About
Thomas Sean Connery was born in Fountainbridge, Edinburgh to Euphemia “Effie” (née Maclean), a cleaning woman, and Joseph Connery, a factory worker and lorry driver. His father was a Roman Catholic of Irish descent with roots in County Wexford, while his mother was a Protestant. He has a brother, Neil. Connery claims he was called Sean, his middle name, long before becoming an actor, explaining that when he was young he had an Irish friend named Séamus and that those who knew them both had decided to call Connery by his middle name whenever both were present.
His first job was as a milkman in Edinburgh with St. Cuthbert’s Co-operative Society. He then joined the Royal Navy during which time he opted for two tattoos that are described on his official website as:
‘unlike many tattoos, his were not frivolous – his tattoos reflect two of his lifelong commitments: his family and Scotland. After six decades, his tattoos still reflect those two ideas: One tattoo is a tribute to his parents and reads “Mum and Dad,” and the other is self explanatory, “Scotland Forever.”
Connery was later discharged from the navy on medical grounds because of a duodenal ulcer. Afterwards, he returned to the co-op, then worked as, among other things, a lorry driver, a labourer, an artist’s model for the Edinburgh College of Art, and a coffin polisher.