O’Toole. Plenty O’Toole.
Lana Wood scored the coveted role of Bond girl Plenty O’Toole in 1971’s “Diamonds Are Forever” and simultaneously entered into an affair with star Sean Connery.
Wood, 75, revealed to Fox News why the fling ended and the two went their separate ways.
“I knew Sean,” said the younger sister of late Hollywood icon Natalie Wood. “I had met him years ago. My boyfriend at the time was [film producer] Jerome Hellman who was friends with Sean. We were invited to dinner at his house and I remember him being fun.”
The former Bond babe also called Connery — who died in October 2020 at 90 of pneumonia, heart problems and old age — “magnetic” and “charismatic.”
“He was very magnetic,” she said. “[Connery] was very charismatic and we just had a terrific evening. I felt so comfortable with him. I was completely at ease. So when I saw Sean walking through the lobby on the first day on set, I was delighted. I was a nervous wreck so I felt like I at least had one friend.”
“I felt so comfortable with him. I was completely at ease,” Wood said of Connery when they were shooting their film.Courtesy Everett CollectionWood and Connery had a brief, passionate affair at the time and she claimed she was the one who ended it. The “Peyton Place” star then explained she put a stop to the relationship because she was in a “really lovely relationship with [composer] Leslie Bricusse.”
Wood posing for a photo shoot in 1971.Getty Images“Leslie had gone back to London. And I just felt that I really had to tell Sean that this relationship would not continue because I was very much in love with Leslie Bricusse. I thought Sean was absolutely wonderful, but I couldn’t see him anymore,” Wood recalled. “I had to tell him. So when I told him, he said, ‘I understand completely.’ And that was it. We were in the hallway leading to the casino getting ready to shoot. And I walked away. I finished the take and then went back to hair and makeup.”
Lana Wood in 2018.WireImageShe continued, “I just needed him to know. And then many years later, all of a sudden, it dawned on me. He probably thought, ‘What a silly girl! Of course, we weren’t going to have a relationship.’ I just thought it was funny that I had to say something to him. But I had to be honest with him.”
Sean Connery and Lana Wood in “Diamonds Are Forever.”Courtesy Everett CollectionAccording to the British publication Express, it was the “Marnie” actor who started the affair. “I was never that forward. We went out to dinner, then met some of his friends, then went for a walk, and you know,” Wood told the outlet in September.
Lana Wood in a 1971 photo for “Diamonds Are Forever.”Getty Images“We actually started having an affair before filming began, but we kept it secret. Neither of us was married at the time, but it still isn’t done to be public about it,” she said. “I remember being very embarrassed when we had to do the love scenes, because we were trying not to let people know.
“You want to be a good actress, but for it not to seem too convincing,” Wood revealed.
