Sean Connery’s final days battling dementia were ‘hard to watch,’ he was in a ‘terrible state’
Sean Connery’s friend is opening up about the famed actor’s final days in the new book, “Connery, Sean Connery: Before, During, and After His Most Famous Role.” Author Herbie J. Pilato also spoke to former co-stars of the late Oscar winner.
The original James Bond died in his home in the Bahamas on Oct. 31, 2020 at 1:30 a.m. He was 90.
According to his birth certificate, he died of “pneumonia, respiratory failure, old age [and] atrial fibrillation” — the latter being an irregular heart rate that can increase the risk of blood clots, strokes and heart failure.
His wife, Micheline Roquebrune, also previously noted that he had a long battle with dementia.
In “Connery, Sean Connery,” Connery’s pal, Brendan Lynch, said that he visited the actor before his passing.
“Because he wasn’t well at all, Micheline did ask me to try and see a bit more of him in the end,” Lynch recalled, as quoted in the book. “He didn’t want to have people that he didn’t know hanging around, so I would stop in to visit.”
“I was crying at times to see this mountain of a man — this monumental human achievement in such a terrible state — frail (mentally and physically) unable to carry on a conversation or finish off a sentence,” Lynch continued. “To see his body weak and flawed at the end . . . it was very sad. We tried to have a conversation. I tried to tell him what was going on in the sporting world, despite knowing that he wasn’t actually taking it all in.”
Pilato added to Fox News Digital that the Scottish native “had some measure of dementia” when he died “at some beautiful ripe age.”
“Dementia is not just a mental issue. You’re affected physically in other ways . . . It affects everything. So it’s not just the mind. And to see someone who was so strong battling this disease — it was difficult,” Pilato said.
“If anybody looked like a movie star, it was Sean Connery. But towards the end, when he was frail, it was hard to watch. It was hard to see that.”
Connery, whose last project was 2012’s “Sir Billi,” was surrounded by “sprawling golf courses, near wide-open silky sands and . . . clear blue Bahamian waters” shortly before his death.
Shortly after his passing, his son Jason told the BBC that his father had “been unwell for some time.”
“We are all working at understanding this huge event as it only happened so recently, even though my dad has been unwell for some time,” he said. “A sad day for all who knew and loved my dad and a sad loss for all people around the world who enjoyed the wonderful gift he had as an actor.”
The “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” actor was previously married to Australian actress and writer Diane Cilento, with whom he had Jason. He was married to Cilento from 1962 to 1973 before he married Roquebrune in 1975. (Cilento wrote an autobiography, “My Nine Lives,” in 2006, and alleged that Connery was abusive. He vehemently denied the allegations.)
“She was dedicated to him. And their relationship was great for years, decades. She was there for him right to the end. They went to the Bahamas, and they ended up spending the rest of his life there,” the author explained. “I think it was hard for his wife, his son and fans who loved him. It’s hard to see anybody get sick and become frail.”
