Vintage Shaver
Seattle, WA
I have been reading Paul Newman's autobiography, 'The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man,' which is quite interesting. In it he describes an episode with Sean Connery involving hot peppers:
"Sean Connery, then at the peak of his 007 fame, came out to visit his wife, Diane Cilento, who was cast as the female lead in 'Hombre.' We decided to have a dinner for them at the Tack Room, which back then was a very famous restaurant in Tucson. It had these long wooden tables, and they'd put out these plates of terribly hot peppers that would put a flame in your mouth. Even if you bit off just a sliver, it would bring tears to your eyes and clear out your sinuses for a month. Sean was at one end of the table, I was at the other, when I saw him grab a big handful of these peppers, pop them in his mouth, and start to chew. It all happened so quickly that I was immobilized. I waited for the top of his head to lift off his neck two or three inches, separate from his ears, and for his chair to fall over backwards while he ran for a swimming pool to submerge the fire.
But nothing happened.
Sean just kept speaking normally through this onslaught of heat. And I stared at him with the sort of reverence and admiration that I might reserve for a bullfighter or kamikaze pilot. I'd never been so awed; it was spiritual. I don't remember whether I ever had the chance to tell Sean, but I came to regard him as one of the toughest men on the face of the earth."
"Sean Connery, then at the peak of his 007 fame, came out to visit his wife, Diane Cilento, who was cast as the female lead in 'Hombre.' We decided to have a dinner for them at the Tack Room, which back then was a very famous restaurant in Tucson. It had these long wooden tables, and they'd put out these plates of terribly hot peppers that would put a flame in your mouth. Even if you bit off just a sliver, it would bring tears to your eyes and clear out your sinuses for a month. Sean was at one end of the table, I was at the other, when I saw him grab a big handful of these peppers, pop them in his mouth, and start to chew. It all happened so quickly that I was immobilized. I waited for the top of his head to lift off his neck two or three inches, separate from his ears, and for his chair to fall over backwards while he ran for a swimming pool to submerge the fire.
But nothing happened.
Sean just kept speaking normally through this onslaught of heat. And I stared at him with the sort of reverence and admiration that I might reserve for a bullfighter or kamikaze pilot. I'd never been so awed; it was spiritual. I don't remember whether I ever had the chance to tell Sean, but I came to regard him as one of the toughest men on the face of the earth."
John