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Sean Connery may never visit

Sean Connery's agent said yesterday that the James Bond star might never visit Taiwan following rumors he was to take part in a human-chain rally on Saturday.

"Given what has now happened, I would sincerely doubt [that he will ever visit Taiwan], since everybody seems to be saying that he's coming when he hasn't even considered it," Nancy Seltzer told the Taipei Times in a telephone interview.

Selzter, who heads the Los Angeles-based Nancy Seltzer & Associates, also denied pan-blue claims that representatives of the People First Party (PFP) had contacted Connery and warned him against traveling to Taiwan.

"No one connected with Sean Connery, nor Sean, has heard from either the opposition party or the human-chain rally," Seltzer said.

She said no one other than the Taipei Times had contacted Connery or his representatives regarding the 228 rally.

PFP spokesman Hwang Yih-jiau (黃義交) said on Monday that party contacts had changed Connery's mind about attending the hand-in-hand rally, which will protest China's missile threat against Taiwan.

Hwang later toned down his remarks, saying that the PFP contacts had merely passed information on to Connery over the past week to allow him to come to his own decision about Saturday's event.

Seltzer said Connery will be appearing at the Oscars awards ceremony on Sunday and will be at rehearsals for the Los Angeles show on the day of the rally.

Seltzer said Connery had been obligated to attend the Academy Awards and the rehearsals "for some time."

Phone calls and e-mails to the Oscars publicity department went unanswered.

Hwang maintained yesterday that the PFP did contact Connery, saying that the party had passed along its points of view "through several channels."

Hwang would not reveal what these channels were.

"I didn't personally contact anyone," Hwang said. "We just contacted people overseas to contact his office, and these people responded to us and assured us that they had delivered a message. The decision is Connery's. We never said that that we had influence over him. That's the end of the story."

When told of Seltzer's comments that it was doubtful Connery would ever visit Taiwan, Hwang said that he would respect Connery's wishes and that an invitation to the actor to attend Chinese Nationalist Party Chairman Lien Chan's (連戰) inauguration if Lien wins the presidential election in March still stood.

"He is always welcome to come over as our guest because the people here really have a high regard for him," Hwang said.

A rally representative said he was disappointed Connery's agent said the star was unlikely to ever visit Taiwan.

"I regret that he isn't coming, and his not coming will not be very good for Taiwan's image," deputy executive director of the Hand-in-Hand Taiwan Alliance Peter Wang (王獻極) said.

Additional reporting by Martin Williams
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