(Credits: Far Out / Boy Scouts of America / Nationaal Archief)
Picture the scene: James Bond and Walt Disney go to the races in Ireland. Sounds a bit surreal, proper? Well, it’s precisely what occurred in 1959 when Sean Connery starred in Darby O’Gill and the Little People for Walt Disney Productions – and Walt himself took a shine to the ruggedly good-looking younger Scot.
Throughout the Nineteen Fifties, Connery plied his commerce in British theatre and tv. He had bit components in musicals and now-forgotten TV exhibits like Sailor of Fortune and Dixon of Dock Green. He additionally reportedly had an encounter with notorious US gangster Johnny Stompanato on the set of the movie Another Time, Another Place. The tall, strapping Connery allegedly knocked the prison on his bottom after he pulled a gun on his girlfriend – and Connery’s co-star – Lana Turner.
After 5 years within the theatre, Connery graduated from punching out gangsters to punching out pugilists within the dwell BBC Television manufacturing of Requiem for a Heavyweight. His efficiency as boxer ‘Mountain’ McLintock – a job that originated on US TV by Jack Palance – caught the eye of Hollywood, and shortly he was signed up for a contract with Fox.
Much to Connery’s chagrin, although, he didn’t wind up doing a lot of something with Fox, and the studio merely loaned him out to Disney to make Darby O’Gill in 1959. Amusingly, Connery claims that when he turned up on the Disney studio in Burbank, California, in his blue Ford Impala convertible, the safety guards didn’t need to let him in as a result of that they had no thought who he was. Eventually, although, he was granted entry, and on his first day of capturing, he met head honcho Disney himself.
Disney reportedly gave Connery a tour of the studio, and so they acquired on like a home on fireplace. Then, when the film was launched in Ireland, he and his main man visited the races collectively for a time out. In 1996, whereas selling The Rock – which was produced by Walt Disney Studios and distributed by subsidiary Buena Vista – Connery was requested in regards to the animation legend. He mentioned, “I found him absolutely charming”, and added that, again in these days, Disney was “a very harmonious studio”.
One of Connery’s funnier recollections, although, was of an space of the studio that may possible be branded problematic right now. He chuckled: “When I went there – it must be 38 years ago, now – there was a place called ‘The Nunnery,’ where there were women making all the pen drawings, and no men were allowed in there”. Other Disney workers have vouched for Connery’s declare through the years, together with animator Jack Kinney, who intimated that the female and male artists have been separated as a result of it was frowned upon to “dip your pen in the company ink”.
Disney reportedly took such a liking to Connery that he adopted his profession intently over the subsequent seven years till his demise in 1966. It will need to have amused him to see Connery land the function that may outline his profession. Undoubtedly, Disney would have loved watching the 4 iconic Bond movies Connery starred in between 1962 and 1965: Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, and Thunderball.
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