Where is Bond now? Part One: Sean Connery

As a side-effect of my on-going Bond-series viewing (most recently Living Daylights), I began thinking about the post-Bond careers of the different actors. And so a new series of Bond posts was born—
Of all the Bonds to date, Sean Connery has definitely has the best post-Bond career, with more than 40 films to his credit.
Part of that undoubtedly reflects being the original Bond (not counting Barry Nelson in a TV adaptation of Casino Royale)gave him a cachet nobody else has. Plus he seems to be one of those actors who just like to work a lot—like Michael Caine and Boris Karloff, he stayed really busy in the 1960s and 1970s.
And also, he’s been willing to take risks. When he made Zardoz (1974), he was so intrigued by John Boorman post-apocalypse tale that he settled for a percentage of the box office rather than demanding the level of salary he was entitled to, but Boorman probably couldn’t have afforded. He returned to the series to do Diamonds are Forever only in return for Universal financing The Offence (1973) in which he plays a cop working out his sexual issues by beating a suspected pedophile half to death. When he made Marnie (1964) he insisted on Alfred Hitchcock sending him the script where most actors would have jumped at the chance to star in a Hitchcock thriller.
And while a lot of action stars founder in age, Connery managed to transition into aging hero/mentor roles very well. He played an over-the-hill Robin Hood in 1976’s Robin and Marian (though that’s a very downbeat version of the legend), the Green Knight in Sword of the Valiant, the Highlander’s mentor in The Highlander (1986), Elliott Ness’ mentor in The Untouchables (1987), Indiana Jones’ father, and King Arthur in the execrable First Knight (1995), an aging Bond in Never Say Never Again and an aging Allan Quatermain in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003).
It’s easily the best CV of any of the Bonds. I’ll get to the others eventually, but not this week—posting may be rather spotty.