A Working-Class Spy

Nicholas Shakespeare’s excellent new biography Ian Fleming: The Complete Man investigates the author who created James Bond — but also recounts the casting of Sean Connery in the role.

Shakespeare notes: “Connery’s background – naval boxer, lifeguard, art class model – was a marketable asset. He was brought up in a Scottish slum, like Ian’s grandfather. His father was a truck driver, his mother a cleaning lady.”

He adds: “Among choice biographical details: He had delivered milk to Bond’s second school Fettes, and acted at the Oxford Playhouse as an aristocratic diplomat in Pirandello’s Naked.

Above, that’s Fleming, left, with Connery, right, on the set of the first Bond movie, 1962’s Dr. No.