Liam Neeson's Mother Dies One Day Before His Birthday

Northern Irish actor Liam Neeson has had his fair share of heartbreak.

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And this week's news truly tops it off.

Liam is really at the top of the big-screen game.

The star, who was born in Northern Ireland in 1952, has been in some of the biggest productions of our time.

The big-screen native began pursuing an acting career in the mid '70s.

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And his breakout role came with the 1993 Holocaust drama Schindler's List. 

The movie is based on the 1982 novel "Schindler's Ark" by Australian novelist Thomas Keneally.

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And chronicles Oskar Schindler, a Sudeten German businessman who together with his wife Emilie Schindler saved more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees from the Holocaust by employing them in his factories during World War II.

Liam garnered an Academy Award nomination for his role in the acclaimed movie.

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And it well and truly shot him to box office fame.

The actor went on to headline several films in the '90s.

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Including the likes of Nell (1994), Rob Roy (1995), and Michael Collins (1996), and an adaptation of Les Misérables (1998).

But he had another huge wave of success in 1999...

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The actor bagged the role of Jedi mentor Qui-Gon Jinn in the highly-anticipated Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

His career continued on an upward streak through the '00s.

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In 2004, Liam starred in Kinsey which earned a Golden Globe nomination for his work. The following year, he returned to the superhero genre as Ra's al Ghul in Batman Begins, and voiced Aslan the lion for the first of 3 movie adaptations of The Chronicles of Narnia.

And of course, who can forget?

One of his most popular roles to date came with 2008's Taken where he portrays an ex-CIA operative on the hunt for his daughter.

Even in recent years, Liam continues to act.

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And his most recent work came just last year in Cold Pursuit. 

While Liam has had a star-studded acting career...

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His personal life has been filled with heartache.

In 1994, Liam married English actress Natasha Richardson, with whom he had 2 children.

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Natasha starred in the likes of The Parent Trap and The Comfort of Strangers.

But in 2009, tragedy struck. 

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On March 18, 2009, Natasha hit her head during a skiing accident in Canada.

At first, she seemed to be fine...

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And initially refused to be taken to the hospital.

But tragically she suffered an epidural hematoma...

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And heartbreakingly passed away. She was just forty-five years old.

Liam spoke out about his wife's tragic death in 2018.

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"I was told she was brain dead. And seeing this X-ray it was, like, 'Wow,'" he recalled in October 2018. "But obviously she was on life support and stuff. And I went in to her and told her I loved her. 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."

And sadly, that wasn't Liam's only devastating loss.

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In January last year, Liam's nephew, Ronan Sexton, died 5 years after suffering a fatal fall. He was just thirty-five years old.

In 2014, Ronan was out with friends in Brighton...

He climbed up the kiosk on the city's seafront but slipped and landed on a concrete subway. A police spokesperson said at the time of the incident: "Just after 4 am on Sunday a man climbed on top of a telephone kiosk outside Brighton Pier when he fell some 20ft to the ground, sustaining a serious head injury."

And this week, it seems Liam has received some more heartbreaking news.

His ninety-four-year-old mom,  Katherine "Kitty" Neeson, has passed away.

The actor found out the news just one day before his birthday.

According to PEOPLE, the actor learned of his mother’s passing just one before his sixty-eighth birthday. According to the outlet, Kitty died on Saturday, June 6 in Northern Ireland. Devastating. Rest in Peace, Kitty.