A real tough guy: the moment Sean Connery disarmed a gunman threatening his life on set
It’s easy to play a tough guy on-screen, and many of the actors who built their reputations on dismantling small armies without breaking a sweat wouldn’t be able to fight their way out of a paper bag. Sean Connery wasn’t one of them, and laughed so hard in the face of danger that he handily disarmed a notorious mobster with the greatest of ease.
Known as ‘Big Tam’ during his younger days, the former milkman and bodybuilder had been in his fair share of scraps growing up, but he was still in the early stages of his acting career when he shot Another Time, Another Place. Connery was a complete unknown at the time, with Dr. No only being published in its literary form two months before the theatrical premiere of the 1958 drama.
Adapted from Lenore Coffee’s novel Weep No More, Connery starred opposite Lana Turner as British and American reporters who end up embarking on a passionate affair. The latter was a major name in Hollywood throughout the 1940s and 1950s, but her star had started to dim after a string of huge successes at her peak, with controversy tending to follow her everywhere she went due to her ongoing relationship with Johnny Stompanato.
A known associate and enforcer of feared underworld figure Mickey Cohen with seven arrests to his name, Stompanato was every bit as overprotective of his celebrity partner and jealous of any interactions with male co-stars as one might suspect of somebody who was more often than not used to getting their own way. Unfortunately for him, he made a huge mistake in failing to do his research; otherwise, he would have discovered Connery was a first-degree black belt in the Kyokushin discipline of karate.
Inevitably, the chemistry generated between the future James Bond and Turner on set made Stompanato increasingly furious that something was going on between them. He swung by to watch a scene between the duo on a couch and grew so frustrated with what he was seeing that he ruined the shot, stomped into the frame, and pulled a gun on Connery, demanding that he take his hands off his woman.
Refusing to back down, Connery simply stood up, weaponized his martial arts training to twist his adversary’s wrist, and plucked the firearm from his hand while he howled in pain. Most people would be flustered at the very least if a high-ranking member of the Cohen crime syndicate threatened to blow their brains out, but the effortlessly cool Scotsman took it all in his stride.
The rest of the production went off without a hitch, but the same can’t be said of Stompanato’s life, which ended before the film had even been released in tragic circumstances when he was stabbed to death by Turner’s 14-year-old daughter after she took drastic action to safeguard her mother from harm.
