Abandonment, loss and addiction: The many tragedies that rocked Pierce Brosnan's off-screen life

Pierce Brosnan is best known to a generation of fans as one of a handful of actors to play the role of James Bond.

But while the character he played four times was unsinkable, in real life, Brosnan was tested by a spate of shocking tragedies, including being abandoned by his father, being raised in a boarding house, the deaths of his first wife and daughter, and the drug addiction of his eldest son Christopher.

Now back on speaking terms with Christopher, whom he at one stage turned his back on, Brosnan, 72, is even eyeing a return to the franchise that proved to be one of his most famous roles.

The father he never knew

Brosnan was born on May 16, 1953, in the Irish port town of Drogheda, about 40km from Dublin.

His father, Thomas, left soon after Pierce was born. When he was four, his mother, May, moved to London to train as a nurse.

He told Cigar Aficionado in 1997, "I never knew my father. He left when I was an infant and I was left in the care of my mother and my grandparents.

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"To be Irish Catholic in the '50s, and have a marriage which was not there, a father who was not there, consequently, the mother, the wife, suffered greatly."

His mother left Ireland to train as a nurse in England, returning only once or twice a year to see her son, who was left in the care of his grandparents.

After his grandparents died, one after the other, he was sent to live with an aunt, then an uncle, and finally a boarding house run by a woman named Eileen.

"I moved upstairs with the lodgers, all grown men with jobs. At the very end of the room, there was my little bed, with a curtain around it, with newspapers pinned on it, so the light wouldn't shine in when the guys came home," he told Cigar Aficionado.

"Consequently, there was a certain amount of early loss in that young boy's life."

Brosnan lived in the boarding house for three years and was reunited with his mother in London at 10. Weeks later, his mother and stepfather took him to the movies to see a James Bond film.

After leaving school at 16, he trained as a commercial artist. Two years into his traineeship, a co-worker suggested he join a theatre company, which he did.

He later co-founded his own theatre company, and went to drama school for three years.

Brosnan had just graduated when a friend, David Harris, invited him to visit the home of his aunt, Cassandra Harris, in 1974.

First marriage and 'a terrible loss'

David was the nephew of Cassandra's second husband, Dermot Harris, who was the brother of acclaimed actor Richard Harris.

"I saw her coming down the staircase, and I thought, 'What a beautiful-looking woman'," Brosnan recalled.

"I didn't think of wooing her, or attempting to woo her; I just wanted to enjoy her beauty and who she was."

Harris was 10 years older than Brosnan, had been married twice and had two young children.

"We courted, we wooed, we set up a little house together in Wimbledon," Brosnan said.

"We lived with Cassie's young children, Charlotte and Christopher. And suddenly I had a family. And two children.

"It just felt so right, only because Cassie had such faith in me and we had such a wonderful outlook on life.

"I didn't feel like a father, I wasn't a father; I was just Pierce. And then I became Daddy Pierce. And then I became Daddy."

The couple married in 1977, years before Brosnan found success as an actor.

His first job was as an assistant stage manager in a theatre production before he made his acting debut.

Within months, he had caught the eye of famed playwright Tennessee Williams, who cast him in one of his plays.

From there, he got a role in a TV movie and then the 1980 feature film, The Long Good Friday, while Cassandra was cast as a 'Bond girl' in For Your Eyes Only, opposite Roger Moore.

Brosnan's big break came when he was cast as the debonair Remington Steele in the TV series of the same name, which ran for five seasons from 1982-87.

They relocated to the US with Harris's children and welcomed their son Sean in 1983.

After Dermot Harris died of a heart attack in 1986, Brosnan adopted the two children.

Harris had accompanied Brosnan to India in 1987 where he was filming a movie when she started feeling unwell.

"She got very fatigued, very worn out, and we weren't sure what it was," Brosnan told Cigar Aficionado.

"She had had pain, slight pains, and in a check-up six months before, the doctor had said, 'It's all right. Don't worry'.

"When we finished in India, we came back to London. She went to the doctor and he took her into the hospital the very next night."

Harris, then just 38, had ovarian cancer. Their lives changed in an instant.

"When your partner gets cancer, life changes," Brosnan said.

"Your timetable and reference for your normal routines and the way you view life, all this changes, because ... you're dealing with the possibility of death and dying."

