Why Sean Connery's Wife Is Credited In His Final James Bond Film

The character of James Bond might've made Sean Connery a global movie star, but the actor didn't really enjoy the initial nine years he spent playing the MI6 agent. As Michael Caine once observed, "If you were his friend in these early days, you didn't raise the subject of Bond." A big part of the issue, according to Caine, was that Connery knew he had more to offer as an actor than 007, and thus, he bristled every time someone would identify him as Bond when he was out in public. Connery himself made no bones about his annoyance with the character. "I have always hated that damned James Bond," he once remarked (via The Guardian). "I'd like to kill him."

Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert "Cubby" Broccoli, who were sitting on top of a box office goldmine, had no such desire. They were keen to keep knocking out Bond flicks at a once-every-other-year clip, and while they recognized the value of Connery in the role (to the extent that they paid him $1.5 million in 1971 to lure him back to the character for the saucy "Diamonds Are Forever," after he sat out "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"), they would eventually realize that 007 was bigger than anyone star -– even one as talented and charismatic as the ornery Scotsman.

Connery finally bailed on Bond prior to "Live and Let Die," which allowed Saltzman and Broccoli to discover that their series could survive regardless of who wielded the Walther PPK. Connery, meanwhile, got to move on and further prove his worth as an actor and a star in hit films like "Murder on the Orient Express," "The Wind and the Lion" and "The Man Who Would Be King." He would never need to return to the Bond franchise, and it didn't need him.

Then some very bad films started to happen to Connery. "Cuba," "Meteor" and "Wrong Is Right" received terrible reviews and performed poorly commercially. Even a reasonably well-reviewed film like "Outland" underperformed at the box office. It seemed hard to believe at the time, but a few years into the 1980s, Connery's star was unquestionably fading. He needed to remind moviegoers why they fell in love with him in the first place. So he did the one thing he said he'd never do, much to the amusement of his wife.

Sean Connery's seventh appearance as James Bond didn't come cheap, nor did it come in the official 007 timeline he helped launch. 1983's "Never Say Never Again," directed by the underrated craftsman Irwin Kershner (best known for "Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back"), was a remake of "Thunderball," which was possible because Ian Fleming's book was a novelization of an unmade screenplay he'd written with Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham, Ernest Cuneo and Ivar Bryce. After a legal battle, the production of the film was allowed to move forward, at which point Connery pocketed a cool $3 million to reprise the role that, much to his stated chagrin, made him a household name.

Because they could not call it "Thunderball," the filmmakers found themselves struggling to come up with a title for the film. Connery, who had script and casting approval, was involved in these discussions and was also flummoxed. This is when his wife, Micheline Connery, suggested the title "Never Say Never Again" as a cheeky nod to Connery's publicly known aversion to ever revisiting Bond. The star got a kick out of it, as did everyone else, so not only did the title stick, Micheline also got a credit at the end of the movie for having come up with it.

Though "Never Say Never Again" was a box office smash, grossing $160 million worldwide on a $36 million budget, the experience was so off-putting for Connery -– his unhappiness compounded by shooting the dismal "Sword of the Valiant" at roughly the same time –- that he took a three-year break from acting. Soon after he began performing again, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his impossible-to-ignore work in "The Untouchables."