Rags to riches are generally cliche, but Brosnan shows that being old Hollywood doesn't involve being a person of concern.
Among all film stars, Pierce Brosnan is currently having a moment, showing up in films like "Black Adam" and Camilla Cabello's version of "Cinderella." But before all this pomp and prosperity, it was quite dark for the actor. Growing up without a parent will do that for you. "Childhood was fairly solitary," he said, reported Irish Times. “I was an only child from a fractured family. My father took off for the hills very early. And academically, my school days were pretty tough. I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. I was good at art. I left school with a cardboard folder of drawings and I got a job as a trainee commercial artist,” he recalled.
"My mother was very supportive of it," he expressed. "She always said follow your dreams, and I had this crazy dream about making movies." While he did enjoy the cowboys and westerners, his claim to twinkling eyes for cinema came from the film "The Defiant Ones." "It stood out on the cinematic landscape for me so brilliantly and so captivatingly," Brosnan mused. In '77, he started looking for work as an actor and was booking roles like The Red Devil Battery Sign with a famed playwright. It was about this time when he met his first wife Cassandra Harris, at a mutual friends place. She was still married to someone else. The duo got married in 1980 and in 1986 when Cassandra's first husband, Dermot Harris, passed away in 1986, Brosnan officially adopted Charlotte and Christopher and they took his surname, reported USA Today.
"We just clicked as a family," said Pierce, reported Nine.com.au "To begin with I was Pierce, then I was Daddy Pierce, and then I just became Dad. Charlotte and Chris have just been amazing in my life." However, in 1987, Harris was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. "From day one, we really had a fight on our hands," Brosnan said in 2017. "This wasn't a shadow or a small tumour — this had invaded Cassie's being." He added, "She went on dialysis at the end. The dialysis was brutal. Finally I said, 'Stop it.' ... At the end it was very peaceful. ... People should be allowed to die when their bodies are wracked by disease." Cassandra Harris died in 1991, aged just 43.
He acknowledged that his children became his anchor at this point. When asked about turning towards destructive tendencies after the death of his wife, he refused. "Never, because I had children, who push and spur you on. Nothing in life prepares you for going through a long illness that ends in death. Nothing gives you the vocabulary to deal with that grief or those emotions. You just have to go slowly." Sadly, his daughter Charlotte also passed away with the illness in 2013. "Charlotte fought her cancer with grace and humanity, courage and dignity. Our hearts are heavy with the loss of our beautiful dear girl," he had said at the time.
In an interview he had revealed how lost he was after the death of Charlotte and Cassandra. "I don't look at the cup as half full, believe me. The dark, melancholy Irish dog sits beside me from time to time," Brosnan said expressing his bout with depression. "To watch someone you love have his or her life eaten away bit by bit by this insidious disease, that kind of sorrow becomes an indelible part of your psyche."
However, he did find hope again, with Keely Shaye Smith. Brosnan expressed his joy and relief at what he realized at the time. "I know what it is like to be a widower and what it is like to find love again. So I know there's hope and that you have to learn to get on with it," he said. "But the memory of Cassie and her fight against cancer is never forgotten."
References:
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/film/pierce-brosnan-i-was-an-only-child-from-a-fractured-family-1.4291600
https://celebrity.nine.com.au/latest/pierce-brosnan-family-what-happened-james-bond-actor-wife-daughter-explainer/1f418cc6-8c70-4f6d-a4f4-9447dbe9e8f9
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/celebrities/2020/06/30/pierce-brosnan-honors-daughter-charlotte-7-years-after-her-death/3285794001/#:~:text=Charlotte%20and%20her%20brother%20Christopher,23%2C%20and%20Paris%2C%2019.
