Yesterday as I was going about my day there was a song stuck in my head, it just so happened to be a piece of John Williams’ score for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade– a score which is not only one of my favorites individually, but that belongs to one of my favorite movies of all time.
For my birthday this year, among the books and Dr. Pepper, I also asked for a poster. This one (below) that arrived in the mail on Tuesday.
To say that I’m a fan of Sean Connery is an understatement. Though not a huge fan of the Bond franchise as a whole, Connery’s 7-term take on the character is iconic to say the least.
However, Bond is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also his role as King Richard the Lionheart, or Juan Sanchez Villa-Lobos Ramirez, or King Agamemnon, or his Oscar winning performance as Jim Malone, or opposite Nick Cage as John Patrick Mason, or my personal favorite, opposite Harrison Ford as Henry Jones Sr.
Sean Connery is an actor of such iconic levels that there are few who will ever reach his kind of legacy, let alone eclipse it. But for me, Sean Connery is much more personal.
I never had the pleasure of meeting Sir Sean, but there’s a part of me that feels like I had a personal relationship with him.
Story Time
When I was in 7th Grade, I decided to join drama. My first role was in a one act play called The Bathroom Door. The play is almost a spoof of Murder On the Orient Express with a cadre of men and women speculating on why the bathroom door remains locked and who might be dead inside.
Wisdom beyond my years that I’ve always had, I was cast as the Old Man for this production. I knew that my role needed a schtick, something to really cement my status of old age, despite still being pre-pubescent and sounding like a shrill young lad. Having been introduced to the Indiana Jones films a few years earlier, I knew exactly who I needed to emulate.
And thus was born my Sean Connery impression. Having been 12, it can’t have been very good, but it stuck. More importantly, it started something. On that stage, with that voice, I was the funny one. I was the entertaining one, and I won best actor at the regional theater competition for it. If I didn’t have a need to be praised before, I did then.
My whole life, I’d always been “the smart kid”, but in those moments, thanks to Sir Sean and his iconic sound, I shed that label and took on a new one.
I’ve always loved doing voices (ask me about my Don Corleone or my Shaggy sometime), and it all started with Sir Sean.
The Spark
I fell in love with Drama, and did it all throughout Middle School, and even though I fell out of it in High School, I’ve since returned to it in a different form, writing and filming. As I’ve re-engaged with and committed to this in my collegiate career, I’ve scratched that same creative itch that putting on a bathrobe and imitating a knight of the British Empire did all those years ago.
Sean Connery, though he had little to do with it personally, was the spark that got me to rethink who I was and what I enjoyed. And so hearing the news that he had passed this morning feels akin to losing a piece of myself, even if it might seem like a small and rather disconnected one.
So as I prepare to graduate and pursue the resulting flames, I’ll never forget that spark that got the fire burning. The spark may now be gone, but the fire it started shall not for a long time begin to dwindle.
Collin Willis 