Robin Williams, a legend: 1951–2014

It was with great sad­ness this after­noon that I learned that today we lost Robin Williams, one of the great­est come­di­ans and actors of his gen­er­a­tion, who was one of my favorites grow­ing up and remains so today.

Williams, six­ty-three, was found dead in his San Fran­cis­co area home after hav­ing appar­ent­ly tak­en his own life. Para­medics arrived with­in just a few min­utes of being sum­moned, but by the time Williams was dis­cov­ered, he was already gone.

This is a dev­as­tat­ing loss not just for cin­e­ma and com­e­dy, but human­i­ty. Williams brought so much to the stage, to the big screen, and to tele­vi­sion, but he was also a great source of encour­age­ment and wis­dom for others.

Come­di­an Jamie Kil­stein explains:

Robin Williams was maybe one of three peo­ple in this dumb #$%&@! busi­ness that believed in me and kept push­ing me. He sup­port­ed the show when no one would. He radi­at­ed kind­ness and I was com­fort­able the sec­ond I met him for the first time.

He called ME a few months ago to talk me out of MY DEPRESSION. That’s the kind of guy he was. Putting his #$%& aside for oth­ers. Our book that’s com­ing out is even ded­i­cat­ed “To Robin”. We just nev­er thought it would be in his mem­o­ry. I hope my dumb com­e­dy brought him some joy and wish I could have done for him what he did for me.

He always told me to keep chal­leng­ing every­one and “keep rais­ing hell”. I hope you guys will do that as well. #$%&.

Williams brought so much laugh­ter and hap­pi­ness to so many peo­ple. He was very  gen­er­ous with his sense of humor. He put peo­ple at ease. It’s very sad that he evi­dent­ly reached a point where he could­n’t put him­self at ease, where the pain and sad­ness he felt seemed too deaf­en­ing, too over­whelm­ing for him to con­tin­ue living.

If only, in his dark­est hour, he could have seen, heard, felt the love that is pour­ing fourth from all quar­ters now in the wake of his pass­ing. There have been so many trib­utes post­ed already… on Twit­ter, on Face­book, on blogs, in forums. Like many Williams fans, we did­n’t know him per­son­al­ly, but we knew him through his work, and we are griev­ed by his pass­ing like his fam­i­ly and close friends.

To them, we send our deep­est condolences.

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma apt­ly summed up the breadth of Williams’ work in an evening state­ment mourn­ing his death:

Robin Williams was an air­man, a doc­tor, a genie, a nan­ny, a pres­i­dent, a pro­fes­sor, a ban­garang Peter Pan, and every­thing in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he end­ed up touch­ing every ele­ment of the human spir­it. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immea­sur­able tal­ent freely and gen­er­ous­ly to those who need­ed it most – from our troops sta­tioned abroad to the mar­gin­al­ized on our own streets. The Oba­ma fam­i­ly offers our con­do­lences to Robin’s fam­i­ly, his friends, and every­one who found their voice and their verse thanks to Robin Williams.

Well said, Mr. President.

Robin Williams was so incom­pa­ra­ble that many peo­ple, myself includ­ed, can reel off much of Williams’ fil­mog­ra­phy from mem­o­ry: Aladdin, Good Will Hunt­ing, Dead Poets Soci­ety, Mrs. Doubt­fire, Good Morn­ing Viet­nam, Hook, The Fish­er King, The Bird­cage, Moscow on the Hud­son, Insom­nia. With the notable excep­tion of Aladdin, many of these films were made before I was old enough to appre­ci­ate them, but I lat­er dis­cov­ered them through film analy­sis class, TV reruns, and Netflix.

One of the first Robin Williams films I remem­ber enjoy­ing as a child was Juman­ji, made in 1995 and based on the chil­dren’s book by Chris Van Alls­burg. Juman­ji remains a clas­sic for me today and I nev­er get tired of see­ing it.

Two years lat­er, Dis­ney came out with Flub­ber. I can still remem­ber see­ing Flub­ber for the first time. Its goofi­ness gave it an endear­ing qual­i­ty. Crit­ics panned it, but movie­go­ers liked it and it did rea­son­ably well at the box office.

Anoth­er under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed Williams film is Bicen­ten­ni­al Man, a sen­ti­men­tal Dis­ney flick that came out in 1999. Direct­ed by Chris Colum­bus (Mrs. Doubt­fire), it’s a sto­ry of an advanced android named Andrew that devel­ops human-like intel­li­gence and ulti­mate­ly makes so much progress embrac­ing the human con­di­tion that he is accept­ed as a human by human­i­ty — just before dying.

Williams also has a great many tele­vi­sion appear­ances to his cred­it. Aside from star­ring in Mork and Mindy, he has host­ed Sat­ur­day Night Live many times, appeared on Whose Line Is It Any­way? when it was host­ed by Drew Carey, and guest­ed on shows such as Law & Order: Spe­cial Vic­tims Unit.

Williams has yet to make his final appear­ance on the big screen. He will be in four films that are cur­rent­ly in post-pro­duc­tion, includ­ing the third Night at the Muse­um movie (Williams con­vinc­ing­ly por­trays Pres­i­dent Theodore Roo­sevelt in that series).

Williams is sur­vived by his wife, Susan Schnei­der, and three chil­dren, Zachary, Zel­da, and Cody, all of whom are in their twen­ties and thir­ties. Mil­lions of fans are shar­ing their grief tonight. We’ve lost an out­stand­ing tal­ent and a fine man.

Rest in peace, Robin Williams. You’ll be sore­ly missed.

POSTSCRIPT: If you are strug­gling with depres­sion, please, please don’t do what Robin did. If you feel like you can’t go on, talk to some­one. There are peo­ple stand­ing by day and night who are ready to lis­ten and to help you.

In the greater Seat­tle area, you can call the Cri­sis Clin­ic at 1–866-4CRISIS (1–866-427‑4747). There’s also the Nation­al Sui­cide Pre­ven­tion Life­line: 1–800-273-TALK (1–800-273‑8255). That’s open ²⁴⁄₇.