The 70 years of Pierce Brosnan, the Bond with a life of tragedies to whom a tuxedo changed his life

Pierce Brosnan (Drogheda, Ireland) just had to put on a good suit to get the first role that would give him fame. The eighties had just started and he and his first wife, the Australian actress Cassandra Harris, asked for a second mortgage on their house in Wimbledon, in London, to try their luck in Los Angeles, California. The year of his wedding, 1980, Brosnan had made his film debut with an unnamed role in The Long Good Friday, where he played Irishman No. 1, an IRA assassin who pointed a gun at Bob Hoskins. A year later, he had landed the starring role in The Manions of America, a miniseries about the drama of Irish immigration during the Great Famine. With that resume they planted themselves in the city of stars and Brosnan rented an old AMC Pacer in lime green, for $ 50 a week, to go to his first audition. On the way, the car broke down. Brosnan walked down the hills of Laurel Canyon, an idyllic Los Angeles neighborhood with cabins among the trees just five minutes from Hollywood, to the casting site. He came and got the part. The suit was everything.

It was not James Bond, the character that would accompany him for posterity, but for the television series Remington Steele, where he played a young adventurer who worked for a peculiar detective agency, and that made him a star both inside and outside the United States, where the series achieved great success. It is inevitable now to see the promotional images of this fiction, in which Brosnan appears sheathed in a black tuxedo adorned by a bow tie, and not see in them reminiscences of the eternal 007, although between one paper and another 13 years passed. At that time, his wife and mother of his three children also died, the woman with whom he moved to Hollywood and who introduced him to the producer of the films that would make him an icon. Unlike the wayward secret agent and what his later image as an old Hollywood heartthrob may imply, Brosnan is a family man, with solid and lasting relationships and who prefers tranquility to the spotlight.

More informationPierce Brosnan, the James Bond who found his best therapy in painting

Born in Drogheda, one of Ireland's oldest towns, he did not have a happy childhood. "My childhood was very lonely," the actor revealed in a 1997 interview. Brosnan was the only son of May Smith, a nurse, and Thomas Brosnan, a carpenter: "I grew up in a very small village in the south of Ireland. I never met my father. He left when I was a baby and I was left in the care of my mother and grandparents. My mother was very brave. She took bold steps to leave and become a nurse in England. Basically, she wanted a better life for her and me. I came home once, twice a year." Consequently, he was left in charge of his grandparents. When they died and his relatives could not take care of him, he lived for a while in a boarding house run by a woman named Eileen. "I was sent to live with a woman named Eileen, who had a boarding house in a poor part of the city. She had children of her own and I moved upstairs with the tenants, all grown men with jobs. One worked in the mill. One worked in a bank. The three guests were staying in an elongated room with iron beds and old mattresses. At the end of the room was my bed, with a curtain around it, so that the light would not enter when the elders arrived," he confessed to The Guardian newspaper.

Pierce Brosnan and Cassandra Harris at the premiere of the movie 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles', on November 21, 1990 in California. Ron Galella (Ron Galella Collection via Getty)

In 1964, at the age of 11, she moved to the British capital to live with her mother and her new husband, William Carmichael. "The meeting with my mother was very joyful. I finally had a mother," he would say years later. His stepfather would end up considering his true father figure. It was precisely he who, that same year, took him to the cinema to see his first Bond film, Goldfinger, starring Sean Connery. "I can't talk about what my father did, because he didn't do anything. I have a great father. My stepfather," the interpreter confessed. Dubbed "the Irishman" by his schoolmates, Brosnan soon became interested in the world of the arts. He left high school at the age of 16 to study Illustration at the prestigious Saint Martins school and, later, he studied three years of Acting at the Drama Centre London, located in King's Cross, and through which well-known faces such as Colin Firth, Michael Fassbender or Emilia Clarke have passed.

In the seventies Brosnan met Cassandra Harris. "Before we knew it, we were already in love," the actor confessed. Harris was Australian and moved permanently to London when they began their relationship. She did not arrive alone, but had two children, Charlotte and Christopher, whom Brosnan did not hesitate to adopt: "I felt that everything was fine. I didn't feel like a father, I wasn't a father, I was just Pierce. And then I became Daddy Pierce. And later on Dad." Perhaps because of the harshness of his childhood, the interpreter never hid his intention to form a large family and to be a father present to all his children. "I want my children to have a lot of love in their lives, especially while they are children. I want them to know the true meaning of love," he once said. Brosnan and Harris married in 1977. In 1981, Harris became a Bond girl in the film For Her Eyes Only, starring Roger Moore. It was thanks to this role that Brosnan met Albert R. Broccoli, the producer of the series. In 1983, the couple's third child, Sean Brosnan, was born, the actor's first biological child. In 1987, while Brosnan was filming a film in India, Cassandra became seriously ill. A short time later she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. He died in 1991, aged 43. Brosnan was widowed and left in charge of his three children. "It was and is a terrible loss," the actor confessed. "How do you go on afterwards? Slowly. Very, very, very slowly. Hurts. And you have to sit back and endure. He's not going away."

Pierce Brosnan and his second wife, Keely Shaye Smith, during the Met Gala on May 1, 2023 in New York. Cindy Ord/MG23 (Getty Images for The Met Museum/)

In 1994 his life would take a huge turn. Brosnan was announced as the next James Bond after Timothy Dalton, who only played the MI6 agent in two films. Rumors that he would be the next 007 had been circulating for several years within the industry, since his late wife played a Bond girl and since Remington Steele was canceled in 1986. Interestingly, it was those rumors that made the audience interested again in the series, which was renewed, and to which Brosnan had to return by contract. Two films later, he was finally confirmed in the role. He was the fifth James Bond in history and played the character for four films.

That same year, Brosnan also met journalist Keely Shаye Smith while they were vacationing in Mexico and began a relationship. "I found an amazing woman in Keely Shaye. Not even looking a million times would I find such a good person," the actor confessed to People magazine. In 1997, their first child together, Dylan, was born. In 2001 they married in Ireland and that same year they welcomed another son, Paris. Together they make up one of the most solid couples in Hollywood, in a relationship that has lasted 29 years. Brosnan refers to his wife as his "North Star". On the secret of his marriage, he revealed to People that it is about "working every day, solving the little problems, loving and liking each other." But in 2003, another misfortune would break into Brosnan's life: his daughter, Charlotte, died from the same type of cancer that her mother had.

Pierce Brosnan and his first wife, Cassandra Harris, with their children Charlotte and Christopher, at the St. Patrick's Day celebration at Jimmy's restaurant in Beverly Hills, California, on March 17, 1985. Ron Galella, Ltd. (Ron Galella Collection via Getty)

Seventy years can go a long way. In Brosnan's case, for many lives. Today, he spends his days with his wife in Hawaii. The actor has revealed in several interviews that he has returned to the first of his passions, painting, to which he dedicates most of his time and of which he has already made some exhibition. In addition to her four children, she has four grandchildren. Like any self-respecting grandparent, he shares photos of them on Instagram. The last time she donned a suit was for her son's graduation earlier this May. Now he prefers to wear black cotton T-shirts.