NEW YORK -- Who better to talk about love and marriage than Sean Connery, People magazine's sexiest man alive in 1989.

"I hardly think being married twice or having reached the age of 68 automatically qualifies me as an expert in this love game," says Connery.

Connery's first wife was British actress Diane Cilento. Their 12-year marriage produced one son, actor Jason Connery. The couple divorced in 1973.

His second wife, Micheline Roquebrune, is a French portrait painter who grew up in Morocco.

It was in Morocco where she and Connery met.

"Micheline and I met at a golf tournament in Morocco. We were both married at the time, but I knew there was promise. She won the women's division and I won the men's."

Connery refuses to talk about his divorce from Cilento except to say "the film business lends itself towards marriage breakdowns.

"You're constantly separated from each other because of location shoots and if one party in the marriage suddenly gets more successful, the other partner can't always accept."

Connery insists he's a romantic at heart, but then offers such pearls of wisdom as "the success of one's marriage is often proportionate to the amount of money one has.

"I've always felt that opposites have a better chance of making a marriage last and that if they don't change too much over the course of time, they have a better chance of staying together."

He insists that he doesn't ever see himself getting married again, but admits candidly: "I'm not that certain about divorce.

"No one can categorically say they'll never get divorced, no matter how old they are. People change and that could involve falling out of love."

This is precisely the predicament Connery's character faces in the relationship drama Playing by Heart that opens Friday.

He and Gena Rowlands, 64, play a couple whose seemingly happy and secure marriage is threatened when they become too honest with each other.

It's the first time in years that Connery has been partnered with an actress even near his age.

Rowlands explains that she doesn't think "the casting of young women opposite him is Sean's strategy.

"It's the studios," Rowlands says. "Sean is a man without ego.

"He'll be sexy with whomever he's partnered. He's sexy because he has allowed himself to age. Sean is sexy because he's so real. There's nothing plastic or phoney about him and women love that in a man."

No one was more surprised than writer/director Willard Carroll, when Connery agreed to star in Playing by Heart.

"It's a $6-million US movie. Sean can command that as his salary for a movie. Everyone was to be paid the same minimum salary," explains Carroll.

"He called and said he loved the idea of portraying an intimate, passionate relationship between people in their twilight years."

Carroll had heard two things about Connery that made him temper his initial enthusiasm.

"Sean has been known to back out of a film and he's notorious for insisting on no more than two or three takes for any one scene."

Connery was only on set for eight days. Most of his scenes were with Rowlands and were filmed like a stage play.

"Sean and Gena did a lot of rehearsing, so when the cameras rolled, it went very smoothly. We seldom needed more than two takes."

What impressed Carroll most is that Connery "has no entourage. He doesn't play the star. He drives himself to the set where he meets his assistant."


More Artists