THE pen in James Bond’s pocket is usually a gadget which can shoot bullets, release acid or bug conversations. What it cannot do, seemingly, is write.

Sir Sean Connery, the first to play 007 on the big screen, has pulled out of a planned autobiography which would have earned him millions and marked his 50th anniversary as a film actor.

It is the second occasion the actor has cancelled a deal with a ghost writer. This time the disappointed author is Hunter Davies, who wrote the only authorised biography of the Beatles and ghosted the life story of Paul Gascoigne.

Connery, now 74, signed a contract with Davies, 69, last summer to write his memoirs.

Six months earlier he had inked a similar arrangement with Meg Henderson, a Scottish writer, but then pulled out. Henderson later said: “He isn’t the man I thought he was nor the man he likes to think he is.”

Insiders in the publishing world claim Connery, who won an Oscar as best supporting actor in 1988 for his role in The Untouchables, hoped the book would praise his screen image.

Davies wanted to write a “warts and all” account of the Scottish actor’s life. His autobiography of Gazza included frank admissions of the footballer’s drinking binges and personality disorders.

Insiders say that Connery had been happy with the first 100 pages drafted but, after the writer presented the next instalment, concluded he had made a mistake “He is an enclosed person,” said a source, “and had found the whole process really upsetting.”

Connery, son of a lorry driver and a cleaner, left school at 14 to become a milkman. He served in the Royal Navy and represented Scotland in the Mr Universe body building competition before making his acting debut as a diamond thief in the film No Road Back in 1957.

Revelations about his private life would be a guarantee of serialisation in any newspaper. Connery once claimed to have lost his virginity at the age of eight. Those who have alleged affairs with him include Shelley Winters, the Hollywood actress, and Lynsey de Paul, the singer.

The actor is now said to have got cold feet about going into print. “I have no idea of Connery’s plans now,” said his agent Mort Janklow of Janklow & Nesbit last week. The agency added that Davies was no longer involved with the book.

A publishing deal was originally announced by HarperCollins last July. Connery then chose Davies from a shortlist of four writers to help him. The writer, who had been working for eight months on the project, only found out two weeks ago that it was to be terminated.

Davies flew to the Caribbean last Friday for a holiday. He was unavailable for comment.

It has long been alleged Connery hit his first wife, Diane Cilento, the actress and mother of his actor son Jason. It is a claim denied by the actor, who once said in an interview that “to slap a woman is not the cruellest thing you can do to her”.

In another interview, with Paris-Match magazine, he said: “I have never in my life head-butted anyone, whoever they were, nor did I lock her up or try to prevent her writing as she would have you believe.”

Connery also had many rows with Cubby Broccoli, the producer of the Bond movies, whose daughter Barbara will shortly decide who takes over from Pierce Brosnan as 007.

Any autobiography would also delve into Connery’s role in Scottish nationalist politics, which he believes delayed his knighthood until 2000.

John Parker, author of Arise Sir Sean Connery, an unofficial biography, said last week that Connery was “a man of honour who expects no less of those he does business with”.

“Connery was the subject of the bitchiness of modern politics,” Parker added. “This precluded him from a knighthood in spite of the fact that, apart from his acting achievements, he has been one of the largest individual benefactors to Scottish charities in modern times.”

Connery is Britain’s highest-paid film star and commands £9m a movie. He is due to play Harrison Ford’s father again in the fourth Indiana Jones movie. But last year he left the set of a heist movie called Josiah’s Canon and returned his fee. His publicist said then that he had left to concentrate on his book.

HarperCollins hopes Connery can eventually be persuaded to write a more personal memoir.

Davies last week reached an outline agreement with HodderHeadline to write his own memoirs. He is unlikely to employ a ghost. Certainly not Connery, who was always more handy with a Beretta than a Biro.

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