{"id":8254,"date":"2015-08-25T15:39:30","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T15:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8254"},"modified":"2015-12-11T17:02:01","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T17:02:01","slug":"when-sean-connery-offered-me-a-scotch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/?p=8254","title":{"rendered":"When Sean Connery offered me a Scotch …"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"connery<\/a><\/p>\n

By Ray Bennett<\/p>\n

LONDON \u2013\u00a0Sean Connery nudged my arm as a waiter hovered with a tray of champagne, and said, \u201cThey have Scotch, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n

We were on the terrace on Elton John\u2019s house on the cornish that overlooks Nice in the South of France. The pop star\u2019s film company, Rocket Pictures, was hosting a fancy spread for a mix of top-liners and mid-level film people during the Festival de Cannes in 1999. A handful of trade reporters was invited to, and I was one of them.<\/p>\n

Connery was the first familiar face I spotted when I emerged from the elegant home onto the terrace with its fabulous view of the C\u00f4te d\u2019Azur, so I joined him and two men I did not recognise.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you see the goals?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe golf?\u201d the Scotsman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, the goals.\u201d<\/p>\n

I explained that I had just watched an English football game in which Manchester United had beaten Tottenham Hotspur to win the Premier League.<\/p>\n

He was all ears. When the other two men strolled off, I offered my hand and introduced myself. The actor has an infamous dislike of the press so I decided immediately to reveal that I worked for the editorial department of The Hollywood Reporter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey asked us not to write about this event,\u201d I said, \u201cbut I thought you would like to be aware that\u2019s who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connery gave me that James Bond stare and took my hand. \u201cThere are not many who would have said that,\u201d he said. \u201cWhere are you from?\u201d<\/p>\n

We chatted for a while as the crowd grew larger with more famous faces including Catherine Zeta Jones, who was there with Connery for \u201cEntrapment\u201d.<\/p>\n

After he alerted me to the Scotch, Connery and I shared when the whisky arrived and he took my arm to introduce me to a newcomer: \u201cRay, have you met Pedro Almodovar?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spanish filmmaker, who was there with \u201cAll About My Mother\u201d, joined us in a conversation about Terry Gilliam\u2019s ambitions to make a film of \u201cDon Quixote\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should make it,\u201d Connery told Almodovar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019ll play Don Quixote,\u201d the filmmaker said. \u201cBut I heard there was a project with you in the works. With Robin Williams as Sancho Panza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connery looked fit to burst. \u201cNo! No! No!\u201d he exclaimed.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t meet the star, who turns 85 today, again until 2010 during the Edinburgh Film Festival when he unveiled a plaque on the site of his Fountainbridge home to mark his 80th birthday.<\/p>\n

Like the place I grew up in Ashford, Kent, his building was demolished years ago. Like me, though, he grew up in circumstances in which a bath was a weekly event.<\/p>\n

When I was very young, our bathtub was in the kitchen and we had to fill it with water heated on an old-fashioned Edwardian coal-fired copper ladle by ladle. Connery\u2019s family did much the same. He had a younger brother, so he was the third one into the bathwater. I had an older brother, so I came last.<\/p>\n

Connery said that when he became successful and travelled the world, whenever he checked into a luxury hotel, the first thing he did was take a luxurious bath. From the first time I went on a movie junket to New York, that\u2019s been my habit too.<\/p>\n

On my first trip to Cannes in January 1999 for the MIDEM music event, I checked into the Hotel Martinez at the top of La Croisette, poured a bubble bath, opened a split of champagne, and sank into the suds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ray Bennett LONDON \u2013\u00a0Sean Connery nudged my arm as a waiter hovered with a tray of champagne, and said, \u201cThey have Scotch, you know.\u201d We were on the terrace on Elton John\u2019s house on the cornish that overlooks Nice … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[580,5,6,1263,2257],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8254","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-festival-de-cannes","category-film","category-interviews","category-memory-lane","category-recalling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8254"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8300,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8254\/revisions\/8300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8254"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8254"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thecliffedge.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8254"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}