I have wanted to write something about the death of Robin
Williams since I heard the news, but have not found the right words best to
describe the impact of losing one of my heroes and idols.
When I was told, the first thing I thought of was his laugh,
and my favourite quote:
“We’re only given one
little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.”
Then, as I watched the world pour out its heart in shock and
disbelief with endless images and quotes filling my social media feed, I could
only think about how I had lost a hero of mine.
My love of film, theater and media goes back to a childhood
filled with the golden age of cinema and being “forced” to watch classic films
by my mother and grandparents on TV. Part of that included a grandmother that
took me to the movies at every possible chance. My childhood through the 80’s
was a rich tapestry of kids movies and classics alike. From Casablanca to ET, Singin in the Rain to
The Three Amigos, Black Beauty to The Black Cauldron, I had the privilege of seeing greatness blaze
the big and small screen in actors like Bogart, Hepburn, Tracey, Kaye, Foster,
DeNiro, Martin, Chase, Hopkins, Field, Hanks, and the list goes on and on. My appreciation for film as art was forged
through films by Hitchcock, Spielberg, Bergman, Coppola, Scorsese, Lucas, Burton,
Lynch and the countless others that taught me to see more than a great shot.
These things developed a love of cinema that would continue through my entire
life, to a point where I wanted to write and make my own.
Robin, Robin has been there all along. I would watch him as
Mork in Mork and Mindy in a weekday
afternoon triple header which included classic sitcoms Laverne and Shirley and Happy
Days. From 4.30pm to 6pm the TV was mine. It was my time. Robin was Mork from Ork and I desperately
wanted rainbow coloured suspenders and a spaceship shaped like an egg. I would watch
waiting for the last few minutes where he spoke with Orson. It was here, in
Morks final reflections that the humour would take a backseat to what he had
learned about the “humans”. Often dripping with a dark humour, the tragedy of life
was shown, but I never realised this until I watched the show as an adult.
I have recently finished my Williams marathon with the much
maligned but sensational Toys. Robin
is brilliantly sublime in this film as he is in many others where he shows off
his ability to blend comedy with tragedy. He had a deep understanding of
turning tragedy into something we could all laugh at, yet, even in the
hilarious characters he played on the screen, he was able to show the frayed
edges of them with subtlety. I think Robin understood that we could we could
either bury our head in the sand or find something to laugh about in life’s
difficulties.
I still remember watching Popeye, one of the first films I saw in the cinema. And as I grew,
up, his films have always been something I sought out. I watched my first
double header of Sister Act and Mrs Doubtfire with my best friend. Good Morning Vietnam inspired me to be louder than everyone else,
while Dead Poets Society was the
first time I recognised that Robin was passionate about thing of intellect like
poetry, how else could he channel that manic nature into something so idol as
poetry if he didn’t have a deep appreciation for it? In fact, look at a few of
his films; he recites poetry as if it were the yin to his over the top yang. I
followed this guy so much, I’ve seen just about everything he’s done, even the
bad stuff, and religiously watched his latest TV show The Crazy Ones.
Robin’s documentary on dolphins was one of the first lessons
I ever had on my journey of discovery with dolphin behavior and I can still
remember seeing Robin’s awe at being so close with them. You could see a love
and deep respect for this animal, an understanding that went further than
emotion to intelligence. He saw more than a grey fish and marveled at their
intelligence in quiet awe, while still pulling out some wise cracks about what
they must think of him because he was so hairy.
Robin gave all he had to others he loves. Gave freely to
those he met and those less fortunate than himself. He had a heart and passion
for the homeless and spent 20 years working with friends Billy Crystal and Whoopi
Goldberg with Comic Relief. And the
legacy that will remain is the amazing story of how his friendship with
Christopher Reeves went so deep that after becoming a quadriplegic, Robin
looked after him. Paid the bills, made him laugh, and gave him a reason to
live.
He was a frenetic ball of charismatic energy, but when no
one is watching you, you have nothing but the noise. I was not surprised when I
saw Henry Winkler’s tweet;
“He was a shy man who
changed the instant the cameras were rolling.”
I suppose when we have an audience, we forget the noise.
