Frank McCourt, who died last week, forever shattered the myth that "there are no second acts in American lives."

A retired teacher, McCourt was 66 when his autobiography, "Angela's Ashes," became a blockbuster best-seller in 1996, launching a lucrative new career for the white-haired author who would see more than 10 million copies of "Angela" and its two sequels in print.

He was a writer of seductive charm, self-deprecating humor and a gentle appreciation for mankind's frailties, most often his own.

Pittsburgh played a minor but special role in McCourt's life. Former Edgeworth resident and longtime friend, novelist Mary Breasted, guided the manuscript in 1995 to the literary agent who sold the book to Scribner.

Breasted was then living in a suburb of New York City. She later moved to the Pittsburgh area when her husband, Ted Smyth, worked for the H.J. Heinz Co.

Breasted had published her novel, "Why Should You Doubt Me Now?" in 1993, and McCourt sought her out several years later after he finished writing "Angela's Ashes."

"He sat next to me at lunch one day and asked me if I minded if he sent the manuscript to me to look over," she remembered. "I guess I was a little reluctant to read it because he was a friend, but I said, 'Sure.' "

Once she started, Breasted said she couldn't put it down and stayed up all night reading.

"I was absolutely blown away by it," she said, "and I called Frank and told him, 'Absolutely, you've got a book there.' Then I figured I had to help him get it published."

But there was a problem. "My agent told me that Irish books, especially by new writers, don't sell," Breasted said, "and here was a memoir by an unknown writer about Ireland in the 1930s.

"I knew that the mother of my babysitter was the agent Molly Friedrich, who had sold a memoir by a first-time writer, so I asked her to read Frank's manuscript one weekend. She wasn't interested, but I urged her to just read the first five pages. She called me on Monday. 'How do I reach Frank?' she asked and that was that."

Scribner initially printed 27,000 copies of "Angela's Ashes," Breasted said. "The editor there, Nan Graham, thought the same thing about the popularity of a book about the poor Irish, so they were very careful."

The book would go on to sell more than 4 million copies. McCourt would follow with the sequels, "T'is" and "Teacher Man," but they never reached the success of the original.

Breasted first met McCourt and his brother Malachy in 1969 when she was a reporter for the Village Voice, located near the Lions Head Tavern, a legendary writers' haunt.

"The McCourt brothers were a constant presence there in those days," Breasted said, "and, as I got to know Frank a lot better, I realized he was a very smart guy who could tell stories. There was just an elegance in the way he spoke. I told him, 'You gotta write this stuff down.' "

McCourt had tried, but the demands of teaching in the New York public schools gave him little time.

"Two things happened that made 'Angela's Ashes' possible," Breasted believes. "First he retired from teaching and then he met Ellen Frey, who was his third wife. Somehow, she gave him the emotional space he needed to write about his childhood."

When the book emerged as the most successful title of '96, the raconteur side of McCourt, the side Breasted saw at the Lion's Head in '69, emerged as he traveled the country promoting "Angela's Ashes."

"He had this amazing storyteller's talent," remembered Breasted. "He could speak for an hour without notes.

McCourt appeared in Pittsburgh eight times, often staying with the Breasted family. I interviewed him there in April 1999 after he delivered his second lecture in as many days to accommodate the sell-out crowds. He seemed worn out after just finishing "T'is" and facing another long tour to promote it.

"I don't know how I finished that book," he said. "It seems I've been writing on the run for months -- in planes, trains and the men's lavatory," he acknowledged.

Later that year "T'is" would hit the bookstores, but fall short of "Angela's" impressive sales.

"Getting published makes you want to write more," said Breasted, "and Frank felt the necessity to continue. I don't think the book worked as well because it wasn't about that child anymore."

McCourt had often said it was not until he captured the "voice" of his childhood self in the dire poverty of Limerick, Ireland in the Depression that "Angela's Ashes" came together. His two sequels covered the adult McCourt, a less sympathetic character.

"People loved the transcendent humor in 'Angela's Ashes,' the way Frank could look at the terrible things in his life and laugh at the ways he could get through them," Breasted said. "And his writing was so restrained. He never got a word wrong."