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Never say never, but Connery ends career

IT IS a decision that will horrify his legion of worldwide fans and leave grown women in tears.

Scottish screen legend Sir Sean Connery has almost drawn the curtain on his long and glittering career by revealing it would take a Mafia-style "offer he couldn't refuse" to tempt him to make another film.

At the age of 74, Connery still manages to be Britain's highest-paid actor, commanding up to £10m per movie. But his three-year absence from the industry has prompted questions about whether the Scots star has decided to retire after half a century in Hollywood and 77 films.

Now, Connery has provided the answer. In an interview with a New Zealand newspaper, the actor says he has no time for the "idiots" now making films in Hollywood.

He has also revealed for the first time why he has pulled out of co-operating on an autobiography on his astonishing transformation from Edinburgh milk boy to global icon and the world's "sexiest" actor. Although the book was forecast to be a huge best-seller - earning Connery a fortune in the process - the ghost-writer chosen by the publisher wanted to delve too deeply into his private life.

Connery chose acting as a career in the 1950s after spells as a coffin polisher and male model and is still best known for his portrayal of Ian Fleming's secret agent James Bond.

Although he will never say never, Connery blames the current generation of executives running the big Hollywood studios for his reluctance to step back into Tinsel town.

"I'm fed up with the idiots ... the ever-widening gap between people who know how to make movies and the people who green-light the movies, I don't say they're all idiots. I'm just saying there's a lot of them that are very good at it [being idiots]. It would almost need a Mafia-like offer I couldn't refuse to do another movie."

That Connery is more likely now to be seen on a golf course than in a film studio has distressed his army of fans. He is an acting phenomenon whose good looks and physique charmed a generation of film fans while in his 30s. His seven portrayals of 007 made him the man most other men wanted to be and the man most women wanted to be with.

But even now he is still in huge demand despite his advancing years, with many film roles such as Indiana Jones's father, written to exploit his maturity. Director Steven Spielberg paid tribute to Connery's status when he said: "There are only seven genuine movie stars in the world today, and Sean is one of them."

But Connery says in the interview that is only because he demands so much money. He was the first $1m actor with the Bond film Diamonds are Forever, submarine thriller The Hunt for Red October increased his earning power and he was paid £10m for his last film The Extraordinary League of Gentlemen, in which he played an ageing adventurer.

This year, he was rumored to have been paid $1m just to do the voiceover for a new computer game, based on another Bond hit, From Russia With Love.