Pierce Brosnan became a world star as Agent 007. His most successful film is a musical, although the Irishman is only partially convincing as a singer.
Pierce Brosnan had already written off his most famous role as James Bond. In 1986 he had convinced the producers of the 007 casting and was supposed to play the famous secret agent for the first time in “The Living Daylights”. But a contractual TV obligation prevented his planned use.
It wasn’t until eight years later that Brosnan got the coveted dream role that changed his career. The Irish actor turns 70 on May 16 and continues to exude James Bond charm.
Brosnan currently hosts the true crime series History’s Greatest Heists. His hair has now turned gray. His face got a few wrinkles. But just like his predecessor and original Bond Sean Connery, Brosnan tends to look even better with age, sometimes clean-shaven like in the new series, sometimes with a coolly styled full beard. Asked about his looks, the actor said years ago on the show by US talk show host Conan O’Brien: “I’m just an Irishman who turned out well.”
Grown up with my grandparents for a while
In fact, Pierce Brendan Brosnan, who was born in the small Irish town of Drogheda in 1953, has done more than well. And after a difficult childhood. When he was a baby, his father left the family. His mother went to London and left little Pierce in the care of his grandparents. It wasn’t until he was a teenager that he moved to London with his mother and her new husband.
At 16 he left school to become a painter. “There was something romantic about being an artist,” he told Gentleman’s Journal, “then I found acting.” He trained at the London Drama Center. After a few years at the theater, in 1980 he was in front of the camera for a TV film and for his first cinema role. In the gangster film classic “The Long Good Friday” (German title: “Rififi am Karfreitag”) he plays a cold-blooded Irish killer.
In the same year he married the Australian actress Cassandra Harris, who soon starred opposite Roger Moore in the Bond film For Your Eyes Only. During filming, Brosnan met Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli, which would prove to be seminal for the handsome Irishman’s career.
The US crime series “Remington Steele”, in which Brosnan appeared as a charming detective like a young James Bond, made him internationally known from 1982. But she almost ruined his career. Because when Brosnan had the Bond role in his pocket, the producers of “Remington Steele” decided to shoot more episodes, which Brosnan was contractually obliged to do. Timothy Dalton, who initially turned down the role, became the new James Bond.
Series and action films
After the setback, Brosnan took part in TV series and played characters who looked like weak copies of 007 in little-noticed action films such as “A Man Like Taffin”, “Hydrotoxin – The Bomb Ticks Inside You” or “Death Train”. In the excellent thriller “The Fourth Protocol” based on a novel by Frederick Forsyth, however, he was hunted by Michael Caine as a Russian KGB agent.
Privately, he had to cope with a heavy blow of fate in 1991 when his wife lost her battle with cancer after several years. “It’s incredibly cruel to lose someone you shared everything with,” Brosnan told People magazine at the time. The marriage to Cassandra Harris, who was only 43, produced their son Sean. Brosnan also adopted Harris’ children Charlotte and Chris from her previous marriage. Tragic: Charlotte also died in 2013 at the age of 41 like her mother from ovarian cancer.
In Brosnan’s life of ups and downs, 1994 was a doubly high. In Mexico he met the US journalist Keely Shaye Smith, whom he married in Ireland in 2001 and with whom he has two sons, Dylan and Paris. Also in 1994 he became James Bond as the fifth actor. Lucky for Brosnan, Timothy Dalton announced his retirement after just two films as 007.
“GoldenEye” celebrated its world premiere in November 1995 and finally made Brosnan a world star. It was followed by “Tomorrow Never Dies” (1997) and “The World Is Not Enough” (1999). Brosnan again showed more humor and witty sayings compared to Dalton. With an invisible car and a scene with moderate computer effects in which Bond surfs on a giant wave, “Die Another Day” (2002) is considered the weakest of the 25 films produced by Eon to date. The makers decided to restart the series with Daniel Craig and Brosnan’s fourth Bond film was his last.
Brosnan never made a secret of his disappointment at the abrupt end. “I was wondering why the door was suddenly closed on me,” he said in the ABC interview. “I thought everything was going so well. First they said I should come back. Then it was suddenly over.” The film industry is “a cruel business”.
After all, Bond made many roles possible for him that he probably wouldn’t have gotten before. His best films as a lead actor include the volcano disaster Dante’s Peak, the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, and the action thriller The Foreigner. However, his most successful feature film was a musical: In the film adaptation of the Abba musical “Mamma Mia!” (2008) he sings himself.
Sung alongside Meryl Streep
Brosnan knows that singing isn’t exactly his forte. “After all, I got a platinum album for my singing,” he joked in an interview with the music magazine NME, “so fuck the envious people. I was allowed to sing with Meryl Streep.” However, he also admitted: “They didn’t hire me because of my singing.” The film’s huge success led to the 2018 sequel “Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again.”
Pierce Brosnan was last seen in cinemas as Doctor Fate alongside Dwayne Johnson in the flopped comic spectacle “Black Adam”. In the fall of his career, the multiple grandfather, who lives alternately in Malibu and Hawaii, concentrates more on his private life and on painting. His exhibition entitled “So Many Dreams” will be on show in Los Angeles this month. He recently appeared with his wife Keely at the Met Gala in New York City and – despite the eye-catching glasses – still looked like James Bond.