The 69-year-old Irish interpreter lost Charlotte when she was 41 years old and assured that the family union was what allowed him to get ahead and not succumb to depression.
For a long time, Pierce Brosnan spoke of “the cruelty” of life and, for even longer, it was difficult for him to get out of that state in which he could not see a future outside of the distressing reality that he was going through. “I lost a person with whom I shared my daily life, I felt overwhelmed, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to grieve,” the actor declared in an interview with People magazine when his first wife, Cassandra Harris, died of cancer. ovary. As he expressed, saying goodbye to the first great love of his life was a pivotal moment for a man who was just beginning to know everything that the word resilience entails.
Brosnan met the Australian actress when they were finishing their university studies and preparing to enter an industry in which they wanted to demonstrate their versatility as performers. The instant love the actor felt surprised him, so much so that he never expected his feelings to be reciprocated. “She was a woman of incredible beauty and I never thought I would be able to spend the 17 years of my life that I was with her,” he expressed and added that he never set his goal to conquer her but simply to get to know her and see where that process led them. “I just wanted to look at her, enjoy her company, there was no plan behind her, there was no courtship,” Brosnan said. However, beyond her insecurities, and her fear of not being reciprocated, the meetings he had with Harris were significant for both of them and one day she confessed to him that she was in love with him, too.
Shortly thereafter, more precisely in December 1980, they married and welcomed their son, Sean, three years later. The wedding involved much more than making the bond official. For Harris, it was opening the doors of her life to a man who had to live with two children from her previous relationship with Dermot Harris, Charlotte and Chris. Despite the actress' doubts, Brosnan enjoyed that blended family, and when the father of his wife's children died, he did not have to think about the next step. He knew that he wanted to adopt them legally and he did. Pierce, Cassandra, Sean, Charlotte, and Chris settled in California, where their parents took their first steps in acting. When both obtained important roles in the Remington Steele series, concerns about economic stability dissipated and the family lived harmoniously, with each member fulfilling their respective desires.
Everyone's lives turned upside down in 1987 when Harris went to the doctor for a checkup and was soon diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The disease that her mother had also fought against progressed rapidly and the actress died on December 28, 1991, at only 43 years old. As Brosnan would say years later, that period in which his wife was sick did not prepare him as he imagined for the details of mourning that he had to go through while supporting his three children.
“Everything changed overnight, the routine stopped being the same and the way I saw life, too. When you deal with death, many things awaken, that fear of other losses begins to arise and you face your own mortality.” Furthermore, the actor said that the treatment that Cassandra went through was very hard, but that the optimism with which he woke up every morning led him to contemplate the possibility of his wife winning such a difficult battle. “He had a contagious energy, he made you think about life in the same way: always considering the bright side, that is why the loss was so terrible for everyone and it was even more painful for me to see it in the eyes of my children, there were the consequences of Cassandra's departure," said the actor.
That approach to adversity also led Harris to consider alternative treatments. The actress was not willing to give up on her. “She felt that it was what she had to do, we were all afraid, but we supported her in every decision,” Brosnan recalled and remarked that, at that moment, “he was the most silent in the face of what was happening” because he did not want to upset even his wife or children. When he had moments of loneliness, however, the panorama was different. “I felt hopeless, my anger mixed with confusion at what we were experiencing, and it ended up being Cassandra who calmed me down,” he declared.
Shortly before he died, his wife asked him not to worry: “She told me: 'Don't worry, it's just another life that goes away.'” After losing him, he found strength in his children. “My wife made me a better person and a better father, she was present in every step she took,” remarked the actor, who began to make his way in Hollywood and establish himself thanks to the role of James Bond. Twenty-two years after that hard loss, his life put another adversity in his path when his daughter Charlotte informed him that she suffered from the same illness as her mother.
