Pierce Brosnan reflects on losing family to cancer
Pierce Brosnan still has "dark, melancholy" days after losing both his wife and daughter to ovarian cancer.
The ‘Son’ actor’s first spouse Cassandra passed away in 1991 from ovarian cancer, and in 2013, Charlotte died from the same disease at the age of 41, and the 63-year-old star admitted he isn’t a particularly optimistic person as a result.
Pierce – whose producing partner Beau Marie St. Clair also died of ovarian cancer a year ago – 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."
The former James Bond star – who adopted Cassandra’s children Charlotte and Christopher, 44, and also had son Sean, 33, with her, and is also father to Dylan, 20, and Paris, 16, with wife Keely Shaye Smith – only met his own father once, when he was 31, and so had no one to learn "fatherly instincts" from.
He told the new issue of Esquire magazine: "I know what it’s like to bring up sons and it can be a very arduous road.
"My fatherly instincts are purely my own. They relate back to no one, because there was no one."
The ‘Mamma Mia!’ actor insists he doesn’t need a lavish home in order to enjoy his life, and is happiest when he’s settled down in his abode with basic essentials and "a great bottle of wine".
He added: "You don’t need a big home. You need a good table to sit at, a good bed to sleep in, a view, and a great bottle of wine."
