In a new interview with Fox News, Wood, who is the younger sister of late actor Natalie Wood, shared details about her relationship with Connery, including why she eventually broke off the alleged affair. Read on to see what she had to say. RELATED: 10 Classic Bond Girls, Then and Now. In the interview with Fox News, Wood explained that she knew Connery before they started filming Diamonds Are Forever, because they had mutual friends. “I had met him years ago,” said the actor who played Bond Girl Plenty O’Toole. “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. He was very magnetic. He 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.” The new interview isn’t the first time Wood has claimed she had an affair with Connery. In 2012, she spoke to the Daily Mail and said that Connery initiated the relationship. “I was never that forward,” she said. “We went out to dinner, then met some of his friends, then went for a walk, and you know. We actually started having an affair before filming began, but we kept it secret.” She continued, “Neither of us was married at the time, but it still isn’t done to be public about it.” The same year Diamonds Are Forever was released, Connery separated from his wife Diane Cilento. They later divorced in 1973. “I remember being very embarrassed when we had to do the love scenes, because we were trying not to let people know,” Wood said. “You want to be a good actress, but for it not to seem too convincing.” In the Fox News interview, Wood was asked about another Bond Girl, Barbara Carrera, saying that Connery was a great kisser. “Kissing wasn’t way up there on the list,” Wood replied. For more celebrity news delivered right to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter. Wood told Fox News that she decided to break off the relationship with Connery because she was in love with someone else. “At the time I had a really lovely relationship with [composer] Leslie Bricusse,” the 75-year-old claimed. “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. 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.” In the Daily Mail interview, Wood mentioned that she was in love with someone else at the time of the alleged Connery affair, but that the unnamed man was married and never left his wife. This matches up with Bricusse’s life story; he was with his wife until his death in 2021.ae0fcc31ae342fd3a1346ebb1f342fcb
Wood now thinks that Connery probably though she was “silly” for even feeling the need to end the alleged affair. “I just needed him to know,” she told Fox News. “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.” RELATED: See Harry Hamlin’s Son With Bond Girl Ursula Andress.
