I could see his little Scottish brain going, ‘Oh my God…’ I thought I should probably say, ‘Sean it was a joke…’ And then I thought, ‘Oh to hell with it, let him worry.’”
“He didn’t know me, so he thought I was gay. Glover thought Connery would laugh but the tough Scotsman held a firm stare. “I like to make jokes, so I said in a kinda wispy voice, ‘I think I’m getting emotionally involved…’” “I was chest to chest with Sean,” he says.
Glover, who is now 89, remembers the star being uncomfortable with homoerotic jokes during the shoot. Mr Wint and Mr Kidd were played by Bruce Glover and Putter Smith, two straight men, but even then they reportedly riled Connery. To give some context, in 1970, the year the film was shot, 70 per cent of Americans thought homosexual relations were wrong, while the UK was only three years into decriminalisation. It meant the film was radical for giving queer representation a mainstream platform. became the fifth-highest grossing film Stateside that year, above Dirty Harry and A Clockwork Orange. However, taking $19m at the US box office, Diamonds.
