Brosnan: My struggle with depression since losing wife and daughter to cancer
PIERCE Brosnan has revealed his struggles with the ‘Irish black dog’ of depression after losing both his wife and daughter to ovarian cancer.
The James Bond star’s first wife, former Bond girl Cassandra Harris, died days after their 11th wedding anniversary in 1991, when she was 43.
Her daughter Charlotte, whom Brosnan had adopted, died in 2013, when she was 42.
Speaking to Esquire magazine about how losing his loved ones has changed him, the Irish actor said: ‘I don’t look at the cup as half full, believe me. The dark, melancholy Irish black dog sits beside me from time to time.’
At the Stand Up To Cancer telethon in 2014, he said: ‘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.
‘I held the generous, strong, beautiful hand of my first wife Cassie as ovarian cancer took her life much too soon. And I held the hand of my funny, wonderful daughter Charlotte before she too died from this wretched, inherited disease.’
The actor, 63, married TV personality Keely Shaye Smith ten years after Cassandra’s death.
As a child Brosnan was passed between relatives after his father, Tom, abandoned him in Ireland and his mother set off for London to find work. He met his father again only once, in 1984 when he was filming in Ireland. He told Esquire: ‘I had a Sunday afternoon with him... A story about this and that, had a few pints of Guinness, and we said goodbye.’