Pierce Brosnan

Biography
Pierce Brendan Brosnan, OBE is an Irish-American actor, film producer and environmentalist. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan desired to be an artist and began training in commercial illustration at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, but later attended drama school in London for three years. Following stage acting career he rose to popularity in the television series Remington Steele. Brosnan portrayed the fictional secret agent James Bond in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Since leaving the role, he has starred in films such as Evelyn and Seraphim Falls. In ...( show more

) 1996, he also formed, along with Beau St. Clair, a Los Angeles-based production company named Irish DreamTime. He was married to Cassandra Harris until her death, and is now married to Keely Shaye Smith. He became a naturalized United States citizen in 2004. In his later years, he has also been known for his charitable endeavours. His current projects are Mamma Mia!,The Thomas Crown Affair 2, Caitlin and The Big Biazarro.

Pierce Brosnan as a teenager. Brosnan was born an only child to Thomas, a carpenter, and May (née Smith) in Navan, County Meath. He was educated in the local school run by the De La Salle Brothers. Brosnan's mother moved to London, England, for work, after his father had abandoned the family, and in 1964, at the age of eleven, Brosnan joined his mother, leaving Ireland on August 12, 1964, the very day of Ian Fleming's death. Brosnan quickly embraced his mother's new husband as a father figure. It was his stepfather, William Charmichael, who took Brosnan to see a James Bond film for the first time (Goldfinger). Brosnan was educated at Elliott School, a state secondary modern school in Putney, West London. Brosnan would have his first 'crush' on his geography teacher during his time at school. When he attended high school, his nickname was "Irish". After leaving school at 16, Brosnan desired to be an artist and began training in commercial illustration at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. A circus agent, however, saw him busking as a fire eater and hired him. He later trained for three years as an actor at the Drama Centre in London.

Brosnan and Stephanie Zimbalist in Remington Steele. After he graduated from the Drama Center in 1975, Brosnan got a job as an acting assistant stage manager at the York Theatre Royal, making his first stage appearance in Wait Until Dark. Within six months, he was selected by playwright Tennessee Williams to play the role of McCabe in the British première of The Red Devil Battery Sign. His performance caused a stir in London and Brosnan still has the telegram sent by Williams, stating only "Thank God for you, my dear boy". He continued his career making brief appearances in films such as The Long Good Friday (1980) and The Mirror Crack'd (1980), as well as early television performances in The Professionals, Murphy's Stroke, and Play for Today. He became a television star in the United States with his leading role in the popular miniseries Manions of America starring with Kate Mulgrew, David Soul and Linda Purl. He followed this with his 1982 portrayal of Robert Gould Shaw II in the Masterpiece Theatre documentary that chronicled the life of Virginia-born Lady Nancy Astor – the first woman to sit in British Parliament. His portrayal of the love-deprived Shaw garnered Brosnan a 1985 Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 1982, Brosnan rose to popularity in the United States playing the ruggedly-handsome title role in the NBC romantic detective series Remington Steele, starring opposite Stephanie Zimbalist as agency creator Laura Holt. The Washington Post noted that same year that "Pierce Brosnan could make it as a young James Bond." In 1986, Brosnan was actually offered the role of James Bond before the Remington Steele series had come to an end (it was unexpectedly renewed for another year), and he was unable to break his contract with the show's producers. After Steele finally ended, Brosnan went on to appear in several films, including The Fourth Protocol (1987), The Deceivers (1988) and The Lawnmower Man (1992). In 1992, he shot a pilot for NBC called Running Wilde, playing a reporter for Auto World magazine whose stories cover his own wild auto adventures. Jennifer Love Hewitt played his daughter, but the series wasn't picked up and the pilot never aired. The following year he played a supporting role in the comedy film Mrs Doubtfire. He also appeared in several television films, including Night Watch, a Hong Kong-set spy thriller, in which he starred with actress Alexandra Paul.

