Born Thomas Connery in the Fountainbridge district of Edinburgh, Scotland on August 25, 1930. He grew up impoverished. The son of a truck-driver, he came from a background very different from that of his screen alter-ego. After leaving school, he joined the Royal Navy, but was released due to ulcers. He had many jobs, including laborer, lifeguard and model for art classes. But it was his career as a bodybuilder that led to his representing Scotland in the 1953 Mr. Universe contest, in which he placed 3rd. This in turn led to a job in the chorus with the touring company of South Pacific. He appeared in several stage productions, and made his television debut in 1956. He signed a movie contract with MGM in the late 1950's, which led to a string of film roles.
He was cast as the first cinematic James Bond in Dr. No in 1962. He won the role over Cary Grant, Rex Harrison, Trevor Howard, Patrick McGoohan and Roger Moore, even though Ian Fleming was quoted as saying, "He [Connery] is not exactly what I envisioned" as the fictional British agent . However, the film was a success, which led to 3 more Bond films in the next 5 years.
Tired of being identified only as 007, Connery quit the role after You Only Live Twice, in order to devote more time to his family and to golf. The next Bond film starred George Lazenby, but Connery was persuaded to return as Bond in Diamonds are Forever. With that role, he said he was finished as Bond, but he returned in 1983's Never Say Never Again, which was not an "official" Bond film, as it was produced by Kevin McClory instead of Eon. This film did not help his relations with Bond producer Cubby Broccoli, with whom Connery was feuding.
Connery has played many varied roles in films over the years, working with directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, John Huston and Brian De Palma. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as well as the Golden Globe award in 1987, for his role as the Irish cop Malone in The Untouchables. He was also named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1989. He continues to work steadily, despite suffering from various throat ailments. In part due to this, widespread false rumors of his death circulated in 1993.
Connery is an avid golfer (he learned the game for 1964's Goldfinger) and in 1996 won the Lexus Challenge golf tournament with pro Hale Irwin.
In 1990, Connery received the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1995, he received the Cecil B. DeMille Award for "outstanding contribution to the entertainment field," given by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. In 1997, he was honored with a Gala Tribute by the Film Society of Lincoln Center in New York and in 1998, received a the British Academy Fellowship from BAFTA. He was honored by the Kennedy Center in 1999. He became Sir Sean Connery in July 2000, received a knighthood from the British government, despite being refused the honor 2 years previously for political reasons. He has also received awards in France, including the Legion d'Honeur, and the Commandeur des Arts and des Lettres.
Sean Connery has been married twice. His first wife was actress Diane Cilento. In an ironic twist, their son, actor Jason Connery, portrayed James Bond creator Ian Fleming in the film Spymaker. Sean has been married to French artist Micheline Roquebrune since 1975.
George Lazenby was born on September 5, 1939 in Goulburn, Australia. After serving in the Australian Army, he turned to selling cars for a living, before cashing in on his matinee-idol looks to become a top male model in London, where he had arrived in 1964 (the very same year that 11-year old Pierce Brosnan also arrived there and that Ian Fleming died, coincidentally).
The search for a new actor to portray James Bond had begun in 1968, after Sean Connery had announced he was finished with the role. Lazenby won the role of Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service despite having no prior acting experience save for TV commercials, where he was very popular doing commercials for Big Fry Chocolates. Lazenby was competing against John Richardson, Anthony Rogers, Robert Campbell and Hans de Vries, but Lazenby won the role based on a screen-test fight scene.
There was apparently much conflict on the set of that film, with Lazenby having strained relationships with director Peter Hunt and Bond Girl and former Avengers star Diana Rigg, as well as the producers. Today he admits he took bad advice, when he announced that he would not be doing any more Bond films. Connery was lured back for the next one, and Lazenby's acting career floundered. Ironically, Lazenby's Bond film is considered by many fans to be one of the best in the series.
During the early 1970s, Lazenby worked in Hong Kong, and was going to make a film with Bruce Lee right before the actor's untimely death. A few years ago, after a long layoff during which he raced cars, he returned to acting. He often attends James Bond fan events. His most recent acting appearance has been on the NBC series The Pretender.
Roger George Moore was born in south London on October 14, 1927, the son of a policeman. At 15, he entered art school with the intention of becoming a painter, and later became an apprentice at an animation studio. He delved into acting as an extra in crowd scenes in the mid 1940's. He studied at the Royal Academy of Drama and appeared in some plays in the West End, before being inducted into the British Army. There he served in the rank of 2nd Lieutenant with a Combined Services Entertainment Unit in Germany at the end of World War II. After release from the military, he worked in theatre, radio and television, but also worked as a model and salesman to make ends meet.
Moore came to the U.S. in 1953, where he got a film contract with MGM, playing supporting roles in several films. His first big TV series was Ivanhoe, followed by Maverick. But it was his role as suave and debonair Simon Templar in the TV series The Saint that catapulted him to stardom. His contract with that show prevented him from being chosen for to play James Bond in 1962. But the Bond role returned to Moore in 1972, when Sean Connery again said for a second time that he was finished as Bond, and Moore was hired as his successor for Live and Let Die.
