RIP Robin Williams

btw he was a solid actor in Garp and most of all the PBS Bellow film Seize the Day

also I am in about the sixth row on the back sleeve photo of his Live at the Met LP (1986)

wow :)

POST PICTURE

I probably saw more of his movies in the theater than any other actor, and a lot of them were his bad movies (Toys, Patch Adams, August Rush...the REALLY bad ones) and could never bring myself to hate the guy for it. growing up I watched a lot of Mork & Mindy reruns on Nick At Nite and always looked forward to the Comic Relief telethons.

also not everyone starring in a hit sitcom would bring on his childhood idol as a regular, as he did with Jonathan Winters.

I remain a Death to Smoochy fan, but The Fisher King, the horror.

the second and last time I saw him live was as Estragon

http://www.robin-williams.net/images/plays/godot/image01.jpg

^^^ wish i'd seen that. even tho it's not the one w john goodman as pozzo.

this shook me. rip. i think he's unflashily amazing in the birdcage too; alfred otm abt his character's desperate position. stray phrases from a night at the met blow through me every couple weeks and always have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GorgFtCqPEs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IyrqeTDeeQ

Koko was probably all "goddamm, that man was hairy," after he left.

nice remembering deconstructing harry today

DEATH TO SMOOCHY!!!

death to smoochy is great

there was an early special of his where he starts to lose the audience and does this "into the mind of a comedian who's bombing" bit where he's running around inside his own head pulling switches and turning nobs and finally says "ok, we have to do it -- no! we can't do it! -- yes, we must... release, the id!" and he comes crawling out of an invisible box like a horror movie creature. can't find it on youtube.

absolutely grew up on mork reruns.

some of the best fake songs for a movie ever in death to smoochy - "Friends Come in All Sizes," "We'll Get You Off That Smack (Oh Yes We Will)," and my favorite, "My Stepdad's Not Mean (He's Just Adjusting)."

this has really fucked me up.

https://twitter.com/zeldawilliams/status/499045688559165440

I'm honestly bewildered by this, even though everyone knew he was on an emotional rollercoaster. But he always struck me as a generous and compassionate person, and he had me from the second he head-stood the Cunningham sofa in Happy Days.

a true artist who touched our lives <3

This fucked me up, like a sneak-attack. When I first heard, my initial shameful thought was a feeling of "Finally," like the feeling that a depressed person had arrived at his/her inevitable conclusion. On the 99 days that I'm not depressed, suicide seems unconscionable, like a distant memory of a shitty movie, but one that 1 day out of 100, and when I hear about celebs like Williams or Linkous, or people close to me, victims of depression, alcoholism, bipolar disorder, PTSD, all that familiar boulange, there is an aura of inevitability that is really hard to shake. I've been hanging tough, keeping kool in the workplace, but honestly? reading people's Twitter responses destroyed me on a private level. "Call somebody" lol. Support groups, try my medication, etc. Can any of us possibly comprehend what is required of a comedy legend/movie star? where an entire industry is hanging on his vibe, his mood? How dependent his bankability and the income of thousands is on how "on" he could be? I can't possibly comprehend how impossible it must've felt to broach these topics with even his loved ones, let alone his staff, or anybody who would immediately just dismiss any claims toward mental sickness as preposterous, as I'm sure the guy had all the sushi and chocolate he could ask for. Does this make sense? I dunno, any time I've ever tried to say "I feel old/tired/terrible and want to die" the response has consistently been orbiting about the self of the confessor, like "how could you possibly feel this way when you have so much?" How must it have been for Williams? Anyway.

it makes sense

i don't know what to do with myself

Can't even really process at the moment, in some weird way he was the comedian that made me understand what comedians were as a child, which is crazy to think about. Mork. The single handed reason I found out jonathon winters existed, which makes this a better life. A tendency for sweaty overdoneness, but oddly forgivable, as were his comedic missteps in taste which I imagine mortified him the same way they did me when I rewatched his early standup (the San Francisco gay siren joke which knowing his later work seems so cheap and workmanlike and dishonest). The weird heart he had in the middle of terrible movies. The now semi-unwatchable genie bit that was star maintaining and somehow fantastic as a mind-numbingly multi-chemically high asshole college kid in a theater full of children in 1992. The bad years that seemed so easy to say "fucking Robin Williams" but now seem like a dude that just wanted to work, all the time, and seemed to have seen something in those movies that never was there but clearly tried. Seeing the greatness of "worlds greatest dad" and chalking it up to bobcat which was totally unfair, but still thinking "I'll give him another shot" and never doing it. Sorry robin. Sad times.

http://images5.fanpop.com/image/photos/26500000/One-Hour-Photo-robin-williams-26576960-1920-1080.png

The bad years that seemed so easy to say "fucking Robin Williams" but now seem like a dude that just wanted to work, all the time, and seemed to have seen something in those movies that never was there but clearly tried.

otfm

Here's the repost of the WTF episode.

RIP

RIP Robin, wish it hadn't ended this way.

The one comic part of the Maron interview, in the last 10 minutes, is exactly hiw I imagined Williams talking himself off the ledge when having deadly thoughts.

There is this scene in patch adams, when he learns the girl he loved got murder-suicided by a mentally unstable man, that traumatized me as a child and I still think about it a lot.

