Perhaps surprisingly, not many know the truth about his notorious death as Robin Williams.
In the days after the 63-year-old actor and comedian took his own life in August 2014, reports focused on his historic battles with slavery and depression, while media frenzy also sparked financial woes may have played a part. The fact is, however, that one of the most obvious talents of his generation was coping with Lewy body depression (LBD), which was only confirmed after his death.
Williams’ last months – suffering from declining mental faculties, lies and physical inadequacies – are described in the Robin Wish documentary, in which his wife, Susan Schneider, tries to make sense about the disease she described as “the insurrection within my husband’s brain”.
Directed by Tylor Norwood, it features interviews with not only Schneider, but neighbors, Williams ’friends and some of the celebrities who worked the Oscar winner over a glossy career. Positioning the album became exactly one of the goals of the film.
“Early on, I didn’t realize how deep Lewy’s body depression was,” Norwood says. “But here was a beautiful love story of people who went through something difficult, and it was one of the biggest movie stars ever. And there is value.
“But as we started to add, and before we got Shawn Levy (director of films like Night At The Museum) and David E Kelley (the producer behind shows like Big Little Lies and The Undoing), the a great deal of pressure on the project to deliver a film that corrected all the bad reports made when [Williams] passed. ”
Williams was a very talented actor; after influencing the stand-up tour with its wild pace and invisible brightness, he found a wider reputation in the late 1970s playing alien in the sitcom Mork & Mindy. Hollywood came calling, with roles playing the genie in the 1992 Disney animated classic, Aladdin, a 1993 housewife Mrs. Doubtfire and the Oscar-winning tour as a healer in Good Will Hunting in 1997 .
While Williams ’career features prominently in Robin’s Desire, the film is a highly personal portrayal of the man behind the characters, with a strong focus on the illness that brought his life.
Schneider, who married Williams in 2011, won Norwood, who wasn’t sure if he wanted to do a science-heavy feature, “She started telling me all these stories about this neurological disease that I’ve never heard of and this is a story I’ve never heard of Robin, ”says the filmmaker. “I said, ‘If you’re willing to tell these stories about what you’ve been through and through, it’s a film I’d watch and I’d like to be a part of it’. ”
Like Williams and Schneider, Norwood lives in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. He describes Williams’ death as a “local tragedy” as well as one that shocked millions of fans around the world, and emphasized the actor’s popularity in the community. “That’s what made me very happy about the project, because I’ve never seen a documentary about global superstition where you hear from its neighbors.”
When Schneider invited the filmmaker to the couple’s home, Norwood admits that he was expecting a community with a gate (“I think there will be a mile-long driveway and an outdoor guard , and is going to be this mix ”). Instead, Williams lived on a residential street, albeit in a luxury home with sweeping views of San Francisco Bay. Hard two-down two-down, but not a Beverly Hills mega-mansion. It was just one of the things that made Williams so different from the average superstar, Norwood says.
“It would have been difficult to get rid of him,” he said. “It was so hard. You hear him say in the movie, ‘I wouldn’t do well in LA, I wouldn’t be well behind a big fence’. Those were choices he made, so you have to ignore those choices to get to the one that is bigger than life. [he was on screen]. ”
Neighbors who appeared in Wish Robin told how Williams would serve back-to-back barbecues and play with the local kids while making chalk drawings on the pavement. “You accept that people of that prestigious level are well-covered by necessity,” Norwood says. “It simply came to our notice then. And that was something I ended up seeing as confidence. The idea that Robin was so grounded in a certain kind of life that he wanted to lead it, opened himself up to people who might be hurt.
“They could have talked about what they heard at a party, they could have taken pictures of it, but with the idea that it opened up itself and that this community of people was noticing, he felt so great that he was just a guide in the neighborhood. I thought, if we missed that part of the story, it wouldn’t separate itself as much as it could from other movies. ”
Doctors feature prominently in Robin’s Desire, providing a grim assessment of the horrors Williams would have experienced with LBD. A man famous for his electric wit struggled to remember his lines, had difficulty sleeping and suffered from a tremor similar to Parkinson’s Disease. Suicide, one of the doctors featured, says it is a common result. As Williams clashed with an unknown enemy, his work suffered.
Shawn Levy directed it in Night At The Museum: Secret Of The Tomb in 2014 and tells how Williams was full of insecurity as he struggled to remember his lines. Fertile TV producer David E Kelley worked with Williams on the TV series The Crazy Ones and it also shows that the star has at times not been like his own brilliant norm.
His final hours are told through the heartbreak testimony of those close to him. Williams was seen standing outside his home the night before he died, looking carefree. He said to his neighbor, “Boss, I need a hug”, before he broke down in tears. His last words to Schneider were: “Good night, my love. He was found dead at their home the next day.
One of the final interests in the film comes from 93-year-old comedian Mort Sahl, who said Williams “understood the bigness of love”. That quality was crucial to capturing Robin’s Wish, according to Norwood. “He was funny and funny and so quick and kind, but this side of him, he was very human.”