Thunderball (novel) "Daily Express" strip was cut short on the order of its owner, Lord Beaverbrook, after Ian Fleming signed an agreement with "The Sunday Times" to publish a short story. On screen, "Thunderball" was released in 1965 as the fourth film in the Eon Productions series, with Sean Connery as James Bond. The second adaptation, "Never Say Never Again", was released as an independent production in 1983 also starring Connery as Bond and was produced by Kevin McClory. BBC Radio 4 aired an adaptation in December 2016, directed by Martin Jarvis. It starred Toby Stephens as Bond and Tom Conti as
Sean Connery Pacific" at the Opera House, Manchester over the Christmas period of 1954, Connery developed a serious interest in the theatre through American actor Robert Henderson who lent him copies of the Henrik Ibsen works "Hedda Gabler", "The Wild Duck", and "When We Dead Awaken", and later listed works by the likes of Marcel Proust, Leo Tolstoy, Ivan Turgenev, George Bernard Shaw, James Joyce and William Shakespeare for him to digest. Henderson urged him to take elocution lessons and got him parts at the Maida Vale Theatre in London. In addition, he had already begun pursuing a film career, having been