A Comic Force of Nature: The Life — and Death — of Robin Williams

500 pages on Robin Williams? A verifiable genius, sure. But biographical bloat, I call it. Criminy.

After reading the review of ROBIN, he comes across as a spoiled, privileged, egotistical celebrity, who seemed most concerned with his status as a star and his own pleasures. As to the the question of "Why?" his antic persona emerged in San Francisco in 1968, it was San Francisco, 1968! The misdiagnosis of his illness is sad and shocking but may not have prevented his suicide; indeed it's apparently the cause of his hanging since Lewy Body is a dementia and incurable.

As a psychoanalyst, I am well aware of the role of inhibition in squelching some of our thoughts and impulses. Robin Williams' brilliant ad libs reflect not only his unusual talent, but how all of us might be if our inhibitions suddenly vanished.

Robin Williams was a comic genius like Jonathan Winters - no one was as fast, as zany, and hilarious as the two of them. Williams acknowledged that Winters was a model for him.

For decades, Robin Williams and Richard Pryor were the funniest people in the world - as far as I could tell. I'm eager to hear about Williams life growing up, Julliard, early comedy routines, breaking into show business, movies, John Belushi, all of it. What I don't want anyone to do is explain to me what the psychopathology was that tormented either of these geniuses. Both Williams and Pryor were sui generis, lightning in a bottle. Nobody will ever be able to explain why they were so evolved in instinctively being funny. I'm just glad they passed our way.

Exactly what we don't need from biographers is what this reviewer suggests: "I would have appreciated some more authorial imposition, some attempts by Itzkoff to collate what he has learned and what he thinks into some psychological insights into Williams’s character." Putting thoughts into someone else's head is the work of fiction writers.

Not much said here about the massive amounts of drugs that Robin Williams consumed within his lifetime. He had a penchant for the devil's dandruff and other stuff. He was with John Belushi the night he died at the Marmont. People who were close to him knew about how much drugs that he did, pretty hard to ignore that he had a problem with substance abuse. In the end, I think that may have damaged his brain and spirit. Such a loss. This guy channeled laughter unlike anyone else.

My intractable book backlog grows, yet again. Sounds fascinating.

I appreciate that the full depth of Williams' creativity is out of reach. There's something so profound in his comedy, the wild surface of it, all the energy and connections; but, to me, there's also a depth, a resonance. It's like this: when you watch Good Will Hunting, you can still feel Mork from Ork in some way; and when you watch Mrs. Doubtfire, you still remember Dead Poets' Society. He was rich. Maybe we need a devoted psychoanalyst to do a biography to get at what was making him tick, but I'd also be okay just celebrating him in the way this book does; capturing him at his best, hearing from those who worked with him, etc. Even if someone knows what made him funny, I don't ever expect there will be another like him.

The most entertaining stand-up comic ever. His sit-com was, well, a sit-com. And his movies varied, as all movies do, according to how good the script was. But is there anyone who inspired as much wonder while you laughed? I mean, between the guffaws you're always asking yourself, how does he do it?

Is it not obvious that Robin Williams, like so many gifted artists, was bipolar?

As a writer, I learned painfully that the best writing results from knowing where not to go. It only started to come to me after thousands of hours of self-editing. Then one day my word count began to drop, and the time to start and finish a story dropped from three hours to 30 minutes. Robin Williams, from whom the funniest three minutes could pop out anywhere, any time, must have been born knowing where not to go, and just got better from there.

If anyone had the miraculous good luck to see him doing a routine on Johnny Carson, they will never forget being witness to the force of nature that was Robin Williams' brain. The range, speed, repeated change of pace and hilariously wide ranging content, connected by one thread to another that took one in unimaginable directions, blew the mind, without the need of any drug or drink of any kind. He was a genius. I hope the book and his legacy recognize him as such. You don't have to your work hanging in museums or make a killing with stocks or your company, or invent the next most needed amazing thing, you can just be a comic genius. And he was a genius. Likely he could have been anything he wanted. I'm glad he chose comedy and acting.

sorely missed

A remarkably nice guy, at the Cleveland Clinic where we were together, he slinked down to the Children’s Oncology Ward where he stayed with the kids most of the day until adults started drifting in-------a tireless supporter of the veterans and visited Iraq almost monthly, no publicity or photographs, just talking to the “boys” and making them laugh. He died because his genius knew no borders and what he hadn’t done before became the next challenge, he had no enthusiasm for an hbo special to solve his financial pressures, he only wanted new and challenging!

Robin Williams, what a loss. Who understands the intricacies of this most mysterious, and marvelous, organ in our known universe, the brain?

Robin Williams was such a treasure to me growing up as a kid of divorced parents. More than once he found roles as a father looking to connect with his estranged children (Hook, Mrs. Doubtfire) - and I remember watching these movies alongside my own father once a week when my sister and I visited him. In his own hilarious but honest manner he made me feel better about things and made me realize that my Dad was still the warm, loving and compassionate man I wanted, even if things had changed. Thank you Robin - everyday you are missed.

The source of Robin Williams’ genius is that of the unknown, like what happens to us when we die, we will never be able to actually explain such a thing. Williams’ power to entertain was vast, so brilliant that it eventually exhausted him apparently. My hope is that he is in the next realm in a new countenance, happy. While this exhaustive journalistic book might tell all, his power was not something you could research.

