RIP Robin Williams

kevin kline could have done dead poets.

he kinda did in In and Out!

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, August 12, 2014 2:21 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

no, he did it in the emperor's club!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Emperor%27s_Club#mediaviewer/File:The_Emperor%27s_Club_Poster.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/58/The_Emperor%27s_Club_Poster.jpg

Has this Gottfried piece been posted?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/12/opinion/gottfried-robin-williams/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter

To see Robin perform was an experience. He was more than a comedian. He was a comedy force of nature. I remember hearing that Robin was once doing a press junket in Germany. One of the reporters asked him, "Why is it that Germany is not known for comedy?" Robin answered, "Well, you killed all your funny people." I laughed out loud when I heard that. I thought, how sick and how wonderfully truthful.

From SFGate, something from Mort Sahl:

Legendary news-based comedian Mort Sahl, who moved to Mill Valley five years ago, says he and Williams "were very close friends, via Lucy Mercer at 142 Throckmorton," where Sahl performs every Thursday. He first met Williams "17 years ago in Los Angeles. He was most extraordinary. We were very very close, on a humor basis. ... But what he did was a long way from what I did."

Sahl observes that "whatever the audience got, Williams was an actor, a classically trained actor. He had a great respect for individuality, and he was a very gentle soul. He cut up to un-inhibit the audience, but that was not him."

The two comics would meet in downtown Mill Valley. Most recently, they most often "met at my place," said Sahl. "He gave me an espresso machine, so we could have a conversation and we didn't have to go out ... and watch all those people in Tiburon reading the Wall Street Journal while they had coffee."

He is still grateful for Lucy Mercer having introducedthem. "A person like Lucy could only exist up here," says Sahl, "and Robin trusted her implicitly. She's on the side of the living, which is definitely a minority."

burst out laughing at my desk at the fox clip

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-news-backs-robin-williams-death-report-with-fake-mrs-doubtfire-footage/

http://www.clickhole.com/article/7-robin-williams-gifs-imperfectly-sum-his-life-and-742

It's interesting to compare RW's reaction to improv-audience idiot suggesting "Flubber" to, say, Lou Reed stalking out when the local bakery is playing "Sunday Morning."

tbf, Robin Williams presumably wanted to stay onstage and Lou Reed could easily find a good bagel elsewhere

well I don't know about that in the contemporary West Village

when I think of The Fisher King I remember Bridges, Ruehl, and Plummer, not Williams.

Lou Reed could easily find a good bagel egg cream elsewhere

fixed

when I think of the Fisher King I remember that a huge chunk of the middle of the film is devoted to a subplot that goes nowhere

welp used dvd store gave me no love. out of desperation I bought Hook but more for nostalgia than need.

so I went on Amazon & bought The Fisher King. I really fucking love that movie.

when I think of The Fisher King I remember Bridges, Ruehl, and Plummer, not Williams.

Really? For me that movie is all about Williams and Michael Jeter.

For me, the movie is all about SNAP!

wtf there were ONE HOUR PHOTO action figures??? xpost

the Fisher King is all about New York in June

i think these were only action figures from one hour photo:
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_llostrfPC01qc39oy.png

What?!? They had Eva figures!??

hahaha yes saw that on fb today, forgot about that, so good

oh yeah i had a bunch of eva figures

I remember The Fisher King itself far less than I remember the experience of watching it with my mom (who liked it) and my grandparents who were just WTF the whole time.

As for What Dreams May Come, Owen Gleiberman said it best in that EW bit posted above: "Heaven looks like nothing so much as a baroque series of progressive-rock album covers."

my Mom rented Fisher King when I was in high school, she loved Jeff Bridges & Williams, and she roped me into watching it. She liked it but thought it was a bit 'arty' and a little 'quirky', but I loved it & made all my friends watch it afterwards

I'm watching it now and what starts as a narrative about a dickish Spalding Gray-like deejay getting smug about America gets diverted into this Williams section that's lit and shot and acted like Snow White's Scary Adventures.

JUST WATCH IT OKAY IT'S REALLY GOOD

don't post, watch *guitar solo*

Morbs, thanks for all your contributions to this thread, they have been excellent.

And god yeah alfred see garp yesterday. one of the first 'adult' movies i got to watch on vhs with my parents, really did a number on me, in the best way.

it's maybe the first film I saw where gender/sexuality politics were front and center in a frank and disarming way

yeah the fisher king was a family favorite of ours.

very sad, don't know what else to say.

genuinely surprised that Gottfried penned an obit rather than a bunch of tasteless mean-spirited jokes

xxp

what starts as a narrative about a dickish Spalding Gray-like deejay getting smug about America

yeah, that's what i liked in tFK, the first 10 minutes.

Hanging. Such a gruesome method.

WTF Buzzfeed http://bzfd.it/Vh4svZ

Describing Garp as Oscarbait is technically true, I guess, since it was nominated for Oscars, but its still one weird ass movie.

http://davidsimon.com/robin-williams-a-brief-encounter/

I was hoping that Buzzfeed thing would just be some garbage from a community contributor, but it was a staff article. Blech.

recently rewatched that homicide episode (revisiting the show for the first time since it aired has been a trip), and you can definitely see the written-for-robin "pyrotechnics" simon would be chafed by

Matt Belknap:

When I was 10 years old, my parents took me to a 10,000 seat arena to see a stand-up comedy show. It was the first time I had ever seen stand-up in person, and the comedian was Robin Williams.

