This photo of Sean Connery locking lips with another man has everyone asking questions
Get it, Sean
Mark
He delighted audiences and dropped panties as 007. He stunned us with his red diaper and hairy thighs in Zardoz. But before all that, Sean Connery was blazing another kind of trail, albeit unknowingly. In a BBC teleplay once thought to be lost media, Connery can be seen smooching another man in the first male-on-male screen kiss in UK history.
So why isn’t this choice tidbit better known?
Two years before becoming Bond, Connery played the love interest—and villain—in French playwright Jean Anouilh’s play Colombe. Though Anouilh toyed with queer themes in his most famous play Becket, a fujoshi-friendly take on the relationship between King Henry II and his best friend Thomas à Becket, Colombe was a mostly straight story about cowardice, masculinity, and the lure of the theater. That kiss, however, definitely stirred things up.
How about we take this to the next level?
Subscribe to our newsletter for a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today
But don’t get too excited: The smooch Connery plants on costar Richard Pasco is, disappointingly, a fraternal one. Connery’s character Julien, married to the title character Colombe, makes out with his brother due to jealousy: Julien thinks his brother is having an affair with his wife Colombe, and wants to see if he’s a good kisser. Far-fetched? Yes. But in 1960, when homosexuality was still illegal in the UK, this was sadly the only way two men were going to get away with a full-on makeout session on the BBC. The first romantic gay screen kiss wouldn’t happen until almost 30 years later, in the long-running soap opera EastEnders.
But in 2013, when the presumed lost footage of the BBC teleplay was discovered, the excitement was palpable. Connery played a gay character later on in his career, in Gus Van Sant’s 2000 film Finding Forrester, but he never got anywhere near as intimate with men onscreen than in this surprise early-career performance. The electric sex symbol known for his thick Scottish accent and unintentionally campy screen persona started off with a splash, and this nearly-forgotten, history-making moment in Colombe proves it.
When an Instagram account known for surprisingly homoerotic vintage finds shared the screenshot of Connery locking lips with Pasco, people were thrilled to be reminded of the Bond actor’s first foray into male-on-male action…even if the context of the kiss was disappointing.
“Get it, Sir Sean!” one commenter wrote approvingly. Another joked: “Bussy…Bussy Galore.”
Sean Connery was many things, but insecure was not one of them. He could kiss men, play gay, and show off those hairy thighs without fear, and we love him for it.
One commenter had a more personal story to share about the Scottish legend. “Back in the 1980s,” he wrote, “I knew a hilarious man named Richard whose parents sent him to Catholic schools, hoping to straighten him out. Richard promptly got in trouble with the nuns. When assigned to write an essay on “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up,” Richard wrote, ‘Mrs. Sean Connery.'”
Good for you, Richard! We totally see your point.
Related
Is Hollywood still punishing queer men for coming out?
We demand more Lee Pace films!
Sign up for the Queerty newsletter to stay on top of the hottest stories in LGBTQ+ entertainment, politics, and culture.
