Sean Connery Was Once Forced To Flee Town For A Terrifying Reason

Much of Sean Connery's career was devoted to playing characters who aren't going to take any gruff. Perhaps most famously, he's known for his seven James Bond films between the early 1960s and the early 1980s, but he's also played other tough-as-nails characters, such as a Soviet submarine captain in "The Hunt for Red October."

Off-screen and in his personal life, he checked off some of the boxes that would qualify a man as a tough guy: As a child, he was known for pummeling his adversaries, according to Biography, and as a teen he served in the British Navy. Early in his film career, he also did some modeling on the side, and since he was a bodybuilder, he was positively ripped. He was also known to have a short temper.

At one point in his early career, according to Den of Geek, he crossed the wrong man, the type of man who would be more likely to settle a score not with swinging fists, but with bullets. Knowing he was in over his head, he skipped town for a few days until everything blew over.

Back in 1957, according to Den of Geek, Connery was in London, filming "Another Time, Another Place" with costar Lana Turner. On the screen, the two actors portrayed lovers, and the press hinted the romance wasn't just limited to the film. The gossip mill was keen to print pictures of the two coming and going throughout London, including snaps of Connery and Turner at fancy restaurants in the city.

Unfortunately for Connery, Turner was in a relationship at the time, described by The Digital Fix as abusive, with Johnny Stompanato, a mob enforcer who settled scores for his boss, Mickey Cohen. Enraged by the reports of Connery and Turner supposedly having a relationship, he flew to London armed, to confront Connery. When he showed up on the set and pointed a gun at the Scottish actor, Connery employed a self-defensive technique to disarm the gunman, then clocked him. The police turned up, escorted Stompanato from the set, and put him on a plane back to the United States; he'd been deported for violating the U.K.'s gun laws.

That wasn't the end of it, however.

A few months after the London incident, according to Den of Geek, Connery was in the U.S., this time filming Disney's "Darby O'Gill and the Little People." Stompanato was dead by this time, having been killed by Lana Turner's then-13-year-old daughter in what was later deemed a justifiable homicide. Stompanato's old boss, Mickey Cohen, was convinced that Turner had something to do with it, and he was keen to take out revenge on anyone who had anything to do with his man's death. Somehow, Connery was caught up in this, and he allegedly received a message either from Cohen or one of his men, telling him that his LA privileges had ended and he'd best skip town before a contract was put out on his life. This time, Connery apparently decided that this was a pickle he couldn't self-defense his way out of, and on the advice of Disney executives, checked out of the nice hotel where he'd been staying in favor of a cheap motel outside of town.

How long he laid low outside of town remains unclear, but obviously at some point the heat was off, as Connery continued making movies in LA and elsewhere. He lived to be 90, according to Biography, and died not from an assassin's bullet, but from old age.

If you or someone you know is dealing with domestic abuse, you can call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1−800−799−7233. You can also find more information, resources, and support at their website.