Exploring stardom: Sean Connery with Andrew Spicer at Kensington Central Library

Event details

Sean Connery was one of a select few stars who have become an instantly recognisable cultural icon whose image and distinctive voice have penetrated deeply into global popular culture and public consciousness.

Best known as the screen’s ‘first’ James Bond, over a forty year career he played a wide range of memorable roles, including an ageing, over-the-hill Robin Hood in Robin and Marian (1976), or a street-smart Chicago cop in The Untouchables (1987), part of his reinvention as the father-mentor that enabled him to enjoy a second period of superstardom from the mid-1980s onwards.

In this wide-ranging talk, Andrew Spicer will discuss many facets of Connery’s career, including his little known pre-Bond television work, his contribution to the Bond franchise and his twenty year struggle to escape being in ‘Bondage’, and the gradual development of a mythic persona that modulated into an all-encompassing ‘screen legend’ marred by his misogyny. Connery’s acting and the significance of his complex embodiment of national identity, including his public role as an activist campaigning for Scottish independence, will be discussed. In a broader consideration of stardom as a cultural phenomenon, the talk will emphasise the importance of situating stars within their economic, professional and historical contexts as they struggle for creative control over their careers.

Dr Andrew Spicer is Professor of Cultural Production at the University of the West of England Bristol. He has published extensively about the film and television industries. Andrew is currently engaged on a study of Channel 4 and regional production, and an analysis of Bristol’s Natural History filmmaking, the Green Hollywood.