Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brendan Brosnan (born 16 May 1953) is an English actor, film producer and environmentalist, who holds both Irish and American citizenship. After leaving school at 16, Brosnan began training in commercial illustration, but trained at the Drama Centre in London for three years. Following a stage acting career he rose to popularity in the television series Remington Steele.
Brosnan portrayed the secret agent James Bond in GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. He also provided his voice and likeness to Bond in the video game James Bond 007: Everything or Nothing and James Bond 007: Nightfire. In 1993, Brosnan starred in Mrs. Doubtfire playing the part of ‘Stuart Dunmeyer’. He also played the part of volcanologist Harry Dalton in the film Dante’s Peak along with actress Linda Hamilton in 1997. In 1996, he 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.
Since leaving the role of James Bond, Brosnan has starred in films such as The Matador and Seraphim Falls. He became an American citizen in 2004. In his later years, he has been known for his charitable work and environmental activism. He starred in the movie musical Mamma Mia! as Sam Carmichael.
Brosnan met Australian actress Cassandra Harris through David Harris, one of Richard Harris’ nephews, in 1974, shortly after he left drama school. On meeting her he has described his feelings saying “What a beautiful looking woman. I never for an instant thought she was someone I’d spend 17 years of my life with. I didn’t think of wooing her, or attempting to woo her; I just wanted to enjoy her beauty and who she was”. They began dating, and eventually managed to scrape enough money together to buy a small house in Wimbledon in 1979. They lived with her small children, Charlotte (born 27 November 1971) and Christopher (born 6 October 1972), whom he would later adopt after their father died in 1986. They married in 1977 and had one son together, Sean (born 13 September 1983).
Financially, Brosnan was concerned about earning enough money to get by at this time, and supplemented their income by working in West End productions, and a television film about Irish horse racing. Soon after Harris appeared in the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only in 1981, with a bank loan, they moved to southern California where Brosnan had his first interview in Hollywood for Remington Steele, and subsequently no longer had financial worries.
When Remington Steele was sent to Ireland to film an episode there, generating significant publicity in doing so, Brosnan was briefly reunited with his father who visited his hotel. Brosnan had expected to see a very tall man, but describes his father as, “a man of medium stature, pushed-back silver hair, flinty eyes and a twizzled jaw. He had a very strong Kerry accent.” However, Brosnan expresses regret that they met under such circumstances in a public environment rather than on his own terms which would have given him the opportunity to speak privately with him.
While filming The Deceivers in Rajasthan, India in 1987, his wife Cassandra Harris became seriously ill. She was later diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died four years later in 1991. Brosnan struggled to cope with her cancer and death and has said; “A young woman making her way through life, as a mother, as an actress. When your partner gets cancer, then life changes. Your timetable and reference for your normal routines and the way you view life, all this changes. Because you’re dealing with death. You’re dealing with the possibility of death and dying. And it was that way through the chemotherapy, through the first-look operation, the second look, the third look, the fourth look, the fifth look. Cassie was very positive about life. I mean, she had the most amazing energy and outlook on life. It was and is a terrible loss, and I see it reflected, from time to time, in my children.”
In 2001, Brosnan married American journalist Keely Shaye Smith, and they have two sons together, Dylan Thomas Brosnan (birth 13 January 1997) and Paris Beckett Brosnan (birth 27 February 2001).
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 the Commonwealth realms. In 2002, Brosnan was also awarded an Honorary degree from the Dublin Institute of Technology and, one year later, the University College Cork.