Aware of the danger of being typecast as James Bond, Brosnan asked EON Productions when accepting the role, to be allowed to work on other projects between Bond films. The request was granted, and for every Bond film, Brosnan appeared in at least two other mainstream films, including several he produced. Brosnan, along with producing partner Beau St. Clair, also formed a film production company in 1996, entitled "Irish DreamTime". For a time, rumour was that his Bond contract forbade him from wearing a dinner suit in any non-Bond film; that rumour was false. Brosnan played a wide range of roles in between his Bond film appearances, ranging from a nerdy scientist in Tim Burton's Mars Attacks!, to a volcanologist in Dante's Peak and the title role in Grey Owl, a biopic about Englishman Archibald Stansfeld Belaney who adopted the Ojibwa name Grey Owl and become one of Canada's first conservationists. In July 2003, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Brosnan an honorary OBE for his "outstanding contribution to the British film industry". As an Irish citizen, he is ineligible to receive the full OBE honour, which is awarded only to a citizen of Britain or of one of the Commonwealth of Nations member countries. In 2002, Brosnan was also awarded an Honorary degree from the Dublin Institute of Technology and, one year later, the University College Cork. Brosnan's first post-Bond role was that of Daniel Rafferty in 2004's Laws of Attraction. Garreth Murphy, of entertainment.ie, described Brosnan's performance as "surprisingly effective, gently riffing off his James Bond persona and supplementing it with a raffish energy". In the same year, Brosnan starred in After the Sunset alongside Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson. The film opened to generally negative reviews; it currently holds a 17% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes website. Brosnan's next film was 2005's The Matador. Shaking off the sophisticated secret agent image, Brosnan starred as Julian Noble, a jaded and paunchy assassin who meets a travelling salesman (Greg Kinnear) in a Mexican bar. The film was better received than After the Sunset and garnered more positive reviews. Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times called Brosnan's performance the best of his career. Brosnan was nominated for a Golden Globe award for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy for his work in the film but lost out to Joaquin Phoenix's role as Johnny Cash in Walk the Line. Brosnan's first film of 2007 was Seraphim Falls, in which he starred alongside fellow Irishman Liam Neeson. The film was released for limited screenings on January 26, 2007 to average reviews. Kevin Crust of the Los Angeles Times noted that Brosnan and Neeson made "fine adversaries;" however, Michael Rechtshaffen of The Hollywood Reporter thought that they were "hard-pressed to inject some much-needed vitality into their sparse lines." Brosnan's upcoming projects include Butterfly on a Wheel and Married Life. Pre-production has started on The Thomas Crown Affair 2, the sequel to the 1999 film The Thomas Crown Affair. The sequel, directed by Dutch director Paul Verhoeven, will use Eric Ambler's novel The Light of Day and the 1964 adaption, Topkapi as a basis. In December 2005, Brosnan was reported to be attached to star in The November Man, an adaption of Bill Grainger's novel, There Are No Spies, but the project was cancelled in 2007. Brosnan will also be financially backing Caitlin, a film about Caitlin MacNamara, wife of poet Dylan Thomas. The title role will be played by Miranda Richardson and Brosnan will have a small part as Thomas's literary agent, John Brinnin. Brosnan's co-star in Die Another Day, Rosamund Pike, will also appear. Also in 2008, Brosnan will join Meryl Streep in a film adaption of the ABBA musical Mamma Mia!. He will play Sam Carmichael, one of three men rumoured to be the father of lead Amanda Seyfried. Streep will play her mother. Judy Craymer, producer to the film, said "Pierce brings a certain smooch factor, and we think he'll have great chemistry with Meryl in a romantic comedy." In 2009, Brosnan will star in The Big Biazarro, directed by Vondie Curtis-Hall. The film is an adaptation of the Leonard Wise novel of the same name. He plays a card player who mentors a headstrong protégé. Brosnan has also spoke recently of making a Western film with fellow Irishmen Gabriel Byrne and Colm Meaney. Brosnan is also set to narrate seasons 12-14 of Thomas and Friends, replacing Michael Brandon in North America and Michael Angelis in the British Isles and Australia. Actor and director Danny DeVito has stated that Brosnan will join Dakota Fanning and Morgan Freeman in his adaption of the 1990 novel The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle. He will play "Zachariah, the ship's cook, surgeon, and carpenter."

Pierce Brosnan at the Toronto Film Festival 2005 Brosnan married Australian actress Cassandra Harris in 1980 and adopted her two children, Charlotte (b. 1971) and Christopher (b. 1972) after their father died in 1986. Brosnan and Harris had one son together, Sean (b. 1983). Harris died of ovarian cancer in 1991, after eleven years of marriage. In 2001, Brosnan married American journalist Keely Shaye Smith, and they have two sons, Dylan Thomas (b. 1997) and Paris Beckett (b. 2001). In February 2007, Brosnan pulled out of attending the IFTA Awards ceremony in Dublin due to his stepfather's serious illness. On September 23, 2004, Brosnan became a naturalized citizen of the United States, but he has retained his Irish citizenship. Brosnan has said that "my Irishness is in everything I do. It's the spirit of who I am, as a man, an actor, a father. It's where I come from." Brosnan was asked by a fan if it annoyed him when people get his nationality confused. He said: "It amuses me in some respects that they should confuse me with an Englishman when I'm dyed-in-the-wool, born and bred Irishman...I don't necessarily fly under any flag. But no, it doesn't bother me."