Robin Williams - When the Laughter Stops 1951-2014 (2 page)

And from
Old Dogs
co-star John Travolta, ‘I’ve never known a sweeter, brighter, more considerate person than Robin. Robin’s commitment as an artist to lifting our mood and making us happy is compared to none. He loved us all and we loved him back.’

An extremely touching tribute came from the family of the late Christopher Reeve. The American actor and Williams had been lifelong friends after meeting when they were both students at the famous Juilliard School in New York, and became so close that they were sometimes described as brothers; after Reeve was paralysed in the wake of a riding accident Robin had been quick to visit and spent a lot of time with his old friend until his untimely death in 2004 (indeed, it was Chris’s death that was thought to have knocked him off the wagon in the early noughties). ‘After our father’s accident, Robin’s visit to his hospital room was the first time that Dad truly laughed,’ the family said in a statement to
People
. ‘Dad later said, “My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay.”’

Such was the worldwide shock and saturation coverage that, unusually, Lt. Keith Boyd of the Marin County Sheriff’s Office held a press conference to tell of the late actor’s final moments. He had been found hanged. It emerged that his wife Susan had gone to bed at 10.30pm the previous evening; Robin went to sleep in a separate room and, when she left the house the next morning, she
had been under the impression that he was still asleep. She went out at about 10.30am: a neighbour, Sandy Kleinman, saw her go out to walk the dog.

It was actually Mara Buxbaum, Williams’ publicist, who first realised something was wrong: when he didn’t reply to repeated knocks on the door at around 11.45am, she entered the room and discovered her client. By that time, of course, it was too late. Mara was beside herself: ‘The caller [Buxbaum] was distraught and indicated at that time it was an apparent suicide due to a hanging that had taken place and that rigor mortis had set in,’ said Boyd. No one would talk about whether there had been a suicide note.

As more details emerged, it became clear that something had been very wrong in recent months. Williams had been sleeping up to eighteen hours a day, spoke of constant tiredness and loss of appetite and had also been quite reclusive. ‘His bedroom had blackout curtains, because Robin didn’t want light in his bedroom,’ a source told
RadarOnline.com
. After his death, pictures emerged of his last public appearance, attending an exhibition at Bay Area Art Gallery. He looked painfully thin, gaunt even, indicating a severe loss of appetite might also have been an issue: another sign of depression. But there was no obvious indication that anything had been wrong. The artist Mark Jaeger, whose work had been on display that night – Robin had purchased a work of his in the past – related that he had appeared to be in good spirits that night, laughing frequently and not drinking. The two discussed possible
future projects. But Williams’ painfully thin appearance hinted that something really was wrong.

In the aftermath, Jaeger, a ceramics teacher at Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield, was clearly distressed. They had met through Robin’s wife Susan, a curator of exhibitions at 142 Throckmorton Theatre, and Williams had been extremely supportive of his work, buying a huge clay head from his ‘Superhero’ series, which featured ordinary people as superheroes. The two had had a good chat. ‘We were actually talking about turning the superhero concept into a movie script,’ Jaeger told
Marin Independent Journal.
‘This idea of a superhero homeless person, goes out at night and does good deeds and takes care of people in need. I said, “Robin, I’m enthused. I love the idea that it could be a movie but I don’t know how to do that,” and he said, “Oh, you just jot down some notes on a piece of paper.” And I said, “Then what?” and he said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. I’ll connect you with the right people and we can go through this process and I’ll help you through the process,”’ Jaeger said. ‘He was so generous. Every time I talked to him, he had such a humility. I’m a nobody, and he made me feel like my work is important.’

Others said that Williams was really not himself. ‘The last time I saw Robin was over the weekend, we would catch up on the street, just casual,’ a neighbour who did not wish to be named told
Mail Online.
‘He was very drawn and thin, he did not look like the Robin who first moved into this community many years ago. He was a shell of himself,
exhausted and not in the best spirits, but still the nice guy I had always known. There seemed to be something on his mind. He was not at all like his stage persona; that was not the Robin I knew. He was more quiet and down-to-earth, not over-the-top, like he was in the movies. He listened well. He was often quiet and very private. The last time I saw him he seemed to be in a bad place emotionally.’

Others also talked about the fact that Robin was much quieter off screen than on and how he used to enjoy walking his dogs in order to be alone with his thoughts. A picture was emerging of a troubled and complex man.

So what could have caused such a dramatic change? Williams’ ongoing battles with drink, drugs and depression were now increasingly known but, to the astonishment of many, it now emerged that he might have been experiencing serious financial concerns as well. In some ways this was almost inconceivable – Robin Williams, was a major Hollywood A-lister and had been for decades, with his fortune at one point estimated at £75 million, but he had had two very expensive divorces and, although his name was as famous as ever, the major film roles weren’t coming his way in quite the manner they once did. His 600-acre ranch in Napa Valley had been on the market for two years, with the asking price dropped from £21 million to £17.8 million, while he had been telling friends, ‘I just can’t afford it anymore.’

Indeed, it seemed that the financial difficulties were pretty severe. ‘All he could talk about were serious money
troubles. Robin was known for being so generous to his friends and family during the height of his success, and would help anyone out that needed it,’ a family friend told
Radar Online.
‘There was also frustration that Robin expressed at having to take television and movie roles he didn’t want to take, but had to for the pay cheque.’

