Moving to London with his family at an early age, Irish-born actor Pierce Brosnan made ends meet as a commercial illustrator and cab driver before turning to acting full- time. After training at the London Drama Centre, Brosnan made his West End stage bow in 1976, and appeared in his first film, The Long Good Friday, four years later. American audiences got their first glimpse of the charismatic, muscular young actor in the 1981 network miniseries The Manions of America. The following year, Brosnan was cast as the suave adventurer hero of the weekly TV series Remington Steele. The actor's casual panache and his gift for quippery led the producers of the James Bond movies to select Brosnan as the new Bond upon the departure of Roger Moore in 1986. At the last moment, the canceled Remington Steele was renewed, and Brosnan was contractually obligated to remain with the program, forcing him to relinquish the James Bond role to the less suitable Timothy Dalton. It later became evident that the renewal of Steele was something of a subterfuge by its producers to keep Brosnan on their leash. This professional setback was compounded by personal tragedy seven years later when Brosnan's actress wife Cassandra Harris died after a long illness. Cast in a choice secondary role in the megahit 1993 comedy Mrs. Doubtfire, Brosnan regained his motion picture bankability. In 1995, Brosnan finally got his chance to play Agent 007 in Goldeneye and proved that the producer's instincts were right on target. He not only provided a much-needed boost for the ailing series, but he also cemented his status as a capable leading man in a variety of roles ranging from the title character in William Dafoe's Robinson Crusoe (1996), to a stuffy, lovestruck professor who meets with a ludicrous fate in Mars Attacks! (1996) to a courageous vulcanologist trying to save a town threatened by a reawakened volcano in Dante's Peak (1997). Brosnan played Bond for the second time in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997).