The Story of the Man Behind the Magic and the Brain behind the Man.
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills[1][2] and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike,[3][4] he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time.[5][6][7]
Williams began performing stand-up comedy in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976.[40]
He gave his first performance at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where he worked his way up from tending bar.[41] In the 1960s, San Francisco was a center for a rock music renaissance, hippies, drugs, and a sexual revolution, and in the late 1970s, Williams helped lead its “comedy renaissance”, writes critic Gerald Nachman.[8]: 6
Williams says he found out about “drugs and happiness” during that period,
adding that he saw “the best brains of my time turned to mud”.[31]
Williams moved to Los Angeles and continued performing stand-up at clubs, including The Comedy Store. There, in 1977, he was seen by TV producer George Schlatter, who asked him to appear on a revival of his show Laugh-In. The show aired in late 1977 and was his debut TV appearance.[31] That year, Williams also performed a show at the
L.A. Improv for Home Box Office.[42]
While the Laugh-In revival failed, it led Williams into his television career; he continued performing stand-up at comedy clubs such as the Roxy to help keep his improvisational skills sharp.[31][43] In England, Williams performed at The Fighting Cocks.[citation needed]
With his success on Mork & Mindy, Williams began to reach a wider audience with
his stand-up comedy, starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, including three HBO comedy specials: Off The Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1983), and A Night at the Met (1986).[44] Williams won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for the recording of his 1979 live show at the Copacabana in New York, Reality … What a Concept.[45]
Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during
the mid-1970s,[8] and rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982).[9] After his first leading film role in Popeye (1980), he starred in several critically and commercially successful films, including The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), The Fisher King (1991), Patch Adams (1998), One Hour Photo (2002), and World’s Greatest Dad (2009). He also starred in box office successes such as Hook (1991), Aladdin (1992), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), The Birdcage (1996), Good Will Hunting (1997), and the Night at the Museum trilogy (2006–2014). He was nominated for four Academy Awards, winning Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting. He also received two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.
Williams at Aviano Air Base (Italy) on December 22, 2007, said that, partly due to the stress of performing stand-up, he started using drugs and alcohol early in his career.
He further said that he neither drank nor took drugs while on stage, but occasionally performed when hung over from the previous day. During the period he was using
cocaine, he said it made him paranoid when performing on stage.[47]
Williams once described the life of stand-up comedians as follows:
It’s a brutal field, man. They burn out. It takes its toll. Plus, the lifestyle—partying, drinking, drugs. If you’re on the road, it’s even more brutal. You gotta come back down to mellow your ass out, and then performing takes you back up.
They flame out because it comes and goes.
Suddenly they’re hot, and then somebody else is hot. Sometimes they get very bitter. Sometimes they just give up. Sometimes they have a revival thing and they come back again. Sometimes they snap. The pressure kicks in. You become obsessed and then you lose that focus that you need.[8]: 34–35
Robin’s Wish – The Documentary,
In 2014, the world was shocked to learn of comedy genius Robin Williams’ death by suicide at age 63. Adding salt to the wound was the heartbreaking news of his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease and his suffering from Lewy Body Dementia (LBD), one of the rarest but most deadly brain conditions. Unbeknownst to fans, Williams began exhibiting symptoms in 2013. One year later, fans, friends, and family of the Good Will Hunting
actor would be grieving such a devastating loss.
Williams was eventually diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in May 2014. However, upon consultation with a neurologist, Williams was informed that he had neither Alzheimer’s nor was he schizophrenic. In fact, he encountered “nearly all of the 40-plus symptoms of LBD, except for one.” In a piece the actor-comedian’s widow, Susan Schneider, wrote for Neurology, she states her husband never said he had hallucinations.
Nevertheless, doctors later noted he might have been concealing symptoms from those close to him, suffering in silence. After Williams’ death, Schneider consulted four doctors who all agreed the case was the “worse pathologies they had seen.” Susan Schneider Provides Details of William’s Final Years and Raises LBD Awareness
Schneider recalled her husband experiencing what seemed like unrelated symptoms
which included: “constipation, urinary difficulty, heartburn, sleeplessness and insomnia, a poor sense of smell and lots of stress. He also had a slight tremor in his left hand that would come and go.”
In her editorial piece written for Neurology, she noted that his symptoms escalated to problems with paranoia and insomnia. She wrote:
“I experienced my brilliant husband being lucid with clear reasoning for 1 minute and then, 5 minutes later blank, lost in confusion.”
According to Schneider, when she and Williams first attended a neurologist’s office,
“Robin had a chance to ask some burning questions. He asked, ‘Do I have Alzheimer’s? Dementia? Am I schizophrenic?’ The answers were the best we could have gotten: No, no, no. There were no indications of these other diseases. It is apparent to me now that he was most likely keeping the depth of his symptoms to himself.”
Williams’ autopsy report found changes in his brain that are characteristic of both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. These changes had an impact on his behavior in the days leading up to his death, but his wife, Susan, had revealed that the comedian seemed fine the night before his death. Thus, his suicide the next day came as a shock.
In the 2020 Robin’s Wish: Who Robin Williams Really Was – Documentary
Dr. Bruce Miller from the University of California, San Francisco stated that Williams’
case was so severe that “it really amazed me that Robin could walk or move at all.”
His life was a gift and his appeal was universal. We believe the story of what really happened to him is, too. Robin’s Wish is a timely and urgent biography of the much beloved Robin Williams that weaves together the untold love story of his third marriage, his untimely suicide, his rare neurological illness, and his universal experience moving through pain in the search for healing and joy.
