Pierce Brosnan, in full Pierce Brendan Brosnan (born May 16, 1953, County
Meath,
Ireland), Irish American actor who was perhaps best known for playing
James Bond in a series of films.
Brosnan, whose father left home shortly after his birth, was raised by relatives after his mother left to work in England. At age 15 he set out on his own in
London to be an actor. He joined a
theatre group and later studied at the Drama Centre of
London. He married actress Cassandra Harris, and the two subsequently moved to the
United States; he became a U.S. citizen in 2004. Brosnan was soon cast as a charming con man in the NBC
television detective series
Remington Steele. The show, which premiered in 1982, was a success, and in 1986 he was chosen as the successor to Roger Moore as James Bond—the suave British secret service agent 007 created by novelist
Ian Fleming. His NBC contract, however, prevented him from accepting, and Timothy Dalton took the role instead. Remington Steeleended in 1987, and Brosnan continued to take on television and film roles. In 1991 he dealt with the loss of his wife, who died after a four-year battle with
ovarian cancer.
Meanwhile, Dalton’s two Bond films were seen as relative failures, and in 1994 Brosnan was finally able to accept the role. His first film in the series,
GoldenEye (1995), made more than $350 million worldwide, the most ever for a Bond film at that time. The second,
Tomorrow Never Dies (1999), scored record grosses for a Bond film in the United States. Brosnan brought out the human side of the Bond character, and the series producers sought to emphasize that in The World Is Not Enough (1999). Brosnan made his final appearance as
James Bond in Die Another Day (2002).
While making the Bond films, Brosnan expanded his repertoire and took advantage of his popularity to choose new projects. In 1999 he produced and starred in a remake of the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair. He later appeared in the espionage-thriller
The Tailor of Panama (2001), a film adaptation of
John le Carré’s novel; the romantic comedy Laws of Attraction (2004); and The Matador(2005), in which he played a weary hit man. In 2007 Brosnan starred opposite
Liam Neeson in the Civil War film Seraphim Falls. The following year he appeared with
Meryl Streep and
Colin Firth in
Mamma Mia!, a musical featuring songs by the Swedish pop group
ABBA.
Brosnan’s subsequent movies include the children’s fantasy Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) and
Roman Polanski’s
The Ghost Writer (2010), in which he played a former British prime minister accused of war crimes. In 2011 he appeared as a flirtatious businessman in the comedy I Don’t Know How She Does It and as a widowed writer in the TV miniseries Bag of Bones, which was based on a
Stephen King novel. Brosnan then took a leading role in Love Is All You Need (2012), a romantic comedy set in Europe with a mainly Danish cast. In 2014 he featured in the ensemble cast of the drama A Long Way Down, based on the novel by
Nick Hornby about four suicidal friends, and in the thriller The November Man, in which he portrayed a retired CIA agent who is pulled onto a high-stakes mission.
