From Comedy To Tragedy: How Robin Williams Lost His Fight

For all the movies he made and all the awards he won, Robin Williams could not win this.

Joanna

• Published in Interesting
• January 1, 2018

You may remember him as the comical entertainer with a heart-warming smile and gentle eyes who dressed up in grandma clothes and became British matronly Mrs Doubtfire, or as the widow therapist in Good Will Hunting who cracked our hearts open with his quiet wisdom and understanding. But sadly, great man, Robin Williams, who had been acting for over thirty years, struggled to remember his lines.

His makeup artist, Cheri Minns, recalls him sobbing in her arms every day. ‘He just cried and said, ‘I can’t, Cheri. I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know how to be funny.’’

How can this be from the funny guy we all knew, the likes of skittish Alan Parrish, in Jumanji? ‘What, are you crying? You don’t cry, all right? You keep your chin up… You have a problem, you face it like a man.’

Mrs Doubtfire

One of the all time greats of Robin Williams.

Jumanji

1995 Jumanji starring Robin Williams.

The reality was that Williams didn’t know it. He didn’t know he was then suffering from a devastating neurodegenerative disease that was ripping away his talents, his vigour, his very self, from right under his feet.

It is no secret that he had a flagrant addiction to drugs and alcohol and is famous for saying that cocaine is ‘God’s way of telling you you’re making too much money’. He even met his third wife, Susan Schneider, in recovery and went on to wed her in 2011.

The reality was that he didn't know it.

It was in 2013, whilst filming small screen flop, ‘The Crazy Ones’ that he started experiencing a deluge of symptoms from indigestion and insomnia to loss of sense of smell and slight tremors in his hands. Bill Crystal recalls finding him frail, skinny and quiet, very un-Robin-Williams like after not seeing him for four months. 

In May 2014, Williams was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Keeping the diagnoses close to his chest, he told only his children, family and close friends, and went on an apology journey, seeking forgiveness of his family, for the way he had treated them during his addiction turmoil.

The Crazy Ones

It was during the filming of The Crazy Ones that Robin Williams started showing symptoms.

The night before that fatal occurrence we all remember oh so well after it went viral on social media, wife Schneider remembers thinking he was getting better. But when Williams’ 20-year-old assistant entered his room the next morning she opened the door to a horrifying scene – Williams had hanged himself with his belt.

Three months later, the autopsy revealed he had been suffering from diffuse Lewy body dementia (not Parkinson's), which begins with memory problems and physical stiffness and gravitates to severe personality changes, psychiatric issues and eventually death.

The once hyperverbal, highly-strung mind changed so brutally to one that had Williams facing terrors and hallucinations.

Joanna