“This guy couldn’t get a job or anything”: Sean Connery “Nearly Killed” a Crew Member in 1974 Movie, It Got So Ugly He Had To Change His Name to Be Employed

SUMMARY

• Often known as the Hollywood brute of the 70s, Sean Connery further solidified his reputation after one incident.
• John Boorman recalled Connery‘s rage from the set of Zardoz, when he nearly choked the life out of a crew member.
• The incident severely impacted the crew member's career, forcing him to change his name for employment.

If you don’t know, Sean Connery was often hailed as the real-life Hollywood brute during his young age, way before he even starred in the iconic spy thriller James Bond franchise. Well, considering how the actor had once famously beaten up gangsters after being held at gunpoint, Connery seemingly deserved that reputation in the industry. 

Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger (1964) | image: United Artists

But the story about his reputation got really serious when Sean Connery appeared in the 1974 movie Zardoz. While John Boorman’s film has been praised as a cult classic, behind-the-scenes anecdote revealed a near-fatal mishap after Connery almost choked the life out of a cameraman, who later faced significant damage to his career. 

John Boorman recalled Sean Connery’s scary rage from the set of Zardoz

While Sean Connery was popularly known for his role as the British spy in the James Bond franchise, the actor boasted a decorated career featuring Alfred Hitchcock’s Marnie, the Western movie Shakalo, and even the 1974 movie Zardoz, where he looked almost unrecognizable. Now while most of the films were rather easy to shoot for Connery, it was John Boorman’s cult classic that became infamous for an on-set altercation. 

According to the filmmaker’s interview with Vulture, John Boorman reflected on the incident and labeled Sean Connery as a “very explosive character”. Recalling the final moments of the film, where the actor was supposed to age quite rapidly, Boorman mentioned using makeup to achieve that appearance. Now surprisingly, despite venturing into the entertainment career, the Scottish legend apparently “hated makeup”. 

Sean Connery as Zed in Zardoz (1974) | image: 20th Century Studios

At the end of the film we shoot a scene where his characters ages rapidly, and with the makeup, that scene took a whole day. So we’d shoot a bit, take him out, put on more makeup, shoot a bit more, and so on.

When we finished it, we sent the film to the lab, and the lab scratched it. So we had to do it all over again the following day. Sean hated makeup, hated anything touching his skin. He was very grumpy the whole day when we shot the scene. 

So it seems that shooting the scenes with make-up on was already quite frustrating for Sean Connery. And then on top of that, when the lab scratched the scenes, leading him to repeat the same process all over again, we can only imagine the rage he might have felt. That’s when John Boorman noted how “absolutely enraged” Connery was when he had to repeat it all over again. 

An enraged Sean Connery had almost choked the life out of a cameraman 

Speaking with the outlet, Zardoz filmmaker John Boorman recalled how he had to convince the late actor to repeat the make-up and aging scene the second time. But thankfully, the actor agreed to do it without any fuss. Only this time, the crew members had to be way more cautious and almost walk on eggshells to refrain from making any further mistakes, that might have raised hell on set. 

So when I told him that we had to do it again, he was absolutely enraged. Enraged! [But] at any rate, we did it all over again, all day long, the whole process.

Thereafter, John Boorman opened up about that one unlucky or rather clumsy assistant camera-loader who faced Sean Connery’s life-threatening wrath, after he committed the mistake of opening the camera and exposing the film. As the camera operator’s honest mistake led Connery to shoot the sequence a third time, it eventually led the actor to live up to his brute image on the set of Zardoz. 

Sean Connery in John Boorman’s Zardoz | image: 20th Century Studios

The assistant camera-loader opened the camera and exposed the film. So we had to do the process again. Sean wouldn’t believe me; he thought I was teasing him. When I convinced him that we needed to do it for the third time, he went after this camera-loader and nearly killed him. It took three grips to restrain him.

That was the last time I’d heard of [the camera-loader] until years later. He’d changed his name. This had become such a famous story in the film business that this guy couldn’t get a job or anything. So he changed his name and is working as a commercial cameraman now.

Boy oh boy! Enraging veteran legend Sean Connery not only became a near-fatal mishap for the camera-loader but also a career-damaging incident for him, in Hollywood. 

Zardoz is currently available to watch on Prime Video. 

Written by Krittika Mukherjee

Articles Published: 2347

Krittika is a News Writer at FandomWire with 2 years of prior experience in lifestyle and web content writing. With her previous works available on HubPages and Medium, she has woven over 2000 stories with us, about fan-favorite actors, movies, and shows. Post-graduate in Journalism and Honors-graduate in English Literature, when this art enthusiast isn't crafting your next favorite article, she finds her escapism in coffee, fiction, and the Wizarding World.