Robin Williams - When the Laughter Stops 1951-2014 (4 page)

Indeed, the move from the Midwest was probably the making of him. The Midwest still seems to be dominated
by pioneer thinking – it is only just over a century since men risked their lives to bring the territory under control. But laid-back California and San Francisco was something else altogether. In later life Williams enjoyed living there because no one seemed to notice him, he said. Of course, this was partly because he was a long-term local resident and they were used to him but it also implied that there were already so many inhabitants who were, perhaps, a little eccentric in that area that he fitted right in.

And the same applied to his considerably more relaxed school, where he was away from the tormentors and able to enjoy himself at last. And while it might not have been a private establishment, it was still a sound place to study, with plenty of other alumni going on to make their names. Comedian and author Greg Behrendt was one such pupil, as was the actor David Dukes. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the
New York Times
Eric Schmitt was another, as was Andy Luckey, who went on to produce the television version of
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
There were some noted academics too, including Gunnar Carlsson, a professor of mathematics at Stanford University, and noted US epidemiologist Don Francis, who became a big name in HIV and AIDS research.

From the moment he first saw it, Williams’ new city made an impact on him. ‘I was sixteen years old,’ he told
American Way
magazine in 2007. ‘My father and mother [and I] had driven across the country. As we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge, there was actually fog pouring in.
I’d never seen fog in my life. Is that poison gas? No. The way it pours over the hills in Marin County and comes over the Gate – it’s quite impressive. That was my first impression – what is this strange smoke?! But it was quite beautiful, seeing the bridge. In Detroit, there aren’t many things that are that big. I was also struck that quite close to the city, there’s all this nature. Mount Tamalpais State Park. We have the whole coastline – extraordinarily beautiful.’

All in all, it was a new environment that was a welcome change and brought him the opportunity to mature into the man he wanted to be; to explore sport and drama and also to relax. His father, of whom he had always been a little afraid, may have become more relaxed too. He was retired now, after all, out of the world of commerce and able to relax in the domestic environment in a way he never really had before. (That said, Williams never really spoke a great deal about his father, other than to recall the time when he launched into him for buying a Japanese car rather than an American one. So perhaps relaxation never came.)

His mother Laurie certainly noticed the change in her son. ‘Robin was very shy as a child,’ she told the
Chicago Tribune.
‘His father was strict, and I think the turning point for Robin came when he left Detroit Country Day School, which was a bunch of boys wearing very proper white shirts, and we moved to Marin. He went to Redwood High School and began bringing home some pretty wild and wooly friends. I don’t think they would have been drawn to him if he hadn’t been pretty wild himself. Later, his exposure
to improvisation with the Committee [an improvisational comedy troupe] was very exciting for him. People would call out a single line, and he was very good at improvising from just that.’

She was certainly aware of just how talented her son was, even if she never entirely realised that a great deal of it was to impress her. Ultimately, the lonely boy putting on an impression of his grandmother to make his mother laugh morphed into an international star and she was certainly proud of that. ‘I feel Robin was put on Earth to make us laugh,’ she continued. ‘You know, at the Yale Drama School, I’m told they use Robin and Steve Martin as perfect examples of the fool in a king’s court. The fool has to be brilliant, well informed and able to make the king laugh without getting his head chopped off. That’s Robin.’

And it was: for he was to become the Court Jester, pricking the pomposity of the great and good but, somehow, always getting away with it. It should not be forgotten that not only did Williams have enormous talent but he possessed great charm too. Even at his most manic there was never a sense that he was going out to wound anyone with his comedy: if anything, the only person he appeared to be intending to hurt was himself. And all that stemmed back to the loneliness of his earliest years – he himself had been badly hurt himself and, somehow, that hurt never went away.

But he was much happier now than previously, racketing about a big mansion on his own. ‘We lived in Tiburon, in this little house,’ he told
American Way
magazine. ‘There’s
a great restaurant in Tiburon called Sam’s Anchor Cafe, which is still there. It’s a seafood restaurant that my father liked because you can sit outside, on the warm days, or inside. It’s just an old-school seafood-and-hamburger place, and my father loved the hamburgers.’

But strangely, in Robin’s relationship with his mother, the humour remained, at some level, attached to childhood. Although the rest of the world saw him on adult terms, the relationship between mother and child never really develops from being exactly that and, although Williams had now grown up, he still operated on some fundamental level with his mother as if he was still small.

‘He’s very good at voices, you know,’ she continued. ‘He can do a little child very well. Sometimes, I’ll be rushing to get out of the house, and I’ll get this call [little girl’s voice]: “Hello, this is Candy. My mommy isn’t home. Can I come over and play with you?” And I get very impatient; he still can fool me. He also has a key to my house, and sometimes I’ll call, and he’ll answer the phone and impersonate the help, telling me that Mrs. Williams has moved away.’

