Sean Connery: you`re on your own, 003½

The son of the James Bond actor received no financial help from his multimillionaire father, claims Sean Connery's former wife in The Times.

He rose from being a milkman in Edinburgh to become one of the world’s richest film stars, but cut his son off from his wealth to force him to work, the former wife of Sir Sean Connery has revealed.

The quintessential Bond star told his only child Jason – now an actor and film director – that he would not provide him with any of his fortune to ensure that he pursued a career and earned his own living. According to Diane Cilento, Connery’s former wife, he told their son several years ago that he would “never receive a penny” from him.

Connery is among a growing number of wealthy individuals who have refused to subsidise their children, forcing them instead to stand on their own feet. Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, gave her £51m fortune away before her death at the age of 64 last year, with none of it going to her daughters Sam and Justine.

Duncan Bannatyne, the 59-year-old Clydebank-born founder of Bannatyne’s health clubs and star of the TV series Dragon’s Den, recently announced that he plans to give away much of his £310m before he dies rather than leaving it to his six children.

Next month Connery will launch his long-awaited book Being a Scot, a memoir of his childhood and his views on Scotland’s achievements as a nation. According to publishing sources, it gives a striking insight into his own poor beginnings and how from his teens he had to work hard.

He grew up in a two-bedroom house in the industrial end of Edinburgh. The family had no bathroom, only the use of a communal toilet outside. He had limited education, leaving school at 13 to go to work.

Before landing the part of James Bond in the 1962 film, Dr No, Connery famously worked as a milkman in Edinburgh, earning about £1 a week. Employment records dating back to 1944 show that, aged 14, he earned 21 shillings a week as a barrow pusher. His other jobs included lorry driver, labourer, coffin polisher and artist’s model.

The book includes photographs, many of them not seen before, of Connery as a young boy. In his early teens he was skinny: only later, through bodybuilding, did he acquire a Bond-like physique.

Although Connery wanted his son to forge his own career, it is not known whether his stricture on inheritance still applies. It is unclear whether Connery, who has a personal fortune of £85m after a 50-year career, plans to include his son in his will. Jason Connery said: “I just don’t have a comment.”

According to Cilento, who was married to Connery for 11 years before their divorce in 1973, Connery and Jason had a fractious relationship. At one stage Jason threatened to change his surname following accusations that he was cashing in on his father’s fame: “Sean said, ‘You only got this [acting] job because your name’s Connery’.

Jason said, ‘Well I’ll change it to something else’. Sean said, ‘If you do that I’ll f****** kill you’.

“Jason loves him, but Sean has a problem about relationships, as everybody who’s round him knows. Jason is a very devoted son. When Sean’s sick he rushes there. They play golf together quite often.”

Jason was so poor as a jobbing actor in the early 1980s that, according to friends, he survived on handouts from other actors. On one occasion he was loaned money to buy a secondhand car.

In Cilento’s autobiography, My Nine Lives, she claimed that after she and Connery split “it was agreed that Sean would sell the house and I would get half the money for it but that was all I would get, nothing more . . . I knew only too well about his money hang-ups”.

Jason, who has just finished directing his second film, an action thriller starring Ray Winstone and Cuba Gooding Jr, developed an interest in acting while a pupil at Gordonstoun. Later he was accepted to the Bristol Old Vic drama school and the Perth Repertory Company where, apart from acting, he worked as assistant stage manager to earn his Equity card.

His most famous role came in 1985 when he played Robert of Huntingdon in the television series Robin of Sherwood. He later played Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, in the 1990 television drama Spy-maker and is a vampire hunter in his latest movie, Brotherhood of Blood.

His father is due to attend the Edinburgh International Book Festival next month where Being a Scot will be launched. As well as recalling his childhood, Connery uses the book to give a personal portrait of his native country and its achievements. He examines why the Scots, despite being a small population, often do well in many walks of life.

The book will also include his memories of mixing with the Hollywood elite during a movie career spanning five decades.

It is described as a “vivid and highly personal portrait”, reflecting the actor’s desire to “shine light upon Scottish success and heroic failure”.

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