Sir Jackie Stewart has instructed of his heartbreak at seeing his shut buddy and fellow Scot within the grip of simply weeks earlier than the star died in his sleep.
The legend, who turns 84 subsequent month, opens his coronary heart in a TV documentary airing in America.
He reveals: "I noticed him not too lengthy earlier than he died and it was a tragic sight."
The present, Post-mortem: The Final Hours Of?, tells how Connery struggled with dementia for greater than 13 years earlier than dying at his dwelling within the Bahamas aged 90 in October 2020.
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The star's biographer Michael Callan tells the present the display icon's high quality of life "grew actually poor" in his closing months.
Sir Jackie - the final buddy to see Connery alive - says: "I feel Sean would have most well-liked to slide away a wee bit earlier."
However he provides: "The nicest factor we did was see his movie The Hill (a 1965 jail drama directed by Sidney Lumet) which he believed was one of the best he ever made."
Jackie has since based the charity Race Towards Dementia to fund pioneering analysis into the prevention and remedy of dementia.
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Jackie grew to become near Connery after they met in 1971 - the identical 12 months the actor starred in his sixth 007 movie Diamonds Are Ceaselessly.
Final 12 months Sir Jackie made a secret go to to Scotland to assist Connery's widow Micheline - his second spouse of 45 years - scatter his ashes in Edinburgh, town the place he was born into poverty.
Connery's loss of life sparked hypothesis when his loss of life certificates was not launched instantly.
Talking on America's Reelz present, which airs later within the UK, forensic pathologist Dr Michael Hunter concurs with the coroner's conclusion of respiratory failure, however believes dementia could have performed a task.
He provides that whereas the Oscar-winning actor smoked and drank most of his life, he countered that with an in any other case "wholesome and energetic" life-style.