This does not sound entirely healthy. Indeed, Robin would never break away from the difficulties of early childhood and this compulsion to make his mother laugh, although he certainly had her attention in later years. But back in high school, no longer plagued by bullies as he had been earlier, he was beginning to blossom. He kept up with the athletics – for a short time he even contemplated going professional and excelled as a runner, another pastime that ended up in his
stand-up act when he compared the famous ‘runners’ high’ to getting high on drugs – joined the drama club and began to find his feet. Sharp-witted as ever, by now there was no need to try and outwit the bullies but he couldn’t stop himself from trying to amuse his fellow pupils anyway. As for the acting, in later life he claimed he’d only taken it up in order to get laid.

(This was more mythologising on his part: he also once told the British TV presenter and chat-show host Michael Parkinson that he decided to become an actor after seeing the film
Dr. Strangelove: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb.
Strangely enough, that film starred Peter Sellers, who had the same ability to mimic and transform himself into a multitude of different characters before your very eyes. Another early influence was
2001: A Space Odyssey,
which his parents took him to see.)

Williams was hardly your average jock though. After his death, a fellow schoolmate was asked if it was true that he used to start every day with the cry, ‘Good morning, Redwood High!’ (an unlikely scenario, it must be said). His schoolmate’s verdict was a little blunt: ‘No way. C’mon. Nobody does stuff like that. That guy was such a geek. He wore bow ties and was super-quiet. I never liked him.’

But other people did. He really did have friends now – people he could hang out with – and soon he was about to start meeting others with whom he would remain friends for the rest of his life. William Drew met Williams at Redwood High School in 1967. ‘I remember Rob and
I walking a cool-down lap after track practice,’ he told the BBC in the aftermath of his death. ‘As we passed the shot putters, Rob suddenly stopped, walked over to the pit, looked over the three massive guys that were tossing the shot, picked up one of the heavy steel balls, and, well, use your imagination on the comment that came forth from the mouth of Robin Williams. Same in Drama Club – no script was safe, no line sacred. Two words summarise Robin: passion and compassion. He was focused and passionate about everything he did, and, as he demonstrated in his later years, was compassionate about others.’

But it was time to move on, to start thinking about the future and decide what to do next. Although Williams had survived an admittedly tough childhood, in his late teens he was coming into his own, already exceptionally witty and adept at making people laugh. But it wasn’t yet entirely clear that this would be the making of him, not only as an individual, but also as a performer. His classmates couldn’t quite fathom what to make of it all. Would he make it out there in the big, wide world in whatever capacity? On graduation, his fellow students voted him both ‘funniest’ and ‘least likely to succeed’ – they were certainly wrong there.

Robin Williams was, if not a born showman, then one who had certainly tuned into his talents by the vicissitudes of his childhood. But the penny had still not quite dropped. And so it was that in 1969 he enrolled at Claremont Men’s College in Claremont, California, to study political science. But it was not what he was meant to be doing and it didn’t last. In fact, he was there for one semester: depending on who you believe, he either dropped out because he realised he’d made a bad mistake or he was expelled for crashing a golf cart into the dining hall. He had certainly done some acting in his time there and was increasingly called on to follow that particular star. Whatever the truth, he didn’t last.

His father wasn’t thrilled but took it as well as might be expected. He did, however, advise his son to learn a practical trade, just to be on the safe side – welding. Robin did actually take a class but his instructor wasn’t very encouraging: ‘You can go blind from this,’ he told him. It was not the happiest moment.

In truth, to anyone with a grain of perception it was increasingly obvious that Robin wasn’t just talented, he was extraordinary; he totally stood apart. Even now, at this early stage in his career, he was displaying a wit, an ability to improvise, a comedic gift extraordinary in one so young. All those early elements – the fight against bullying, trying to attract his mother’s attention, the loneliness which led him to depend on his imagination – were there, of course, but there was something more. Williams had quite exceptional qualities and these were now beginning to come through.

Claremont Men’s College and a career in political science was not an option. A rethink was called for, and fast. And so he found himself at the College of Marin, in Kentfield, California, where he was to study drama for the next three years. It was a community college, where students did not exactly receive degrees per se but undertook the type of studies that were essentially somewhere between school and university. Now his anarchic side was seriously unleashed. Fellow students remember him walking around in green shorts and a swimming cap, doing silly walks. (This was around the time that Monty Python would have been
on British television and many an aspiring comedian was doing silly walks of his own.)