Robin’s Wish goes beyond other attempts at narrating Robin’s life to strike at a deeper, richer story about the harrowing time that led up to his controversial suicide, and its aftermath. The film aims to fill a major gap in his life story and legacy, and provide new meaning to his fans all over the world — while bringing to light the unseen world of the rare brain disease Lewy Body Dementia that caused him to take his own life.
Through the lens of Robin’s widow Susan, who works with the American Brain Foundation to fight LBD, and his close friends at the time of his passing such as comedy legends Mort Sahl and Michael Pritchard, Robin’s Wish reveals Robin’s dissociative experiences with the devastating neurological illness. It also shows the powerful way he battled to maintain himself in his final years with the love and support of his friends and colleagues, without knowing what was killing him — an all-too-common experience for those with LBD.
This story has remained untold until now, along with the stories of renewal and love that Robin found in those final years.
Beyond Robin’s personal experience, our film uses what he went through to tackle broader stigmas around the mental symptoms of physiological diseases, issues around suicide and healing, and the need for more funding for research into neurological diseases. With the aid of our consulting partners the American Brain Foundation, Lewy Body Dementia Association, Michael J. Fox Foundation and the Parkinson’s Foundation — along with our lead science advisor David Eagleman and award-winning executive producer Jim Czarnecki — the coalition behind our filmmaking team has the unique and exciting opportunity to bring audiences the essential film about Robin Williams, and the first of its kind about LBD.
Susan Schneider also wrote that the “massive proliferation of Lewy bodies throughout William’s brain had done so much damage to neurons and neurotransmitters that you can say he had chemical warfare in his brain.” She now serves on the Board of Directors of the American Brain Foundation and works to raise awareness about the neurological disorder that took her husband’s life.
Christopher Crosby Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American actor and comedian. Farley was known for his loud, energetic comedic style, and was a member of Chicago‘s Second City Theatre[1] and later a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live between 1990 and 1995.[2][3] He later went on to pursue a film career, appearing in films such as Airheads, Tommy Boy, Black Sheep, Beverly Hills Ninja, and Almost Heroes.
For much of his adult life, Farley battled alcohol and illicit drug abuse.
This resulted in his repeated suspension from the cast of Saturday Night Live.[48]
Bernie Brillstein, whose firm of Brillstein-Grey Entertainment managed Farley,
repeatedly sent the actor to drug and alcohol rehabilitation.[49]
In 1997, there was a visible decline in Farley’s health. He made a guest appearance on Nickelodeon‘s children’s sketch comedy show All That, doing a sketch alongside future SNL cast member Kenan Thompson. The appearance proceeded without incident, but the stunt comedy Farley was famous for was minimal, arguably because it was noticeable Farley was wheezing heavily and straining himself to perform.
On October 25, 1997, Farley made his final appearance on Saturday Night Live as a first-time host. The cold open featured Lorne Michaels contemplating Farley’s ability to host, with Tim Meadows advocating that “he will be calm, he will be focused, and he will be good … His party days are over.” Chevy Chase was Farley’s “sponsor” in the sketch.[50] Farley’s hoarse voice and flushed skin were the subject of public scrutiny. He had strained his vocal cords during performance and his exhaustion was so noticeable the producers nearly recommended cancelling his appearance. Farley’s hosting had been considered so troubling to the cast and crew that it was decided to be pulled from general circulation and syndication as well as the SNL seasonal streaming, a decision only shared with Steven Seagal‘s 1991 hosting stint.[51] In the final years of his life, Farley had sought treatment for weight problems and drug abuse on 17 occasions.[52]
Death
On December 18, 1997, Farley was found dead by his younger brother John in his apartment in the John Hancock Center in Chicago. He was 33 years old.[53] An autopsy revealed that Farley had died of an overdose of a combination of cocaine and morphine,[54] commonly known as a “speedball“. Advanced atherosclerosis was also cited as a “significant contributing factor.”[34][54]
A private funeral was held for Farley on December 23, 1997, at Our Lady Queen of Peace Catholic Church in his hometown of Madison, Wisconsin. Over 500 people attended his funeral, including many comedians who had worked with him on Saturday Night Live
and on film, such as Dan Aykroyd, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Rob Schneider, Lorne Michaels, Al Franken, John Goodman, George Wendt and Phil Hartman.[55][56]
Notably absent was Farley’s best friend David Spade. Spade’s nonappearance fueled speculation that there was some falling out with Farley prior to his death. However, years later Spade denied any ill will between him and his comedic partner, admitting that his absence from the funeral was because he would have found it too emotionally difficult.[57] Farley’s remains were interred at Resurrection Cemetery.[58]
Legacy
Farley’s career, private life, and early death have often been compared to that of his idol John Belushi, who died at the same age and from a similar drug overdose.[19][54]
On August 26, 2005, Farley was posthumously awarded the 2,289th star on the
Hollywood Walk of Fame, located in front of iO West.[59]
An authorized biography of Farley, The Chris Farley Show, was written by his brother Tom Jr.; and Tanner Colby. The song “Purple Stain” from the Red Hot Chili Peppers‘
1999 album, Californication, contains the lyric “Farley is an angel and I can prove this”
as a tribute to Farley.[60]
A television documentary on Farley’s life, I Am Chris Farley, was shown on August 10, 2015.[61][62] Farley was also the subject of the TV program, Autopsy: The Last Hours of Chris Farley, which premiered on November 19, 2016, on the Reelz channel.[63]
In 2018, Adam Sandler wrote and performed an emotional tribute song dedicated to Farley in his Netflix stand-up special Adam Sandler: 100% Fresh. Netflix released the performance on YouTube later that year to commemorate the 21st anniversary of Farley’s death.[64] Sandler later played the song live on an episode of Saturday Night Live that he hosted on May 4, 2019.[65]
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