It has been said that Moore is closer to Ian Fleming's original concept of Bond, as a disenfranchised member of the British Establishment, than Connery's more rough-and-tumble Bond. Indeed, the tone of the series changed under Moore's aegis, with the scripts being tailored to his personality and acting ability. Moore made 7 Bond films [more than Connery's 6], retiring as 007 after A View to a Kill in 1985. He was succeeded by Timothy Dalton the following year.
Moore has acted sporadically since that time, and appears most frequently in European gossip magazines and at charitable events. In 1996 he appeared in a television commercial spoofing James Bond for the conglomerate Hansen's, which was pulled off the air due to litigation with the Bond copyright holders. He succeeded the late Audrey Hepburn in the role of Special Representative for the Film Arts for UNICEF, raising funds for children in underdeveloped countries. Roger was the first James Bond to be honored by the British government, receiving a CBE (Commander of the British Empire) award in March 1999.
He has been married 3 times, and has 3 children, Deborah, Geoffrey and Christian.
Timothy Dalton was born in Colwyn Bay, Wales on March 21, 1944. Though Welsh-born, he is of British, Italian, and Irish ancestry. His mother is from the Bronx (New York). He grew up in Manchester, England with a background in show-biz, as both his grandfathers were vaudevillians. After leaving school, he joined the National Youth Theatre for 3 summers, and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art for 2 years. He joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1966, where he played many leading roles.
Dalton's big break came in 1968 with his first film The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn and Antony Hopkins, in which young Dalton played the King of France. Stepping into another actor's shoes became pattern of his career, as he followed Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Orson Welles as Rochester in Jane Eyre, Sean Connery and Roger Moore as James Bond. He has not made a lot of films, dividing his time between the theatre, film and television. His work has run the gamut from Shakespeare to Charlie's Angels.
He won the part of 007 in August 1986 when Pierce Brosnan was unable to get out of his television contract at the last minute. Dalton portrayed Bond twice, in The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill . His portrayal of Bond signaled a return to a grittier, more realistic characterization, away from what Bond had evolved into during the Moore era.
Litigation between MGM and EON delayed the production of a new Bond film for several years after LTK. Meanwhile, rumors continually abounded that Dalton would be replaced. In April 1994 Dalton officially resigned the role, which then went to Brosnan. In 1994, Dalton took on one more role made classic by another actor, following in the footsteps of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in the sequel to Gone With The Wind, the TV mini-series Scarlett, which played to mixed reviews. He most recently has been filming made-for-television movies and mini-series.
A son, Alexander, was born to Timothy and his girlfriend, Ukranian actress/model Oksana Grigorieva (26 years his junior), on August 7, 1997. Dalton is very private, and few other details are known about his personal life.
Pierce Brendan Brosnan was born in Navan, County Meath, Ireland on May 16, 1953. He moved with his family to London in 1964 [apparently on the very same day that Ian Fleming died], where one of the first films he saw was Goldfinger. He became a commercial artist after leaving school, but was introduced to acting by a co-worker who was in a theatre group in the evenings. He left his job for the life of an actor, and entered the Drama Centre in London, where he studied acting for 3 years.
After several years of stage work throughout the UK, he began to work in television and film. His "big break" came with the 1981 ABC-TV mini-series The Manions of America, which led to him getting the title role in the popular long-running detective series Remington Steele, which debuted in 1982.
He moved with his wife and children to Los Angeles, California, where he Steele was filmed. The series was quite successful, running for more than 4 seasons and 92 episodes. It catapulted Pierce to major stardom in the U.S.
Rumors began as early as 1984 that Pierce would replace Roger Moore as the next James Bond. Due to contractural obligations, he was unable to accept the role when it was originally offered to him in 1986. [See "The Road to Bond"]
Pierce remained busy as an actor despite that setback, making TV mini-series, theatrical films and made-for-cable movies, as well as several TV commercials.
On June 8, 1994, Pierce Brosnan was unveiled at a huge press conference in London as the 5th 007. His first Bond film, GoldenEye, grossed over $350 million worldwide, more than any other Bond film to that point. His 2nd Bond film, 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies, grossed more money in the US than GoldenEye. His 3rd Bond film, 1999's The World is Not Enough, and had the largest opening weekend in James Bond and MGM studio history.
Aside from the Bond and Steele roles, Pierce has had a varied and extensive film and TV career, playing roles ranging from archeologists to assassins, from Chris Columbus' comedies to Merchant Ivory's costume dramas. He also starred in director John (Die Hard) McTiernan's first feature film, Nomads. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1984 for his portrayal of Robert Gould Shaw in the BBC/Masterpiece Theatre production of Nancy Astor, and he won the Best Actor in a Theatrical Action Film prize at the 1996 Blockbuster Awards, for his role as James Bond in GoldenEye.
In his spare time, he is an accomplished painter. He has also been very active in cancer fund-raising and supporting environmental causes.
His first wife, Australian actress Cassandra Harris (d. 1991), was a "Bond girl" herself, portraying Countess Lisl in For Your Eyes Only. There is a whale watch memorial dedicated to her in Malibu, California. He has 3 children with Cassandra -- Sean (b. 1983) and stepchildren Charlotte (b. 1971) and Christopher (b. 1972) -- and 2 sons, Dylan Thomas (b. Jan. 1997) and Paris Beckett (born Feb. 2001), with his fiancee, former TV correspondent/soap actress Keely Shaye Smith. Pierce became a grandfather in August 1998 when Charlotte gave birth to a daughter, Isabelle Sophie.