According to his drama professor, James Dunn, right from the start he stood out. It was a character in a Dickens’ adaptation that marked him out, and quickly too. And as the years went by it was his talent for improvisation that truly set him apart. ‘I first knew he was more talented than the other kids when he played Fagin in
Oliver!
’ Dunn told
Marin Independent Journal
shortly after Williams’ death was announced. ‘We were having light board issues and by midnight had only made it through half the musical. At one point he started talking to a baton he was carrying, and the baton talked back. It cut the tension and he had people laughing in hysterics. I remember calling my wife at 2 a.m. and telling her that this young man was going to be something special.’

Fagin wasn’t the only role in which he stood out: friends also remember his Malvolio from Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night.
Critics who felt that he should have stayed in stand-up comedy and not gone into serious acting might be surprised to learn the acting ambition was there from the start. Then again, Williams would take the famous soliloquies and use them as inspiration for some extended improvisation of his own. He reduced fellow students to tears of laughter, although, despite his subsequent comments about his former pupil, many felt that Dunn’s patience was tested just a little at times. However, he did appreciate the phenomenal energy that flowed out of his
student, not least when it manifested itself in the early hours. Dunn ran an annual twenty-four hour fundraiser, putting his students on in different capacities. No matter how late it was, Robin would turn up at 2am or 3am and launch into his performance.

Indeed, whenever he was on public display, he did not stop. He had a little Volkswagen Beetle, which he would drive to the Trident restaurant on Sausalito wharf. To supplement his studies, he worked there as a waiter and even there he would lay on a sideshow, juggling with plates and glasses and whatever came to hand while treating the diners to an impromptu comedy routine. Marin had never seen the like! Off duty, he was not at all similar though, for he was shy. In the aftermath of his death many commented that, when he was off stage, he was quite different to on stage: not a joker and, in many ways, quite withdrawn. A friend said that Robin lived ‘in a dark place’ and back then this was also true.

But that didn’t stop him from working on his act. When he wasn’t attending college or working as a waiter, Williams was starting to do the rounds of the local comedy clubs, beginning with Holy City Zoo, where he worked his way up from being a bartender to actually getting on the stage. Holy City Zoo gets its name from its first owner, Robert Steger, who took possession of a sign for free at a closing-down sale at a zoo in Holy City, California. (It was once said Williams ‘used the club as his neighbourhood rehearsal space’.) Located in the Richmond area of San Francisco,
it was a tiny space, seating just seventy-eight, selling beer, wine and soft drinks, and was originally a folk music club. However, the management began holding open-mic nights for comedians on Sundays, which eventually became so popular that they were extended to the rest of the week.

This was where Robin could begin honing his craft, in a safe, small environment, among the kind of people he knew. He had a considerably longer history of formal study behind him than most people realised, but this, and other San Francisco comedy clubs, was where he really learned his trade. (Indeed, after he became famous, he returned to Holy City Zoo, although he was always at pains to let the other performers go on before him. Just as well… He would have been quite an act to follow.)

Holy City Zoo first shut down in 1984, although it was to open its doors again. ‘I’m sad,’ said Robin. ‘We had wonderful times here, strange times here; this wasn’t a haven, it was a game preserve. I remember a big black guy who’d come in with a baseball bat and say, “I’d like to audition.” But a lot of that is in the past. So many changes.’

When the club finally shut down for good in 1993, he was as depressed as many of its former alumni: it was ‘like someone pulling life support on your aunt. It’s depressing. The Zoo was the womb.’

The comedian Steve Pearl saw Williams performing there. He was a ‘tornado, frenetic and ripping all over the stage,’ Pearl told
The New Yorker
in a tribute to Williams. ‘It inspired and scared me at the same time.’ By now, he was also
beginning to earn some money of his own. Throughout his lifetime he was renowned for his exceptional generosity and it was there right at the beginning, when he was earning virtually nothing while working at Holy City Zoo, that he became aware of a friend’s gambling debt. He paid it off.

Other places he appeared included The Boarding House and the Old Spaghetti Factory. The Boarding House was another comedy hotspot: it was where Steve Martin recorded his first three albums and was also host to various music legends, including Dolly Parton and Talking Heads. The Old Spaghetti Factory started as exactly that – a pasta factory – until it was converted into a restaurant that also offered up cabaret. It, too, played host to some extremely famous names, among them pioneers of the Beat generation Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg; also Ken Kesey (author of
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
). The whole scene was incredibly lively and Williams was a major part of it. By now he was beginning to build up a following: audiences were seeking out the gigs where he would perform. Almost certainly he didn’t really need what was to come next, as he was doing so well that he was very much on his way to success, but the young Robin was full of ambition and eager to attend one of the best performing-arts schools of all.

