Pierce Brendan Brosnan,(born May 16, 1953) is an Irish-American actor and producer better known for portraying James Bond in four films from 1995 to 2002: GoldenEye, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough and Die Another Day. Since leaving the role, Brosnan has gone on to star in films such as Evelyn and Seraphim Falls. In 1996, he also formed, along with Beau St. Clair, a Los Angeles-based production company named Irish DreamTime. His current projects include Butterfly on a Wheel, Mamma Mia! and The Topkapi Affair, sequel to 1999s The Thomas Crown Affair.

Born an only child to Thomas and May in Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, Brosnan was brought up in nearby Navan, County Meath. He was educated in the local school, which was run by the De La Salle Brothers. Brosnans mother moved to London, England for work after his father, a carpenter, abandoned the family; in 1964, at the age of eleven, he joined her. Brosnan left Ireland on August 12, 1964 the very day that Ian Fleming died. His mother subsequently divorced his father and married a British World War II veteran, William Charmichael, who was quickly embraced as a father figure by his young stepson. It was Charmichael who took Brosnan to see his first Bond film, 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 school, Brosnan desired to be an artist and started training in commercial illustration at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. When he was 16, a circus agent saw him busking as a fire eater and hired him. He later trained for three years as an actor at the Drama Centre, London.

Off-hand charm and self-deprecating comic timing were two of the qualities this dashing Irish-born leading man brought to his winning portrayal of the sophisticated, often inept, con man/private investigator Remington Steele on the long-running TV series (NBC, 1982-87) of the same name. Brosnan, a former commercial illustrator who has garnered frequent comparisons to Cary Grant, became so popular in this role that he was selected by readers polled by a national magazine as the favored actor to replace the departing Roger Moore in the highly profitable James Bond series. However, contractual obligations to Remington Steele made him unavailable and the baton was passed to Timothy Dalton.

Brosnan entered show business as a teen runaway, working with the circus as a fire eater. He gained somewhat more conventional experience as a member of an experimental London theater workshop before making his stage debut in a 1976 production of Wait Until Dark. Brosnans theatrical breakthrough came from playwright Tennessee Williams who chose the handsome young actor to create the role of McCabe in the British premiere of his Red Devil Battery Sign. Additional stage work followed before his film debut in a character turn in the well-received Brit gangster film, The Long Good Friday (1980).

America first discovered the slender, dark-haired performer on TV in the miniseries The Manions of America (ABC, 1981) as Rory OManion, an Irish immigrant who makes it big in 19th century America. This successful exposure lead to his being cast as Steele. Brosnan turned up on a number of specials during the series run and one failed feature, Nomads (1985), in which he played a bedeviled French anthropologist. The transition to film actor proved difficult, but TV offered regular work in telefilms and miniseries. Brosnan was well cast as urbane eccentric Phineas Fogg in a miniseries adaptation of Jules Vernes novel Around the World in 80 Days (NBC, 1989). He became a familiar face in made-for-cable thrillers, notably playing special agent Mike Graham in Alistair MacLeans Death Train (USA, 1993) and Alistair MacLeans Night Watch (USA, 1995).

Brosnan initially found little success in features. He starred in the poorly received Ismail Merchant-produced adventure The Deceivers (1988) but received some positive notices for his portrayal of a Russian agent opposite Michael Caine in The Fourth Protocol (1987). He enjoyed a measure of popular success playing a scientist in the derivative special F/X fest, The Lawnmower Man (1992). Brosnan also played the supporting role of Stu, the other man, in the immensely successful if mild comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).

It was until 1995 that Brosnan finally got his license to kill and landed the role that would be associated with him for the rest of his life, James Bond, in the film Goldeneye. The 007 franchise was rebounding from some underperforming years during which action-heavy film series like Lethal Weapon, Die Hard and Batman were out-Bonding the grandaddy of the genre, but Brosnans long-awaited casting created a renewed buzz and his solid performance as an elegant-but-hard-edge 007 (combining the best elements of Sean Connery and Roger Moores diverse appeals) revived the franchise. The actor returned for several more outings: Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) in which he displayed abundant charisma opposite Bond girl Michelle Yeoh; The World is Not Enough (2000) in which his command as an action hero and sparks with Sophie Marceau balanced his chemistry-impaired relationship with Bond girl Denise Richards; and the 20th Bond outing Die Another Day, in which he and Bond girl Halle Berry delivered the most attractive pairing since the early days of the franchise. Shortly before the release of Die Another Day, Brosnan announced his intention to star in a fifth outing as the suave secret agent; however, in 2004 the actor revealed that he believed he had subsequently been fired from the role, despite--or possibly due to--his efforts to modernize and upgrade the franchise by recruiting edgier, A-list talent; for example, Brosnan had hoped he could persuade the producers to hire Quentin Tarantino to adapt Casino Royale into a feature film. In 2005 he told Entertainment Weekly that his role was ended with one telephone call, and that he always felt Bond was an uneasy fit for him, particularly the characters snarky one-liners. The franchizes producers countered that Brosnan asked for $30 million and gross points to reprise 007, something never granted before to any Bond actor.

His success as Bond also led to a renewed career in feature films as well, first in typically debonair supporting roles in films such as The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996) and Mars Attacks (1996), and then as a leading man in summer action fare like the volcano thriller Dantes Peak (1997). He also demonstrated a fondness for smaller films with an Anglo-Saxon bent such the Irish-themed The Nephew (1998) and the Scot-centric soccer comedy The Match (1999) - Brosnan also executive produced both films. He also received kudos for his performance as Archie Grey Owl, a 1930s Canadian fur trapper who adopts the ways of the Iroquois tribe in Sir Richard Attenboroughs little-seen Grey Owl (1999). His most successful and delightful non-Bond outing came in 1999, when he played the title role of the millionaire art thief in director John McTiernans classy remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, a role in which he displayed considerable elegance, panache and palpable sex appeal opposite his age-appropriate leading lady Rene Russo-as he neared the age of 50 he was a bigger sex symbol than when he was in his 30s, and in 2001 People magazine named him the Sexiest Man Alive.

Other strong roles followed, included a well-received turn in the John Le Carre spy thriller The Tailor of Panama (2001) from director John Boorman and a robust performance in Bruce Berefords Evelyn (2002), the true story of a working-class, pub-going, newly single Dublin dad who fights to regain custody of his children after his daughter and two sons are placed in Church-run orphanages by the Irish courts in the 1950s. Brosnan also produced the latter film under his Irish DreamTime production company. Next was a turn in the romantic comedy Laws of Attraction (2004) alongside Julianne Moore; the pair played opposing divorce lawyers who, despite their adversarial courtroom relationship, wake up to discover theyve gotten married after a romantic, if alcohol-soaked, evening. Returning more to his classic form, Brosnan played a successful jewel theif struggling with retirement in the Bahamas and tempted by one more big score in After the Sunset (2004), a sort of Thomas Crown Lite venture in which benefitted from Brosnans chemistry with co-stars Salma Hayek and Woody Harrelson.

Official Website: www.piercebrosnan.com