(1969–1976), Peter McDermott on Hotel (1983–1988), John Short on Life in Pieces (2015–2019), and the Narrator on Sweet Tooth and his film roles such as Sgt.

Jerome K. Weber in Skyjacked (1972), John Blane in Westworld (1973), General Ralph Landry in Traffic (2000),[2] Jack Barnes in Catch Me If You Can (2002), and Emperor Zurg in the 2022 Toy Story spin-off film Lightyear.

[3][4] The eldest of two brothers and two sisters, he is the son of Helen Sue (née Mansur) (1916–2014), a housewife, and Henry Hurst Bruderlin (1911–2002), a building contractor.

[citation needed] Brolin attended Santa Monica City College and studied drama at the University of California Los Angeles before signing a contract with 20th Century Fox in 1960.

Brolin also had small roles in several films including Take Her, She's Mine (1963), Dear Brigitte (1965), Von Ryan's Express (1965), and Fantastic Voyage (1966).

By the mid-1970s, he was a regular leading man in films, starring in Gable and Lombard (1976), The Car (1977), Capricorn One (1978, in which he costarred with Elliott Gould, Streisand's ex-husband), The Amityville Horror (1979), Night of the Juggler (1980), and High Risk (1981).

When Roger Moore expressed his desire to vacate the role of James Bond, Brolin undertook screen tests to replace him in Octopussy (1983).

It has been reported that not only were these successful, but Brolin was about to move to London to begin work on the film when the producers persuaded Moore to continue.

While contracted to Fox, Brolin had three small roles on the television series Batman, in the episodes "The Cat and the Fiddle", "The Catwoman Goeth", and "Ring Around the Riddler".

In 1968, Brolin transferred to Universal Studios, where he auditioned for a co-starring role opposite seasoned actor Robert Young in the popular medical drama Marcus Welby, M.D.

In its first season in 1970, Brolin won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role and was subsequently nominated thrice more.

In 1983, Brolin returned to television to star in another series and teamed with producer Aaron Spelling's prime-time soap opera, Hotel, for ABC.

[10] For Hotel, Brolin was nominated twice for Golden Globes between 1983 and 1984 for Best Performance By an Actor in a TV Series but lost both times.

As the new decade approached, Brolin starred in both Angel Falls for CBS and Extreme for ABC, although neither matched the popularity of his earlier series.

These include (amongst others) the role of General Ralph Landry, outgoing director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy in Steven Soderbergh's Oscar-winning Traffic (2000); as Jack Barnes in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002); a minor role in the 2003 comedy A Guy Thing; as philandering husband Robert Hatch in the 2006 comedy The Alibi (released in the UK as Lies and Alibis); as Jack Jennings in the 2007 film The American Standards; as TV network anchor Frank Harris in Richard Shepard's The Hunting Party (2007); and as Brian in Joel Hopkins' 2008 film Last Chance Harvey with Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman.

In 2002, Brolin played Governor Robert Ritchie of Florida, the Republican opponent of President Jed Bartlet, on the TV series The West Wing.

He also appeared in a 2009 episode of Psych, titled "High Noon-ish", where Brolin played the sheriff of a tourist-attracting "Wild West" town.

In 1966, Brolin married Jane Cameron Agee, a wildlife activist and aspiring actress at Twentieth Century Fox, 12 days after they first met.

[14] Josh said on the October 14, 2008, episode of the Late Show with David Letterman that his parents met on the TV series Batman, where his mother was assistant casting director.

[citation needed] Streisand revealed in her 2023 memoir My Name Is Barbra that a comment made by Brolin just after their marriage inspired Diane Warren to write the song I Don't Want to Miss a Thing for the 1998 science fiction disaster film Armageddon.