Pierce Brosnan 1953-

Irish-British actor

Brosnan's parents separated when he was a baby and he was raised by relatives in Ireland while his mother went to London to train as a nurse.

In 1964, he joined her in London. As a young man he began acting on the stage. Changing Rooms was his first major play. Then in 1980 he began in films: The Long Good Friday, For Your Eyes Only, Goldeneye, Nomads, Mrs Doubtfire, Dante's Peak, The English Patient,. His television work includes The Mansions of America and Remington Steele. He is a supporter of environmental causes.
[Last updated: 4 August 1998]

References:
"10 Things Every Pierce Brosnan Fan Ought to Know," Radio Times, 25-31 July 1998, p. 49
Membery, York. Pierce Brosnan: The New Unauthorized Biography. (London: Virgin Books, 1997)
Who's Who in America, 1996
Battersby, Eileen. "Pierce by Starlight: Pierce Brosnan Talks to Eileen Battersby," [Includes portrait]. Irish Times, 27 March 1997.
Last, Kimberly. "Pierce Brosnan." [Includes portrait]. Available at: http://www.klast.net/bond/brosnan.html [Last visited: 16 July 2001]

James Brown, 1928 or 33-

African-American musician

Brown was born into a poverty-stricken backwoods family in South Carolina (different sources give his year of birth as 1928 and 1933).

His parents separated and when he was five he was sent to live with an aunt in Augusta, George, who ran a brothel. He earned money by entertaining soldiers at nearby Camp Gordon with his buckdancing and touting for business for his aunt. He also sang gospel music and played the piano, drums and guitar.

In 1949 he was sentenced to four years in the Alto Reform School for breaking into cars. In 1952 he joined the Gospel Starlighters, which evolved into a rhythm and blues group named the Flames. The group had their first hit in 1955, but Brown did not really make it big until the 1959 hit Try Me.

His first national number one hit record was Papa's Got a Brand New Bag, in 1965. In 1992, he was awarded a lifetime achievement Grammy Award, but since the mid-1980s he has had a number of brushes with the law and the tax authorities.

He spent three years in prison for assault and illegal possession of weapons and was arrested 1998 for possession of marijuana.
[Last updated: 26 March 1999]

References:
Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia, 1993-97
Guinness Book of Rock Stars, 2nd edition, edited by Dafydd Rees and Luke Crampton. (Enfield: Guinness Publishing, 1991)
Pickering, David. Brewer's Twentieth-Century Music. (London: Cassell, 1994)
Hardy, Phil, and Laing, Dave. The Faber Companion to 20th-Century Popular Music. (London: Faber and Faber, 1995)
Tee, Ralph. Who's Who in Soul Music. (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991)
Brown, Geoff. James Brown: Doin' It to Death. (London: Omnibus, 1996)
Brown, James, and Tucker, Bruce. James Brown: The Godfather of Soul. (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 1990)
Rose, Cynthia. Living in America: The Soul Saga of James Brown. (London: Serpents Tail, 1990)
Online Talent Agency. "James Brown Home Page." [Includes portraits]. Available at: http://www.onlinetalent.com/MRBrown_homepage.html [Last visited: 4 September 1999]

Rita Mae Brown 1944-

American writer and feminist

Brown was born to an unmarried woman who left her in an orphanage. She was soon placed with birth relatives who adopted her.

She was raised in poverty on a farm in the rural South and now farms in Pennsylvania. She has always known she was a lesbian, but the publication of her novel Rubyfruit Jungle in 1973 made her the most famous "out" gay person in America.

She has published at least 16 novels in all, including a series of murder mysteries where the detective is a cat named Mrs. Murphy. She is also a Hollywood screenwriter and an active campaigner for gay and animal rights and against nuclear armaments.

In 1970 she was expelled from the National Organization for Women (NOW) for her outspoken insistence on the recognition of lesbian issues, and in 1971 co-founded the lesbian-feminist separatist collective The Furies.
[Last updated: 5 November 1998]

References:
Brown, Rita Mae. Rita Will: Memoir of a Literary Rabble-Rouser. (New York: Bantam Books, 1997)
Who's Who in America, 1996

Burke, Kathy

British actress

Burke's mother died of cancer when she was 18 months old.

She spent the next two years in foster care with family friends, until she was able to rejoin her father and two older brothers in a council flat in Islington, London.

Her childhood was happy in spite of her father's alcoholism. She had intended to be a music journalist but was redirected into acting after free weekend classes at a drama school in 1982.

She has appeared in Scrubbers, Nil by Mouth (winning Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival), Absolutely Fabulous, Harry Enfield and Chums, Common as Muck, Tom Jones and others.
[Last updated: 20 December 1997]

References:
Duncan, Andrew. "The Andrew Duncan Interview: Kathy Burke," Radio Times, 22-28 November 1997, pp. 14-15, 18

Compiled by and copyright of Roger Fenton. Details of how to buy the compilation are available on Roger's website. Also available is Roger's e-book Adopting a Child in Britain

Roger is always on the lookout for new entries so if you come across them e-mail them to him.

See also