A few memories of that night have stuck with me for three decades. I remember how much Robin sweat. I remember Bobby McFerrin, then unknown, opening the show, and not really knowing if what he was doing was comedy, music, or both.

Before introducing Robin, a local DJ explained that he had been instructed to go to a toy store and fill a box with a bunch of toys. That box was brought out on stage, and during his set Robin riffed on the contents of it. Beyond being hilarious, this seemed like a magic trick to me. Hungry for more props, Robin later took a camera from a woman in the front row, stuck it down his pants and snapped a picture. At the time this was the funniest thing I had ever seen in my life.

What I remember most: in the car on the way home, I noticed that my mouth hurt. The sides of my mouth, my throat, even my neck hurt, having been stretched and flexed all night from laughing. I didn't know that was possible. I'm not sure it's ever happened to me again, actually. And I've seen a lot more comedy shows since then.

20-odd years later, I had the dumb luck to be booking a weekly comedy show at the UCB that Robin dropped in on. I will reiterate what every single person who ever met him is saying tonight: he was incredibly humble, friendly, kind, and generous with his time, talking to the other comedians outside the show afterwards about their sets or whatever.

But the highlight for me was, during the show, Robin stood next to me, off to the side, watching the other comics. And he was completely enthralled, laughing at every joke, nudging me every few seconds, uttering, "Oh shit!" when a line caught him off guard... And generally just acting like a 10-year-old kid seeing stand-up comedy for the first time. It was surreal.

I thought about telling him the story of how I saw him as a kid, but in the situation I was caught up in keeping my cool, and treating him like a human being instead of being a fan with a trite personal anecdote. But the truth is, I might not have been booking that show, and I might not be producing comedy albums and podcasts, making a living in this world today, if I hadn't been introduced to live comedy by one of the most wildly gifted and infectiously joyous performers to ever practice the craft. It is staggering to consider the lives he touched with his talent.

Dana Gould posted this on Instagram, v moving

http://instagram.com/p/rlk76Rqbe0/?modal=true

Two years ago, I was performing at The Punchline in San Francisco, and Robin came to the show with our mutual friend, Dan Spencer. This particular batch of material was the first time I had touched upon my then still-fresh divorce wounds, and big chunks of it were pretty dark. The next day, I got a text from a number I didn't recognize. Whoever it was had obviously been to the show and knew my number, so I figured they would reveal themselves at some point and save me the embarrassment of asking who they were. The Mystery Texter asked how I was REALLY doing. "You can't fool me. Some of those 'jokes' aren't 'jokes." By now I knew that whoever this was had been through what I was enduring, as no one else would know to ask, "What time of day is the hardest?" He wanted to know how my kids were handling it, all the while assuring me that the storm, as bleak as it was, would one day pass and that I was not, as I was then convinced, a terrible father for visiting a broken home upon my children. I am not rewriting this story in retrospect to make it dramatic. I did not know who I was texting with. Finally, my phone blipped, and I saw, in a little green square, "Okay, pal. You got my number. Call me. I've been there. You're going to be okay. - Robin." That is what you call a human being.

A friend of mine wrote this nice piece about what it was like to watch Robin the stand-up at his best:

http://www.thebolditalic.com/articles/5587-theres-nothing-lonelier-than-a-mic-and-a-stage

http://gawker.com/robin-williams-daughter-pens-heartbreaking-goodbye-to-h-1620566070

:(

the Marc Maron podcast was very interesting and very funny and very very sad

This one making the rounds:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/t1.0-9/10583982_10152354168518995_8506274608323222161_n.jpg

Before introducing Robin, a local DJ explained that he had been instructed to go to a toy store and fill a box with a bunch of toys.

From a friend:

Robin Williams did a couple concerts at the Park West in the 80's. I worked there, and they needed someone to go prop-shopping at Uncle Fun, for stuff that would be in a trunk Robin would occasionally go to onstage. They told me to go to him, to check if he wanted to see anything pre-show. He told me 'No, I'd rather see it for the first time during the show.' That made me so nervous that my choices better be comically inspiring! All went well first show; he saw me and asked if any critics were there. My impression was how serious he seemed. What a contrast to the whirling dervish of his performance! Actually, a memory just came to me from earlier in the day during sound check. (I must've been there all day) He was going to the dressing room and had to pass a huge Skrebneski print that decorated the Park West lobby. Skrebneski was known for overtly sexual images of gorgeous models. Robin said something I couldn't hear, backed up and ran toward the giant print of the half naked model, throwing his body up against it in a typical Robin-the-comic move. What was funny was ... he was by himself at the moment. I was the only one in a position to see him, from the ticket window, but I don't think he knew I was there!

that unfaltering compulsion to perform, especially in comics with a tendency for melancholy or depression is super interesting to me

The Joan Rivers documentary covered compulsion-to-perform really well. With her, it was like she was working through the depression of her husband, although she's had many ups and downs herself since his death.

Williams says it straight in that podcast, it often stems from the insecurity and neediness of so many who go into stand-up comedy