Robin Williams in his tour de force performance as a homeless former history professor in The Fisher King, with Jeff Bridges and Mercedes Ruehl. His acting performances ranged right up into greatness.
Robin Williams died today, apparently of a suicide by asphyxiation. A brilliant comedian and often stunning actor, as well as someone who spoke openly of his history drug abuse and loneliness and chronic depression, one can hope that at the end he at least knew how much he was loved by the public. Check out the links at that hometown news station’s piece. And, of course, there are many other reports coming out right now.
A life incompletely lived shocks all the more, so you’re welcome to post your thoughts and your remembrances here. Remember that suicide is complicated — we don’t know if he had an imminently fatal disease, for example, so please try to be kind and generous before you judge. And. as his family requests, perhaps we can dwell less on his final tragedy and more on remembering his great legacy. As well as, uh, Patch Adams. (Comedians, they so badly want to be loved!)
There are some days when it really does make sense to read the Hollywood Reporter, and this is one of them.
And here’s the County Coroner’s report.
UPDATE, 8/12
I’m not much of a fan of comedian Norm MacDonald, who on Saturday Night Live generally seemed to lack the sense of human kindness and fairness that makes the best comedians what they are, but he told a beautiful story today over Twitter. Rather than leaving it as a series of 18 tweets, I’m going to collapse it into a narrative form. (I’ve fixed just a little of the punctuation and typography for clarity.)
It was my first stand-up appearance on Letterman and I had to follow the funniest man in the world.
I was a punk kid from rural Ontario and I was in my dressing room, terrified. I was on the phone to a friend back home when the funniest man in the world ambled by. There was no one else on the floor. In shock, I told my friend who just walked by. Only the funniest man in the world.
I guess he heard me say his name, cause in an instant he was at my side. He was a jewish tailor, taking my measurements. He went down on his knees, asked which way I dressed. I told my friend on the phone that the funniest man in the world was on his knees before me, measuring my inseam.
My friend didn’t believe me so I said, “Could you talk to my friend, sir?” The funniest man in the world took the phone and for ten minutes took my friend’s Chinese food order. I laughed and laughed and it was like I was in a dream because no one else was there. No one.
The place was out of Moo Shoo Pork, and there was nothing he could do about it.
He angrily hung up on my friend and I was about to thank him when he said I hadn’t even tried the jacket on. Then the funniest man on earth dressed me, a complete stranger, and I remember he ended with a Windsor knot. He spoke mostly Yiddish, but when he finished he was happy with his job and turned me to a mirror to present myself to me.
No one witnessed any of this. No one.
The funniest man alive was in my dressing room a good half-hour and was far funnier than the set I had to do soon. When he left my dressing room, I felt alone. As alone as I ever remember feeling. Until today.
What an amazingly generous gesture from the master to the novice. Who else would do such a thing?
A terrible loss. Absolutely terrible.
*Hopefully, his doctor will be interrogated firmly and the list of prescription drugs that he was taking revealed to the public. Supposedly, Robin had been suffering from Deep Depression for 6 to 8 months. The actual time hopefully will be revealed as well. Was his weight, stress, or what he was eating and drinking involved? The loss of Robin Williams and our dear friend Jonathan Winters within just a few years is disturbing. They were both brilliant and of genius intellectually. Very sad …..indeed……Robin…….you had so much more to give and more we needed from you………you break our hearts! Go easy bro!
One of the things that made Robin Williams so special to me was the way he never hid his vulnerability. A childlike sense of delight and mischief and inevitably hilarious discovery of some absurd aspect of the human condition could burst out of him at any time, and then zap an ordinary conversation into totally magical places.
Nobody else did that.
Maybe the vulnerability he showed, especially in his comedy, also opened him to world of extreme pleasure and equally extreme pain; a world of which so many bipolars are intimately aware. Maybe that was part of what killed him; part of what made him choose to die–then again, maybe not–I will never know.
All I know is that nobody else was like him.
And I will miss him like nobody else.
This one hurts.
I thought he was much like Jonathan Winters as well Winships…
Making people laugh is a gift. People like Robin Williams are desperately needed to help some of us stop taking ourselves so seriously. They are a mirror to our ridiculous behavior and “stuffed shirt” attitudes. I will miss him.
“Be good and you will be lonesome.”
–Mark Twain
after Winters death, he probably had trouble finding any peer that matched him in intellectual deftness.
See the update, with the “already on its way to being famous” Norm McDonald Twitter story.
It’s better with the hashtags. Almost like poetry.
I’m totally serious.
You’re welcome to do it that way. I wanted to do it this way.
Lauren Bacall died. I challenge any red-blooded male not to jaw-drop at her very first performance.
*”You know Rick….just put your lips together and blow…..” She was 19…….and
Bogey was history. We worked with her, James Garner and Jack Lemmon on ….
“My Felllow Americans…”…..Lemmon’s dog was this giant black French Poodle…that got better food ….than any of the cast or crew. Garner had back problems and had this interesting hand built low level, wood directors chair. We worked up near Oxnard……it was a trip to meet Jim Garner……we told him he had totally changed our lives….and he said: “Ah…that’s too bad!”
Genius = extravagant price tag. RIP Robin Williams. You are unique in all the world.