LA WEB DE READING
COMPREHENSION PREFERIDA POR LOS HISPANOHABLANTES
To get information in
Spanish place the arrow of your mouse on the highlighted words
without clicking.
Para obtener información en español acerca la flecha de tu ratón a
las palabras o frases resaltadas.
SEAN CONNERY:
A Living Legend
Robert Kent
Click PLAY
to listen.
Pulsa REPRODUCIR para escuchar.
A film star for
over forty years,
he is a living legend.
Audiences and film critics
all over the world adore him.
Not many men have been voted the
Sexiest Man Alive at the age of sixty! However, Sean Connery is an
actor who appeals to both men and women. Everyone admires his
charm and
charisma.
Sean Connery is very proud to be Scottish and he often talks about
his love for Scotland. He was born in Edinburgh on the 25th August
1930. He came from a poor, working class family. His father worked
in a factory and Sean left school when he was only thirteen years
old. At the age of fifteen he joined the Royal Navy for three
years. When he left the navy he tried many jobs. He worked as a
labourer,
cement mixer, milkman and
bricklayer. He
did not want to be an actor but dreamed of being a football player.
As a hobby, he tried body building and when he was in London
competing in a body building competition he
auditioned for
a small part in a musical. He won the part and his acting career
began.
Sean worked very hard to improve his
acting. He took dancing and singing lessons. However, he did not
become famous until he got the chance to play James Bond in the
film Dr No in 1962. He beat many other distinguished actors,
including Cary Grant and Rex Harrison, who also wanted to play the
suave secret
service agent. The producer of Dr No decided that Sean
Connery was the right person to play James Bond when he watched
Sean walk down the street!
Following the success of the film Dr No, Sean Connery was
asked to play in four James Bond films during the Sixties -
Goldfinger, From Russia With Love, Thunderball
and You Only Live Twice. Many fans of James Bond films
think that he was the best James Bond of all time.
Eventually, Sean
grew tired of
playing James Bond and after making the film, Diamonds Are
Forever in 1971, he vowed that he
would ‘never again’ make another James Bond film. At the time, he
was paid a
record-breaking
salary of $1.25 million for his part in the film. However, he
agreed to play James Bond once more in 1983 and the producers
called the film Never Say Never Again. His fans were
delighted.
In the 1980s Sean Connery
took on
different and more varied roles. He won an Oscar for his role as a
tough Irish
cop
in The Untouchables, in which he starred alongside Kevin
Costner. He also played Harrison Ford's eccentric father in the
popular Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. His
cameo role as King Richard in Robin Hood had cinema audiences cheering
his screen appearance!
His most recent films include The
New Avengers with actors Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes, and
Entrapment. In Entrapment Sean plays an ageing art burglar who
teams up with
the beautiful Catherine Zeta-Jones in a thriller set around the
Millennium.
Despite his Hollywood success, Sean Connery has remained loyal to
his native land. He has worked for the Scottish National Theatre
and in the 1970s he founded the Scottish International Education
Trust, an organisation to help young Scots receive an education.
He even made an appearance in the elections for the new Scottish
parliament
to lend
weight to the Scottish Nationalist Party's cause. It is
said that he was not given a
knighthood in
1997 because of his links with this Party. Although he lives for
much of the time in Spain and the Bahamas, he is
regarded as
Scotland’s most famous son.
Source:
New
English Digest
GLOSSARY
charm: appeal (atracción)
charisma (karísma): a person’s magnetic appeal or
charm (carisma) labourer: someone who works on a building site who
has no particular skills (trabajador) bricklayer: a craftsman skilled in building with
bricks (albañil) auditioned: performed, acted in order to get a role (audicionó) suave (suáiv): smooth-acting and polite (sometimes
considered rather superficial) (fino, muy atento) grew tired of: became tired, exhausted of (doing the
same things) (se cansó de)
vowed: swore (juró)
record-breaking salary: a
salary surpassing any previously established record (que superó
todos los records)
took on: accepted as a challenge (encaró, "se jugó con") cop: policeman (slang) ("cana", policía) cameo role: important part in a film (importante rol o
papel) burglar: thief (ladrón) teams up: forms a team (se asocia) to lend weight to something: to add importance to something
(prestarle importancia) knighthood: an honour awarded by a monarch (título de
caballero) regarded: considered (considerado)
READING
COMPREHENSION
ACTIVITY
TRY
TO MATCH EACH DEFINITION ON THE LEFT WITH AN APPROPPRIATE
ALTERNATIVE FROM THE MENU ON THE RIGHT. THEN CHECK
HERE
YOUR ANSWERS.
1.
Sean was born into afamily.
2.
At the age of fifteen, he decided to be a.
3. When
he was young, he dreamed of being a star.
4. In 1962, he played a part as a.
5. After Diamonds Are
Forever, Sean vowed he would give up.
6. In 1997 he was
expected to receive a.
7. At the age of
sixty, he is considered to be very attractive to.