Robin's brother, Todd ("the Toad") Williams was a dear friend of mine. I think Robin's comic streak was genetic. Todd was equally manic. One of my favorite experiences was dining with a friend for lunch, when we noticed Todd sitting at the bar. He came over to say hi. I introduced Theresa to Todd, when he went into his schtick. This probably lasted for about three minutes when Theresa yelled "Stop, my sides hurt from laughing so much". On his way out the door, I asked Todd to reveal who is brother was. He looked at Theresa and said "Ted Williams". Sadly, we lost Toad in 2007. Robin idolized his big brother. I firmly believe that if Todd were alive at the time, Robin would still be with us. Todd told another story of the time Robin was going to leave Julliard shortly before graduation. Todd ran a bar when Robin came to see him. He needed to tell "Pop" that he was leaving acting school to become a comic, and needed Todd to go with him, knowing that Pop would not be happy. Todd tried to talk Robin out of leaving, but Robin was adamant. Todd said "OK", and off they went to talk to Pop. When Robin told his dad what he wanted to do, Pop was silent. He finally blurted out "Great! Look at what I have raised - a saloon keeper and a baggy pants comic" I miss them both.

He got his energy and creativity from hypomania (so does Trump who lies and amuses instead) He used drugs to self-medicate his bipolar depression. I smile just thinking of him.

Years ago in Aspen, before he became famous, I had the opportunity to spend a few hours with Robin. A few friends of mine and I were walking around town when a cloudburst pelted us with a driving rain. We ducked into a restaurant vestibule to stay dry. So did Williams. Compulsive entertainer that he was, he started with an impromptu routine that had us all in stitches. The four or five of us decided to go downstairs to the bar where we spent the next few hours getting fairly toasted. Robin, who was in town to open for another act at Rick's American Cafe, shared his peculiar take on the world and its comedic undertones. I don't think I'll ever laugh as hard as I did that afternoon. He was a true piece of work.

Itzkoff is criticized for giving little "psychological insight" into William's character. But, such "insight" is usually guesswork aided by whatever pop psychological concepts are popular at the time. Over the centuries, Hamlet's behavior, for example, has been explained by a myriad of diverse "psychological" motivations. Psychology, as a science, is just beginning to get into the dimensions of personality and would be at a complete loss if it had to explain a complex human being. The "psychological" explanations we are so used to are literary devices well suited for novels. Freud added a lot to our expectations of "explanations" with his own work. His case histories were highly fictionalized. The "insights" he provided were labored and sometimes weird and were not even consistent with his own theories. Itzkoff doesn't psychologize Williams' behavior. Tolstoy didn't "psychologize" Anna Karenina's self destructive decisions. It really can't be done with any validity; it can only be speculation. Thus, there is no reason why it should be done.

Like everyone, I have fond memories of Robin Williams’ comedic genius, as evidenced by everything from his stand-up performances and interviews to television and film; however, the single recollection that stands out in my mind is his participation in a round-the-clock staging of the complete works of Shakespeare one weekend in the mid 80’s, at the College of Marin, north of San Francisco, where he honed his early craft in its Theater Arts/Drama Department. With nothing more than a paperback edition of The Comedy of Errors, he acted out the entire play, portraying each and every character himself, to his customary hilarious and frenetic effect. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a genuinely unique melding and meeting of two Williams’ genius and humor.

I eagerly await Dave Itzkoff’s book, “Robin” because he “exhaustively reported and didn’t shy away from the abundant messiness in Williams’s personal life” but “never crossed the threshold from critical assessment into bonkers character assassination.” The fact that Mr. Itzkoff admired & respected Robin Williams’ work apparently comes through in this book. It will be a refreshing read about the objective facts of Mr. Williams’ life instead of mean and subjective assumptions so many others have made about Mr. Williams’ life. I think Robin Williams’ original brand of humor and dramatic acting abilities were so rich and unique, very few other entertainers can be compared or viewed in a similar light. The “conventional wisdom on comics, especially troubled ones, that their funniness comes from pain” (although that notion is not supported in “Robin”) and the question of “what made him tick, for better and for worse” is being asked. Perhaps the answer to that question isn’t complicated, dark or has hidden reasons. Perhaps Robin Williams was simply a brilliant genius. Whenever I would see him in a film or in a comedy special, he brought me to tears from either laughing or crying so hard. He had such a special gift for humor, but an equal gift for dramatic roles in which he brought out the deepest flaws and qualities of every character he played. I still cannot believe Robin Williams is gone. Such incredible sadness continues to linger from his absence.

The reviewer laments that the book fell short of accounting for Robin Williams' source of inspiration and energy. It would be like trying to explain Albert Einstein's source of insight into light and relativity. You cannot explain it by debriefing colleagues and understanding the forces that occurred during growing up. You just cannot know. Leave it at that.

Years ago, I was at dinner with a friend in the San Francisco restaurant LuLu where Robin was dining with his wife, Marcia. Service was horribly slow and the staff had trouble keeping up with bussing tables. Robin borrowed an apron from one of the busboys, grabbed a tray and started clearing tables — with his own twist on the task. I laughed until I cried. RIP Robin and thanks for such a great memory.