Meg Henderson launches attack on Sir Sean Connery after he ditches her as autobiography shadow writer

Even a man of Sean Connery’s robust sense of self-worth might be forgiven for feeling a little battered this week. “A monumental ego, towering rages — and his word was not his Bond,” raged the headline in the Daily Mail, as the writer Meg Henderson launched a ferocious assault on the honour of her “friend” - reports The Times (UK).

Her beef is that Big Sean verbally agreed to let her ghost-write his autobiography before welshing on the deal. It is not enough that Connery inspires sympathy, I find, but reading Henderson’s tirade of bile laced with saccharine, you would need to be Blofeld himself not to feel pity for the former 007.

Who knows how good a “friend” of Connery’s Henderson was? She writes about their “relationship” with a Pooterish self-regard that verges on the comic. Apparently, “like most actors, Sean isn’t as confident as he seems. He once told me that, as a child, he had taught himself to read, as I had. I told him I discovered that learning to read was about cracking a code, but that it takes a certain degree of intelligence.” How grateful and enlightened he must be to have that cleared up: one wouldn’t want a thicko to write one’s autobiography.

Things get worse. When it comes to the famous Connery sex appeal, Henderson ingeniously manages to feign indifference while leching: “At the door we exchanged kisses. Yes, I know, kissed by 007 and all that, and I know friends who would swoon at the thought, but maybe we got on because I didn’t.” Sorry to tell you this, Meg, but I’m sure the feeling was mutual. The once continental peck on the cheek is quite a common greeting today, even in Glasgow. The rule is, if it doesn’t involve tongues, it doesn’t count.

The hardest thing to understand about Henderson’s sob story, though, is working out quite what she saw in her “friend” in the first place. “Along with his rage is his vanity which is gargantuan”; “accusations that he slapped Cilento during his marriage still rumble on”; “persistent rumours of infidelity have dogged him throughout his career”; “we didn’t have time to discuss . . . his reported meanness and his tax-free status.” Why would anyone put up with all these alleged faults in one man? Unless, of course, they were a starstruck groupie.

Still, Sean shouldn’t feel too bad. After 2,600 words of this self-pity, Henderson is willing to take some blame for the breakdown in their relationship. “I should be a millionaire by now, so I’m told, and it would have been nice to provide for my family, but the cash obviously means more to Sean than it does to me” — understandably, given that at the end of the day it is his money — “so that’s that. I blame myself.”

The final blow to the friendship apparently came in an e-mail from Connery’s agent to Henderson, requesting that she never contact Sir Sean again. It’s a tribute to her powers of self-delusion that somehow she seems surprised.

Click here to read more about Connery's autobiography deal.

Thanks to `Kyvan` for the alert.

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