At the age of 63, Sean Connery is today more bankable at the box office than he was as the 30-year-old James Bond. But the man himself remains something of a mystery: devastatingly attractive, intensely private, and, according to many, unforgiving. Michael Freedland's biography is a detailed search for the man behind the brogue and the bravado. Drawing on interviews with over 100 people who have known and worked with Connery, Michael Freedland shows the reader his childhood in Edinburgh, his earliest working days in a steel mill, his first acting experiences in the chorus of South Pacific, and his tentative steps into films. What emerges is his phenomenal drive: practically inexhaustible, and typical of so many born in the slums who have only one way to go - up. Though one of the top sex symbols of today, Connery has never been an easy man to be married to. And neither is he easy to work with, never content simply to follow his directors' orders if he has better ideas himself. Freedland gives an insight into his unusual intelligence and commitment to social causes: his devoted support for Scottish Rome Rule, and the hours he spends alone in his trailer writing poetry that no one ever sees.