Sir Sean Connery's 'Being A Scot' Coming On 25 August
Just days after the update on Sir Roger Moore’s memoirs, My Word Is My Bond, due for release in October 2008, news has emerged that another actor well known for his contributions to the James Bond series will (finally) be releasing a book of his own this year: Sir Sean Connery.
The Bookseller reports that Connery’s Being A Scot is due for publication by Weidenfeld on 25 August 2008–the same day the former 007 star turns 78 years old.
Initially signed by publisher HarperCollins to write his autobiography, Connery pulled out of the deal in 2005 due to reluctance to discuss certain aspects of his private life. After a chance encounter at the Edinburgh Festival between Weidenfeld publisher Alan Samson and Connery’s co-writer, Murray Grigor, got the ball rolling once again for Connery’s Being A Scot.
The book is being labeled ‘an intensely personal account’ and will ‘fuse Connery’s own experiences, including his acting career, with his efforts to track down what Scots have given to the world in art, science and sport.’
‘Sean Connery is not calling it an autobiography but it’s probably the nearest we will get to it,’ said Samson. ‘He’s a legend–one of the absolute, out and out, movie stars.’
The Bookseller notes that Samson paid a six-figure sum for UK and Commonwealth rights through Claire Paterson at Janklow & Nesbit UK. The 100,000-word book will be published by W&N’s illustrated division and will feature hundreds of illustrations and photographs, many of them previously unseen by fans.
Sir Roger Moore’s My Word Is My Bond will be published by HarperCollins in the US (the US rights acquired from Lesley Pollinger cost £510,000) and Michael O’Mara in the UK.
Michael O’Mara said: ‘I am really thrilled to be publishing Sir Roger’s memoir. The chapters I have read to date remind me of David Niven’s The Moon’s a Balloon, so packed are they with amusing stories of Roger’s time in Hollywood.’
Promising a ‘frank, funny and charming’ look at Moore’s life, O’Mara also stated the book would feature personal anecdotes about such luminaries as Noël Coward, Cary Grant–and Connery himself. ‘We are all delirious with anticipation. What I have read so far bubbles with wit and is peopled by a ‘Who’s Who’ of Hollywood. Roger’s book will clearly be the jewel in our crown for 2008.’
Deals for Moore’s memoirs were also struck in Sweden, Norway and Holland, and serial rights have been lined up.
Stay tuned to CommanderBond.net for all the latest coverage of these upcoming memoirs by both Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore as well as all the latest literary 007 news.