his time at the Oxford Theatre, Connery won a brief part as a boxer in the TV series The Square Ring, before being spotted by Canadian director Alvin Rakoff, who gave him multiple roles in The Condemned, shot on location in Dover in Kent. In 1956, Connery appeared in the theatrical production of Epitaph, and played a minor role as a hoodlum in the "Ladies of the Manor" episode of the BBC Television police series Dixon of Dock Green.^[40] This was followed by small television parts in Sailor of Fortune and The Jack Benny Program (in a special episode filmed in Europe).^[40]