Published in Scotland Magazine Issue 36 on 14/12/2007.

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Sean Connery

Sean Connery is one of the world's best loved stars, and as Dominic Roskrow reports, his is a true rags to riches story.

The moment Sean Connery joined the band of true screen legends came in the last frames of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In one of Hollywood’s best cameos he stole the film in a 90 second appearance as King Richard The Lionheart, one of England’s greatest kings.

Connery wore the part of king with aplomb, and if you think the former James Bond handled gritty and rough parts just as well and did an outstanding job as an Irish policeman in another Costner-Connery collaboration, The Untouchables, then it’s not really surprising. For he is the product of a mixed background that covers Lowlands, Highlands and islands and Ireland itself.

He was born Thomas Connery on 25th August 1930 in Edinburgh. His parents, Joseph Connery and Euphemia McLean, lived in Fountainbridge, an area at that time dominated by breweries and rubber works.

Joseph Connery himself worked in the rubber works and his wife, whom he had married at Tynecastle, had been employed in a laundry.

Nothing in this background suggested that the son would have an illustrative career that would take him from milkman with St.

Cuthbert’s Co-operative Society to starring in countless Hollywood blockbusters and being knighted by the Queen.

The Connery family was of Irish origin.

Joseph Connery was the illegitimate son of a pedlar, Thomas, of whom little is known.

This earlier Thomas was neither born nor married in Scotland, although on his death in Edinburgh in 1949 he was described as having been the 70 year old widower.....

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By Dominic Roskrow

Section : Scotland Genealogy

Page number : 63