Liam and Natasha: An unimaginable loss
Sixteen years after they fell in love, Liam Neeson lost the love of his life, Natasha Richardson, in a ski accident. To this day, he has never remarried…
Liam Neeson broke all our hearts playing a grieving widower in LoveActually – and six years later, life tragically imitated art when his wife, Natasha Richardson, died.
Neeson’s plotline in the 2003 romcom became hard to watch, and when he reprised the role for Comic Relief in 2017, he admitted the film’s legacy evoked strong memories.
‘Plenty of times I’ve thought about this film and my own life. Love Actually, that’s the way it is. That’s the tapestry of life.
‘Some of us have died. Oh, my dear old friend [co-star Alan Rickman], God rest him. Some have gotten divorced. I’ve lost my wife.’
Three years earlier, he revealed he still expected her to walk through the door at any moment: ‘Her death was never real. It still kind of isn’t. There are periods now in our New York residence when I hear the door opening, especially the first couple of years… any time I hear that door opening, I still think I’m going to hear her.’
It was a shocking loss and that year changed everything. After Natasha fell on a ski slope in Canada, she suffered a brain haemorrhage and was flown to New York, but she couldn’t be saved. Liam was left raising their two sons, Micheál and Daniel.
Speaking a few years later, he said, ‘That’s the weird thing about grief. You can’t prepare for it. You think you’re gonna cry and get it over with… But it hits me in the middle of the night. I’m out walking. I’m feeling quite content. And it’s like suddenly, boom.’
The two first met in 1993, when they were cast opposite each other on Broadway, in the play Anna Christie. The attraction was instant – and their on-stage chemistry won them rave reviews, as well as nominations for Tony Awards, and a whole lot of column inches.
Speaking about that lightning bolt moment, Liam revealed, ‘I’d never had that kind of an explosive chemistry situation with an actor, or actress… We had this wonderful kind of free dance on stage every night. She and I were like [Fred] Astaire and [Ginger] Rogers.’
The situation, however, was complex – Natasha was married to producer Robert Fox, and the rumours that abounded of her ‘affair’ weren’t easy for the actress.
As she herself said, ‘It was bad timing.’
But love is unstoppable.
‘I fell very much in love with him,’ she said simply.
Just a month or so after the New York run of Anna Christie
ended, so did her four-year marriage.
By then, Liam was in Poland filming the Oscar-winning movie, Schindler’s List.
But he sent Natasha
a card for her 30th birthday that read: ‘ You’re catching up with me.
Lots of love.’
Natasha replied instantly, ‘This is like a letter from a buddy. What is our relationship?’
Realising this wasn’t the time to be coy, he told her to fly to Poland – and the relationship began in earnest.
Retuning to the US, the pair bought a farmhouse in upstate New York, and in July 1994, tied the knot on their property – Natasha surprising her new husband with a serenade of their wedding song, Crazy Love by Northern Irish crooner, Van Morrison.
‘I knew I really loved this person,’ he said of their wedding day. ‘I thought, “This is real and genuine and is something that has to be protected”.’
The couple filmed their first movie together, Nell, that December – and the following year, had their first son together, Micheál, followed 18 months later by Daniel.
The years that followed were blissfully happy. But it all ended during her skiing trip to Quebec’s Mont-Tremblant resort, with the couple’s older son.
On the slopes, during a beginner’s skiing lesson, Natasha had what she thought to be a minor fall – hitting her head without a helmet on – and was brought back to her room after reportedly turning down medical attention.
‘I spoke to her and she said, “Oh, darling, I’ve taken a tumble in the snow.” That’s how she described it,’ Neeson recalled.
But the actress had suffered a traumatic brain injury. After collapsing, she was rushed to a Montreal hospital.
His recollection of their final moments are devastating, even to read: ‘She was on life support. And I went in to her and told her I loved her.
‘I said, “Sweetie, you’re not coming back from this. You’ve banged your head. It’s – I don’t know if you can hear me, but that’s – this is what’s gone down. And we’re bringing ya back to New York. All your family and friends will come.” And that was more or less it.’
Heartbroken, the actor made the decision nobody should ever have to – to let the love of his life go.
‘She and I had made a pact. If either of us got into a vegetative state that we’d pull the plug. So, when I saw her and saw all these tubes and stuff, that was my immediate thought.’
The Taken star threw himself into his work in the years following her death – making a staggering 34 films in just nine years.
He confessed, ‘I’m not good without work. I just don’t wallow too much. You know?
‘And I just didn’t want to – especially for my boys – seem to be wallowing in sadness or depression.’
Though he has dated other women (one on-off relationship was with British businesswoman, Freya St Johnston), the actor has never seemed to be in a serious relationship – nor be looking for one.
In 2016, in one of the rare times he would speak about his loss, he opened up on Facebook, writing, ‘They say the hardest thing in the world is losing someone you love. My wife died unexpectedly. She brought me so much joy. She was my everything. Those 16 years of being her husband taught me how to love unconditionally.’
He added, ‘ We have to stop and be thankful for our spouses. Because, one day, when you look up from your phone, they won’t be there any more.
‘ What I truly learned most of all is, live and love every day like it’s your last. Because, one day, it will be.’