Don't like Aladdin. Especially now, it feels like it inspired/anticipated much of the Shrek-style obnoxiousness that came to dominate too much animation in recent years. For years, it has been my personal policy to ask anyone who claims to like the film if they've seen the 1940 The Thief of Bagdad.

― You know something? He *did* say "well, yeah" a lot. (cryptosicko), Tuesday, August 12, 2014 12:34 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

keep thinking about someone barking at a six year old "Yeah well have you seen the original Thief Of Bagdad??" and laughing.

RIP Robin Williams, you were pretty damn awesome, and the circumstances of your exit seem impossibly sad to me.

lmao

Via Deadspin: Conan O'Brien Found Out About Robin Williams's Death During His Show. Ugh.

I find this ineffably sad, kind of like when John Ritter died. Like so many kids of my generation I grew up with the TV on, and Williams was a constant presence, first on Mork & Mindy, then his first HBO special, which my friends and I watched nearly every time it was on. I wish he had avoided some of the bathetic performances his later career veered into, but that's been amply covered by everyone else. When he was on, nobody else could touch him.

Sry Buzzfeed, but wow, did not know about any of this: http://www.buzzfeed.com/lyapalater/the-lifelong-friendship-of-robin-williams-and-christopher-re#btu8zr

the thing that made me finally cry last night was reading about how RW went to visit Reeve after his accident and was the first person to make him laugh

yeah I remember during Reeve's Oscar appearance in the mid nineties that the networks mentioned the two were bros.

A (name-changed) friend just posted his Robin Williams story. I guess my friend Bob was shopping at a toy store one day when Robin Williams and his son came in. Apparently, Robin collected Todd McFarlane figures, just like my friend Bob. Robin was really approachable, really friendly and really funny. My friend reminded him of some "Alladin" promotion that he had worked on, which needed Robin's approval, and Robin politely pretended to remember. They hung in the store a while talking toys and other things. After a bit, Williams bid his adieu and off he went. A bit later, Bob went to a clothing store, like the Gap or something, and there was Robin Williams and son, checking out in front of him. Robin says goodbye to the cashier, turns around, sees Bob, gives him a big smile and just says something like "hey, Bob, how are you?" Then he leaves. The cashier turns to my friend and says "you're friends with Robin Williams?" And as my friend ended his post: "Yeah, I guess I was."

I think it's vital to bring up roles like "Garp" and "Moscow on the Hudson," really strong performances that showed he was no mere comedian turned dramatic actor late in life. He was great in those first two, but also "insomnia," "One Hour Photo," "World's Greatest Dad," "Good Will Hunting," "Dead Poet's Society," "Good Morning, Vietnam," "The Fisher King" and a bunch more, capable more than most of conveying this great empathy that probably came from a real place, given what an apparently generous guy he was, and how much time and energy he spent of various charities.

I remember hearing several months ago that he had checked himself back in rehab not because he had fallen off the wagon but because he sensed he might. Now I wonder if he or anyone knew there was more going on. Really devastating.

RIP

Grew up with him going back to Mork's first appearance on Laverne & Shirley. He was brilliant, surreal, and lovable.

He also went through a run where his roles made me cringe, and this is what makes me wonder : did he, too, cringe? And did this feed his depression ? I have my own "battles with depression" and more than my share of self-cringing, but for a performing artist like RW, the horns of the dilemma must be so much sharper: what makes them endearing must inevitably be turned into shtick at some point, and just as inevitably the cringe-worthiness blooms. And how tenderly painful is that?

I didn't really know him personally, so who knows, but this what I wonder about right now.

Rest in peace, you beautiful man.

first time i've felt emotional about a face from my childhood going. jumanji. hook. flubber. mrs. doubtfire. fuckin, TOYS. a face that made me smile. a face that made me feel safe. good night, vietnam

This has definitely been sad and sobering in a way that many celebrity deaths aren't for me, but hearing Maron break down is the thing that's finally kicking me in the gut.

man after sleeping on this for a night it is still just so sad, especially reading all these sweet stories

I listened to the Maron interview and believe his explanation of unconsciously appropriating other comedians' lines because once, in my swamp of low-level standup, *I* got caught doing that.

I kinda cringe at obit headlines that make him sound like a film actor ("Hollywood legend") pure n' simple, when most of his contributions were live or live-on-TV. I also kinda wonder how a guy with a generational talent could do so much stuff with Billy Crystal. Still as a friend of mine said about resumes w/ lots of dross, "You can only do what you're offered," and I guess he had no aspirations to write/direct/produce films.

Keyframe roundup (he has, uh, SIX movies in the can?):

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-robin-williams-1951-2014

was Maron interviewed today or is it the re-upped podcast we are talking about?

Maron just added some commentary to the beginning and end of the re-upped interview. He sounded like he was right on the verge of full-on sobbing. It's heartbreaking.

It's also heartbreaking, in the interview, to hear Robin Williams talk about rationalizing his way through previous thoughts of suicide. I guess that level of clarity isn't always there when you need it.

Pretty good story, this one.

http://uproxx.com/webculture/2014/08/norm-macdonald-told-a-wonderful-robin-williams-story-on-twitter-that-sums-up-everyones-loss/

so sad about this.

That Norm story is excellent.

When Rik Mayall died a couple of months ago now there was the odd question as to why he never made it in film. Then you look at Robin Williams: lots of comic energy, could hold you for shorter chunks of time on TV yet flagged when anything more dramatic was required.

That there were a few films that could frame that energy for a while is an achievement of sorts.