It was already apparent that he was going places but now he stepped into the big league. After three years at Marin he won himself a full scholarship to The Juilliard School in New York in 1973. He was one of only twenty students to
win a place that year and one of just two to be accepted into the Advanced Programme by John Houseman, who was really the first person to spot his full potential. The other student was Christopher Reeve of
Superman
fame, who would become a lifelong friend. Another classmate was the American stage and film actor William Hurt. ‘He wore tie-dyed shirts with tracksuit bottoms and talked a mile a minute,’ Reeve later recalled of his friend. ‘I’d never seen so much energy contained in one person. He was like an untied balloon that had been inflated and immediately released. I watched in awe as he virtually caromed off the walls of the classrooms and hallways. To say that he was “on” would be a major understatement.’

This marked a significant step forward in Williams’ fortunes. The Juilliard is one of the most prestigious performing-arts schools in the world. Based in the Lincoln Center for Performing Arts in New York, it is extremely difficult to get into and boasts as its alumni a significant proportion of the crème de la crème of the American performing industry. Dance, drama and music were all taught there and to land a place was to be as assured as anyone could be in the fickle showbiz world that you were cut out to be a success.

The Juilliard, although a school for actors, not comedians, contributed hugely to Robin’s future comedy. He had already come from an educated, wealthy and sophisticated background but The Juilliard gave him an extra layer of education, reference and knowledge. Because Williams
could be so manic on stage and also because he got involved in the 1970s drugs scene and was so very much a part of our pop culture, it is easy to overlook quite how well educated and widely read he was. Already he knew Shakespeare but The Juilliard taught him much more: he was a man who could spout at length a Shakespearian soliloquy before veering off at a tangent and talking about drugs. The snootiness in some quarters about his mainstream acting career was totally misplaced: Williams was a classically trained, highly educated actor – he just happened to have a manic side as well.

After he joined The Juilliard he came to the attention of John Houseman, the Romanian-born British-American actor who had previously worked extensively with Orson Welles and was widely acclaimed for the role of Professor Charles Kingsfield in the 1973 film
The Paper Chase.
A titan of the performing arts world, both in the cinema and theatre, he was also the founding director of the Drama Division at The Juilliard and his other protégés included the actor and comedian Kevin Kline, actress and singer Patti LuPone and actor, tenor, voice artist and comedienne Mandy Patinkin. Williams’ experiences at The Juilliard would prove to be somewhat mixed, of which more below, but he undoubtedly benefited from his work with Houseman.

While at The Juilliard, he and Christopher Reeve shared a room and it was here that they developed a bond that ended only with Christopher’s sad and premature death
from cardiac arrest in 2004. Indeed, Robin couldn’t have spoken more highly of his friend: ‘He is SO good, and such a method actor, that Oliver Sacks wanted to hook him up to an EEG to see if he actually duplicated the brainwaves of the actual patients. No joke,’ he said in an interview with
Reddit
that appeared in 2013. ‘Him being such a great friend to me at Juilliard, literally feeding me because I don’t think I literally had money for food or my student loan hadn’t come in yet, and he would share his food with me.’ The two young men pledged whichever one of them became the more successful, he would help the other. In the event, both became successful around the same time but the bond endured, with Williams continuing to play an enormous role in Reeve’s life after his tragic riding accident. It was rumoured that he supported the family financially – perhaps a small return for all that shared food.

Other classmates included Kelsey Grammer (of
Cheers
and
Frasier
fame) and the actress Diane Venora, who earned a Golden Globe nomination and New York Film Critics Award for her performance in Clint Eastwood’s
Bird
, a portrait of jazz great Charlie Parker. ‘We were in the same class for four years,’ Diane told the
Los Angeles Times.
‘He was brilliant and complex, deeply sensitive, possessing a vulnerability and humility that gave his work tremendous power. I loved him very much.’

Christopher Reeve also spoke very highly of his friend’s emerging talent. ‘Robin and I came in at the third year level,’ he told
New York Magazine
in 1993. ‘We were put in
special advanced sections; often, we were the only students in a class. John Houseman had an idea of what the Juilliard actor should be – well spoken but a bit homogenized – so it’s not surprising the teachers were thrown by Robin. He did a monologue from
Beyond the Fringe
that made us laugh so hard we were in physical pain; they said it was “a comedy bit, not acting”.’

But Robin was extremely good at the ‘comedy bit’ and he just kept getting better. Robert M. Beseda, who became assistant dean of drama at North Carolina School of the Arts, was a peer. ‘We were classmates,’ he told
Time Warner Cable News.
‘He was one year behind me. I didn’t know him well; he was too cool for the likes of me, but he was so funny. He held court and kept us all in stitches. I remember him in a workshop of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
He was Thisbe and when the Mechanicals performed their play in Act V, he had two grapefruits down his dress as breasts. At one point they popped out suddenly and he began to juggle them. It was one of the funniest sight gags in the history of comedy. I will never forget it. He is a great loss to a world that needs what he gave us so generously!’