beat me unconscious Brent Seabrook Blackhawks Jersey
Diane Cilento revelled in the warmth of the Spanish evening sun. Surrounded by the cast and crew of the movie her husband Sean Connery was shooting in Almeria, she drank freely, and laughed and danced with other guests into
the small hours.
For the actors, the invitation to a local wedding was a chance to let off steam after a long day's filming, but for Diane the celebration was a welcome change from hours waiting for Connery to return from the set of TheTowards the end of the evening, she sought out her husband of three years by then world famous as James Bond and went up to their room to find him.
'I was a bit drunk,' she recalls, talking about the incident fully for the first time, but she could never have expected what came next. Connery was waiting for her. 'Once inside our room in the darkness, I felt a blow to my
face and was knocked to the floor and passed out for a few seconds. Then I was screaming, we were both shouting. I got to my feet and tried to fight back, but another blow sent me flying.
'I managed to get through the bathroom door and locked myself in. I spent the rest of the night sprawled on the bathroom floor, covered with towels, whimpering.'
Connery went to bed without a word. Next morning Diane who was then an ethereal beauty of 31 looked in the mirror and was appalled at what she
saw. 'I felt sure my face would never be the same again.' Now, sitting in her son Jason's cottage in the Scottish Borders, she still sounds bemused as she remembers the incident.
'I was in shock no one had ever treated me like that, it was confusing, and I felt ashamed in a way and afraid of the Press finding out. What could I say that I walked into a door?'
So she collected a few things as Sean slept, donned an enormous pair of sunglasses and drove as far away as she could. 'Everything had changed. Looking back, I think my conviction that Sean was my loyal protector, the one person who always made me feel safe, had been
shattered. I still loved him deeply, but he would never again be the same person I had trusted unconditionally.'
Despite this explosion of violence, the incident was never mentioned. It simply 'festered' between them, and she still struggles to explain why. 'It was different then,' she says. 'It wasn't like modern marriages where couples discuss things. And I was ashamed in some way. I wasn't afraid it would happen again, but it made me careful about putting myself in a position where it might.'
To the millions of fans who idolise Sean Connery, this calm recollection of his brutality to his first wife will come as an unpleasant dose of reality.
But they should not be surprised. The actor himself sparked a controversy when he told Playboy in 1965: 'I don't think there is anything particularly wrong about hitting a woman Brandon Saad Jersey although I don't recommend doing it in the same way that you'd hit a man.
'An open handed slap is justified, if all other alternatives fail and there has been plenty of warning. If a woman is a bitch, or hysterical, or
bloody minded continually, then I'd do it.'
Well, on that balmy night in 1965, Diane Cilento had no warning, neither was she being bloody minded. What is certain is that the attack left emotional scars that have outlasted the physical damage.
That's why, 40 years later, she has chosen to reveal the truth about her former husband in a brutally honest autobiography, My Nine Lives.
She describes marriage to Connery as being 'crushing', and at last gives Brent Seabrook Jersey
her side of the story about his towering jealousy and his attitude to
money. Her feisty character comes through strongly, and as she sits before me, my first thought is that even at 72, this Oscar nominated actress is vibrant and warm.
She talks with candour about her 11 years as the first Mrs Connery. She first set eyes on him in 1957, at the glitzy premiere of The Admirable
Crichton, the film that made her a star. She had Authentic Brandon Saad Jersey married a beautiful young Italian in London, only to discover that their lives were controlled by his wealthy family.
The London premiere offered two weeks of freedom. 'I was footloose and fancy free,' she says, 'but pregnant by my Italian husband.'