Pierce Brosnan OBE is an Irish actor and has an estimated net worth of $120 million. Best known for playing James Bond from 1995 to 2002, he also played 007 in multiple video games.

Born on the 16th May 1953 at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Dogheda, County Louth, Ireland, his parents were May and Thomas Brosnan. His father left the family when Pierce was very young, and when he was four, his mother moved to London to work as a nurse so she could support him. He was raised mostly by his maternal grandparents, Philip and Kathleen Smith in Navan, County Meath, attending St Ann's Primary School. After the death of his grandparents, he lived in a boarding house. In August 1964 he left Ireland to be reunited with his mother and her new husband, William Carmichael, in Scotland. At the age of 11, Brosnan went with his stepfather to see his first James Bond film - Goldfinger - with Sean Connery in the starring role.

He left school at 16 and, after a brief stint training in commercial illustration at Central Saint Martin's School of Art in London, he began studying acting at the Drama Centre London under the dancer/drama teacher, Yat Malmgren. After graduating in 1975, he quickly became a successful stage actor, even finding himself personally selected by Tennessee Williams to play the part of McCabe in The Red Battery Sign and later by Franco Zeffirelli.

During this period of his life, he met Australian actress Cassandra Harris. They got married in December 1980 and had one son together, Sean. Pierce also adopted Harris's children from a previous marriage, Charlotte and Chris, when their father died in 1986.

He made his first film appearances in 1980, with small parts in The Long Good Friday and The Mirror Crack'd. In 1982, after Harris's first big movie role, the couple moved to California and Brosnan landed the title role in the detective series Remington Steele, which ran until 1987. His 1985 performance as polo player Robert Gould Shaw II in BBC miniseries Nancy Astor earned Brosnan his first Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

In 1987 Cassandra became seriously ill and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She died in December 1991 aged just 43. Tragically, in 2013 her daughter, Brosnan's adopted daughter Charlotte died of the same illness.

Brosnan began dating American journalist Kelly Shaye Smith in 1994, and they were married in 2001. They have two sons together - Dylan and Paris. The family lives in Malibu, California, and has properties in Hawaii, Dublin, and County Meath. Their $100 million beachfront Malibu home, which they bought in 2000 and put on the market in 2020, is spread over 13,000 square feet and has a pool, two-storey guest house, and a wine cellar. In 2019 the couple bought a relatively modest home in Santa Monica for $2.94 million.

After Remington Steele, he appeared in a number of films, including Mrs Doubtfire in 1993. He had been tipped as a potential James Bond since Remington Steele premiered and he'd met the Bond producer Albert R. Broccoli in 1981 when Harris played Countess Lisl von Schlaf in 1981 Bond film, For Your Eyes Only. Harris had always wanted Brosnan to play James Bond, and in 1994, three years after her death, he was announced as the fifth actor to play the role.

Brosnan's first outing as Bond was 1995's GoldenEye, which grossed $350 million worldwide, and critics praised Brosnan's portrayal of the spy. He followed this with 1997's Tomorrow Never Dies, The World is Not Enough in 1999, and Die Another Day in 2002, all box office successes. In 2005 he retired from the role, with Daniel Craig replacing him.

During his tenure as Bond, Brosnan formed a film production company called Irish DreamTime, releasing The Thomas Crown Affair in 1999. In 2002, he received an honorary degree from the Dublin Institute of Technology, and the following year he was made an honorary Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth.

His roles post-Bond have included Daniel Rafferty in 2004's Laws of Attraction and opposite Salma Hayek in After the Sunset. In 2008 he played Sam Carmichael in the film adaptation of ABBA musical Mamma Mia! with Meryl Streep in the leading role. He also starred in the 2018 sequel, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again which made $272 million at the international box office.

Pierce Brosnan is an ambassador for UNICEF Ireland as well as an advocate for nuclear disarmament, cancer research, and same-sex marriage. In 2007, he and his wife donated $100,000 to help replace a playground on the Hawaiian island of Kauai, where they own property. He also raises money for good causes via the sale of his paintings. Profits from his art go towards supporting environmental, children's, and women's health charities.

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB, Ideal Home, The Numbers, LA Times

This article was updated on April 11, 2021 by Poppy O'Neill

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