He said Cassandra remained "very positive about life" during treatment, but ultimately lost her battle just three days after Christmas in 1991. She was 43.

"It was and is a terrible loss," Brosnan said.

"How do you carry on afterwards? Slowly. Very, very, very slowly. It hurts. And you have to sit and endure it. There's nothing else to do; it won't go away."

A promise fulfilled

A year before her cancer diagnosis, the hunt was on for a new James Bond and Brosnan was the frontrunner.

He was close to being signed for the role but the producers of Remington Steele refused to let him out of his contract, so the role instead went to Timothy Dalton.

He said Cassandra had been more devastated than him when he missed out on the role, and she later made him promise he would one day play the spy.

Following her death, he threw himself into raising his three children with work, including a role in the 1993 hit film, Mrs Doubtfire.

When the James Bond producers again came calling, Brosnan was signed to play the character in the 1995 film GoldenEye.

The film was a huge hit, raking in $545 million at the box office, and reinvigorating the franchise.

He reprised the role in three more films, Tomorrow Never Dies, The World Is Not Enough, and Die Another Day, while also starring in other hit films, including Dante's Peak and The Thomas Crown Affair.

Second chance

In 1994, Brosnan met American journalist Keely Shaye Smith in Mexico. Sparks flew immediately between the pair.

They welcomed son Dylan in January 1997, followed by another son Paris, in February 2001, before they exchanged vows in Ireland in August that year.

They have one of the longest-lasting marriages in Hollywood, with Brosnan crediting his wife for keeping Harris's memory alive while building new ones.

But there was more heartache around the corner.

Mourning a 'darling daughter'

In 2013, Brosnan released a statement announcing the death of his "darling daughter" Charlotte to the same illness that claimed her mother. She was 41.

"On June 28 at 2pm, my darling daughter Charlotte Emily passed on to eternal life, having succumbed to ovarian cancer," he said in a statement.

"She was surrounded by her husband Alex, children Isabella and Lucas, and brothers Christopher and Sean.

"Charlotte fought her cancer with grace and humility, courage and dignity. Our hearts are heavy with the loss of our beautiful dear girl.

"We pray for her and that the cure for this wretched disease will be close at hand."

Brosnan spoke about the double loss during a Stand Up to Cancer telethon in 2014.

"To watch someone you love have his or her life eaten away bit by bit by this insidious disease, that part of your sorrow becomes an indelible part of your psyche," he reportedly said, per Entertainment Tonight.

''I held the generous, strong, beautiful hand of my first wife Cassie as ovarian cancer took her life much too soon.

"Just last year, I held the hand of my funny, wonderful daughter Charlotte before she, too, died from this wretched, inherited disease."

Christopher's drug battle

Soon after his mother's death, Christopher began to use alcohol and drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and once reportedly fell into a coma after an overdose.

In 1996, he was fined $2000 after being convicted of drink-driving. Then in 1997, he was reportedly jailed for three months for the same offence.

He was banned from the famed London nightclub Browns after a brawl and another nightclub after being accused of theft.

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In a 2005 interview with Playboy, Brosnan said he had no choice but to cut Christopher off.

"Christopher is still very lost. Shockingly so," he said.

"I know where he is, but he's having a hard life. I can only have strong faith and believe he will recover.

"He has tested everybody in this family but none more so than himself. He knows how to get out. He doesn't want to.

"It's painful because you shut down. You never completely cut them off, but I have cut Christopher off. I had to say, 'Go. Get busy living, or get busy dying'. He has my prayers."

The pair appeared to be making amends by 2022, with Brosnan giving a shout out to Christopher in an Instagram post to mark Father's Day in the US.

"My love forever to you dear sons, Paris, Dylan, Sean and Christopher, thank you deeply for your love on this Father's Day," he wrote.

Then, just this week, Brosnan was pictured on a night out with Christopher, 53, and Dylan, 28 in London's Notting Hill.

The trio were photographed leaving a restaurant together, raising hopes they were finally back on good terms.

Meanwhile, Brosnan, who found new generations of fans thanks to diverse roles in films such as the Mamma Mia!, and Black Adam, continues to act, with five new projects released this year alone, bringing his net worth to about $400 million.

He even said recently he would step into the famous spy's shoes again, but doubts the producers would want a 'craggy' septuagenarian in the role, however, he would consider playing another character. 

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