The Oscar-winning actor Sir Sean Connery has been told by police that they believe he was a repeated victim of phone hacking, the Guardian has learned.
The Scottish screen actor, best known for playing the secret agent James Bond, has been told by police he was hacked about 10 times, making him one of the highest profile victims so far in the hacking scandal.
It is understood his name appears in the records of Glenn Mulcaire, the private detective for the News of the World.
The incidents were confirmed on Tuesday by Connery's close friend and biographer Murray Grigor, who recently travelled to New York to launch a new film, starring Connery, about St Andrew's University.
After confirming the details with Connery in Switzerland late on Tuesday, Grigor said: "Apparently there were 10 instances. The police were quite excited about it but he doesn't want to know. He doesn't want anything to do with it. He's just having a good time and he just shrugged it off."
Connery, now 81, has largely retired from acting. The winner of two Baftas and three Golden Globes, Connery starred in six James Bond films between 1962 and 1983. He also won the best supporting actor Oscar for his role in the film The Untouchables.
Connery's hacking is likely to increase the pressure on the first minister, Alex Salmond, to confirm or deny whether he too was a hacking victim when he appears at the Leveson inquiry next month.
Connery is the latest figure in Salmond's circle to be drawn into the hacking affair. A Scottish nationalist, Connery is Salmond's most famous admirer and friend. He sent a written endorsement for the launch last Friday of the yes campaign for Scottish independence.
Salmond has been resisting intense pressure to hold a Scottish parliamentary inquiry into hacking after opposition complaints about his agreement to lobby the Westminster government to boost Murdoch's bid to take over BSkyB.
He made that offer at the same time as he brokered a deal to win the Sun's endorsement of the SNP at the last Scottish election, which included features in which Connery publicly endorsed Salmond and the SNP.
Salmond has consistently refused to answer questions about being a possible hacking victim, put to him by three opposition leaders in the Scottish parliament. Resisting calls for an inquiry into hacking in Scotland, he has told Holyrood he will only answer questions at the Leveson inquiry, where he is due to appear on 13 June.
Earlier in May, Salmond's parliamentary aide Joan McAlpine, a journalist who worked for News International before becoming an MSP, revealed she had also been warned by police her name was in Mulcaire's records. She wrote the Connery interviews for the Sun, with her expenses paid by the SNP.
Her name, address and mobile phone number appeared in Mulcaire's detailed notes about the former Scottish Socialist party leader Tommy Sheridan, who was convicted of perjury in 2010 over his evidence in his libel action against the NoW in 2006.
McAlpine made the disclosure in her Daily Record column two days after the former first minister, Jack McConnell, disclosed that he and his two adult children were likely hacking victims.
News International and Strathclyde police were approached for comment but had not responded by time of publication.
