Sean Connery celebrates his 70th birthday

Sir Sean Connery cracks a winning smile

LONDON, (Reuters) -- Sir Sean Connery, the actor who shot to fame as Agent 007 James Bond in 1962, was celebrating his 70th birthday on Friday.

The rugged-looking Scot with the gravelly, though soft, Edinburgh accent has been described as the world's sexiest man.

And many cinema-goers still feel the same way about him, senior citizen though he now is.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in July, two years after he was reportedly denied a knighthood because of his Scottish nationalism.

Connery is a high profile supporter of the Scottish National Party, now the official opposition in the home-rule Scottish parliament, and a vocal campaigner for an independent Scotland.

But for millions of movie fans, Connery will always be immortalised in the first Bond film "Dr No" 38 years ago.

Connery, who grew up in the slums of Edinburgh and who once worked as a coffin polisher, played the character created by by novelist and former Secret Service officer Ian Fleming in seven Bond films.

They included "From Russia With Love," "Goldfinger" (both made in 1964), "Thunderball" (1965) and "You Only Live Twice" (1967).

The lavishly-produced movies packed with hi-tech gadgetry and spectacular effects broke box office records and grossed hundreds of millions of dollars in more than 50 countries.

The success made Connery Britain's most popular film actor for four consecutive years in the mid-60s and he was the number one box office attraction in U.S. cinemas in 1966.

But Connery was a very different type of man from the suave, sophisticated Bond with his impeccable social background and connoisseur's taste in wine and women.

Born Thomas Connery on August 25, 1930, he was brought up in near-poverty, never attempted to disguise his raw Scottish accent and preferred beer to Bond's vodka Martini cocktails that are "shaken and not stirred."

At the age of 17, two years after the end of World War II, Connery was drafted into the Royal Navy and served three years as an ordinary seaman. He hated it.

A chance meeting with a friend resulted in him joining the chorus of the U.S. stage musical "South Pacific" -- after 48 hours of dancing and singing lessons.

"I grew up with no notion of a career, much less acting," he once said, "I certainly never have plotted it out. It was all happenstance, really."

Connery married Frenchwoman Micheline Roquebrune, whom he met playing golf in 1975. They have homes in the Spanish resort of Marbella and in the Bahamas.

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