Judging from these celebrities, who attribute their success in life to their mother, being the product of a single-mum family clearly hasn’t always been disastrous! On Mother’s Day we’d like to shed a positive light on the hard work and devotion that single mums put into their job.
Strong and at times she can be very stoic – that’s the origin of her strength – and I think I’ve taken parts of her personality and incorporated them into my own. I’m very emotional by nature, but there are those times when I rely on that strength and I can kick into it…”On her official website, Halle says that Judy was always there to support her academic and social achievements and it is not surprising, therefore, to see that she regards her mother as one of the most influential figures in her life.
Orlando Bloom
The elfish hearth throb of many women since the screening of Lord ofthe Rings, actor Orlando Bloom and his sister Samantha were brought up by their mother, Sonia, and family friend, Colin Stone. Orlando barely knew his father, Harry Bloom, who died of a stroke when Orlando was only four years old.Life was not always easy for the young actor. Orlando attended St. Edmund’s School in Canterbury but struggled because of dyslexia. Encouraged by their mother, Orlando and Samantha began studying prose an poetry, which led to them giving public readings. This developed further into stage training and acting jobs, one of which drew the attention of director Peter Jackson. He cast Orlando as Legolas in his epic trilogy and the actor has not looked back since!
Pierce Brosnan
Pierce Brosnan has experienced both sides of single parenthood. Born on May 16, 1953, in Drogheda, County Louth, he lived in Ireland with his family until his father, Thomas Brosnan, left his mother, Mary ‘May’ Brosnan to bring up their son on her own. Shortly after her husband’s departure, Mary left Pierce with his grandparents in Ireland to train as a nurse in London and was not reunited with her son until he was 11 years old, when Pierce joined Mary in London.His arrival in London sparked off Pierce’s interest in an acting career.While pursuing this, he met and fell in love with his first wife, Cassandra Harris. The two married in 1980, and Pierce adopted Cassandra’s two children by a previous marriage, before having his own son in 1984. Unfortunately, three years later, Cassandra became ill with ovarian cancer and eventually died in 1991.Pierce Brosnan is no stranger to surviving on a shoestring – things were very touch and go after Cassandra’s death as he struggled to raise their children as a single father while working all hours to bring the money in. His fate was sealed favourably, however, in 1995, when he was offered the role of James Bond. Further happiness followed in 1997 when he became a father again and remarried in 2001.
Jodie Foster
Jodie Foster is well known for her tough and independent spirit. Perhaps it was seeing how well her mother coped in raising four children by herself that led Foster to meet any challenge she met head on. The actress, director and producer was born Alicia Christian Foster on November 19, 1962, in Los Angeles, California. Her father, Lucian, abandoned the family before she was born, leaving her mother Evelyn to support herself and her four children by working for a film producer. It was her mother’s job that led to the launch of Jodie’s acting career, advertising executives for Coppertone suntan lotion ‘discovered’ her, aged three, when she tagged along with her older brother Buddy to one of his auditions. By age eight Foster had appeared in nearly 40 commercials, as well TV shows. By the time she was ten, Jodie’s acting jobs were supporting the entire Foster family.
Foster is still acting and directing today but has put her career on the backburner for a while to single-handedly raise her two sons Charles, born in 1998, and Kit, born in September 2001. She will not identify the father of either child.
Martine McCutcheon
It was if she was born to be in Eastenders. Singer and actress Martine was born in Hackney, in a “dingy delivery room” at a Salvation Army hospital to her 19-year-old mother Jenny. Her father, Thomas, was a heavy-drinking market trader with a history of domesic violence. He difficult times, with mother and daughter finding respite in watching old musicals, among them My Fair Lady, which Martine later went on to star in in London’s West End. Jenny helped Martine launch both her acting and singing career and, to this day, still manages her fan club!
Viggo Mortensen
Best known for his role as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen had a very unusual childhood, moving from New York, where he was born, to South America, where his dad managed chicken farms and ranches in Venezuela and Argentina. Viggo soon gained two brothers but his parents’ marriage was becoming increasingly unhappy and he was sent off to a strict boarding school before, aged 11, his mother left his father and took all her children
back to New York.
JK Rowling
Multi-millionairess J K Rowling was one of the UK’s most famous single mums, although she is now married, with three children.
The author, who was made President of the charity One Parent Families in November 2004, found life a struggle until her books became international best sellers. Her marriage to a Portuguese man had collapsed and she had to work full time to support herself and her daughter Jessica. She had already started work on her first novel and was desperate to finish it in the little free time she had available as a full-time worker and single mum. On her website, she says ‘Whenever Jessica fell asleep in her pushchair I would dash to the nearest café and write like mad. I wrote nearly every evening. Then I had to type the whole thing out myself. Sometimes I actually hated the book, even while I loved it.”
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