Stories began to emerge that he was so worried about money that he had even started to sell off his beloved fifty-strong bicycle collection.

Looking at the bigger picture, there were further signs that all was not well. The two divorces were said to have cost £20 million and Williams had talked openly about doing another comedy tour, going back into television and even doing low-budget films. ‘The movies are good, but a lot of times they don’t even have distribution,’ he told
Parade
magazine in 2013 ‘There are bills to pay. Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it “all the money” but they changed it to “alimony”. It’s ripping your heart out through your wallet.’ He was joking – but then again, many a true word is spoken in jest.

By the time of his death, Williams wasn’t even living in his ranch: instead he was residing in a bungalow in Tiburon, which he had inherited from his mother Laurie in 2001. He was talking about having to ‘downsize’ his life: money was clearly on his mind.

Others, however, denied that financial worries had been at the forefront. ‘Reports suggesting Robin may have had financial issues are simply false,’ his publicist Mara Buxbaum
said in an email to
NBC News.
‘I understand people’s desire to try to understand this, but we would encourage your focus to be on working to help others and understand depression.’ Others equally maintained that the actor had plenty of work in the pipeline and that this was not a cause for concern. Forbes estimated he was still worth the best part of $50 million. Not as much as previously, perhaps, but hardly a man on his uppers.

But then something else came to light; something totally different: not only was poor Robin tormented by a lifetime of demons manifesting themselves in drink and drugs issues, alongside possible money worries and concerns about his career, but he was also in the early stages of a serious illness. It might have been years before it really began to manifest itself but it emerged that Williams had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Could this have finally pushed him over the edge?

Opinion was divided but his widow, Susan Schneider, felt that she had to make a statement about an illness her husband had not wanted to go public about and she also wanted to make it clear that he had not succumbed to alcohol again. It read as follows:

It was a brave statement to make at a time when Susan was obviously suffering such a terrible loss. However, it did nothing to stop the speculation. Williams had been a keen cyclist, having taken up the sport to help him in the fight against his various addictions. Now his friend, San Francisco bike-shop owner and Robin’s biking partner, Tony Tom, who also revealed that Robin had used cycling to keep himself off drugs, wondered whether the A-lister was afraid that, as his disease progressed, he would no longer be able to cycle. Actor and producer Michael J. Fox, meanwhile, himself diagnosed with Parkinson’s while still very young, tweeted that he was ‘stunned’ to hear that Robin Williams had been a fellow sufferer. He was ‘pretty sure’ that Williams’
support for his Michael J. Fox Foundation predated the moment when he found out that he, too, was suffering from the disease, adding, ‘A true friend; I wish him peace.’

Now that the news was out, another possibility aired: were the drugs that Williams had been taking to treat his condition actually responsible for pushing him over the edge? Some people certainly thought so. Actor Rob Schneider, with whom Robin had been friends for over twenty years since they both appeared on
Saturday Night Live
, clearly thought so. He tweeted, ‘Now that we can talk about it #Robin Williams was on a drug treating the symptoms of Parkinson’s. One of the side effects is suicide.’

The family wouldn’t be drawn, however, despite rumours that they agreed with this, although a source was prepared to talk. ‘Robin had recently left rehab,’ he told
Forbes
. ‘He was on medication for anxiety and depression and had also started taking drugs to combat the early onset of Parkinson’s. Many of these drugs list suicidal thoughts as a possible side effect. A lot of Robin’s friends are convinced that the cocktail of prescription pills he was on somehow contributed to his mental state deteriorating as quickly as it did. Robin had always suffered from depression and addiction but the diagnosis and treatment of his Parkinson’s was new, as was the combination of drugs he was on.’

Williams had, indeed, always suffered from depression but the Parkinson’s diagnosis had made matters much worse, in addition to which it was widely believed that
depression is also an early symptom of the disease. Indeed, the revelation attracted so much publicity that the US-based National Parkinson Foundation felt compelled to put out a statement:

The reverberations continued. Susan, poleaxed by grief, left the marital home and the community where they lived together. Williams’ children continued to express bewilderment and upset.

Zelda tweeted a quote from the French novel
The Little Prince
by Antoine De Saint-Exupéry:

It emerged that the funeral had been held very quickly: an Episcopalian service, the religion that Williams had been brought up in, at Monte’s Chapel of the Hills, a funeral home in San Anselmo, California. After the private service, Robin’s ashes were scattered in the San Francisco Bay – appropriate, for he had lived there for much of his life since his late teens. As those close to him continued to struggle to make sense of what had happened, there was increased speculation that it had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, with a close associate saying that just days before he had been talking about upcoming projects. He had been ‘completely engaged in the conversation’, the source told
TMZ
and, as such, certainly didn’t seem to be harbouring any thoughts about leaving. But then again, it was perhaps not widely appreciated that Williams had had a traumatic childhood, which left him scarred for the rest of his life. He’d played many damaged characters so magnificently because he himself was one too and, perhaps finally, he was no longer able to hold out against the despair that had appeared at periodic intervals throughout the course of his life.