Maybe they drown it out just long enough to forget.
You can see that reservedness in some of his interviews,
especially when talking about something close to his heart or that deserves a
modicum of sensitivity. He does get serious. He was so smart. Where everyone focuses on his humour, they may not realise that he was intelligent. He loved
literature and poetry and gave open mic talks on Tolkien. He loved classical
music and was strongly opinionated when it came to politics. He was a gamer,
naming his daughter after Zelda (a Nintendo character) and an animal lover. He
was an activist. He was loud and quiet all at once. He was so talented and
could create characters, with a life and a story and a voice in an instant. He
did that with Genie, Batty, Fender and his penguin menagerie from Happy Feet.
I am still in as much disbelief as everyone else at how
sudden his death was and to know that Robin made the choice to end his life
(for whatever reason, we’ll never really know) is one of the saddest deaths of
a well-known person in recent times. But I’m not really sad that we will never
get to see him grace the screen again. I’m sad that it could be me. I’m sad
that it could be you. I’m sad that the depression he endured for years lay in
wait underneath that wicked smile and furry exterior, like the wolf to the lamb.
I’m sad because it lays in wait for so many of us, me included.
It’s not about seeing the public outpouring of grief and
disbelief, the “he gave so much, how could he do it?” or “he was surrounded by
a world of love” or the ignorance in statements like “he was a coward”, “he
chose the easy option” and “how could someone so funny feel so alone”.
I hate the commentary that occur when someone takes their
life, as if anyone who has not experienced really knows, this belief that
suicide is a sign of weakness, that it is a cowards act, that its selfish when
they leave behind so much. It’s not cowardly and it’s not a sign of weakness. It’s
an act of desperation. And perhaps it is selfish, because in the moment, you
are unable to think about anything else and like a giant storm cloud, it
blackens the horizon and blocks out the light.
In that moment, success, money, reputation and laughter mean
nothing. None of it negates the lies that we tell ourselves in the silence,
when the laughter has stopped, when no one is looking. Everything that happens
to us is filtered through those lies, no matter how much “love” and “adulation”
we receive, it’s never enough, and we are always searching for approval,
something to silence the insecurity that we feel. Perhaps that’s why Robin was
so manic. It’s so hard to stop the self-loathing and self-doubt long enough to
stop feeding the black dog. With depression, the stuff inside you never goes
away and doesn’t just because you’re funny or smiling, self-depreciating or
intelligent. Even the mere acceptance of its existence is often not enough.
When I was 15, I suffered traumatic bullying at school. So
much so that I threatened one of my tormentors with a butchers knife in Home
Economics. The abuse was daily and every time I opened my mouth someone was
there to comment on how I sounded, how I acted and even at times what I said.
Nothing stopped it so I stopped talking, trusted no one and found solace in
books, the library and places I kind of felt accepted. But it never stopped it.
I found my voice in drama and film making and tried to make friends, but at
times the abuse was so strong that there was never enough to drown out the
noise. This bullying coupled with a fairly traumatic childhood, the absence of
my father all combined in a moment of sheer turmoil that the led me to the only
choice I thought I had. I contemplated suicide.
One night I waited for my mother to leave the house for a
weekend away and lined up every pill and vitamin I could find. I was determined
to end the noise, the words that replayed over and over again, the lies I told
myself and the doubt, fear and guilt. The shame. Was what they were saying right?
How did someone else have the right to determine who I was?
I sat for what seemed like hours with the bottle of rancid
rum and pills all lined up, but even though I was determined to sleep my
depression away, I decided against it. Something inside me said “No”.
A week later a friend showed me, The Fisher King. Robin plays a man who lost his wife in a tragic
incident and is found by a radio DJ who was unable to stop that incident from
happening. Robins character Parry is so “disturbed” he thinks that he is a
knight of the round table on a quest to find the Holy Grail. What spoke to me
was the fact that the DJ , played by Jeff Bridges was suicidal and somehow
finds Parry and decides to “save” him, but in the end he saves himself. It
spoke to me. I’m not saying it saved my life, but it spoke to me on a deeper
level.
Robin created a character that was certifiably insane and
maniacally crazy that the moments of seriousness and reflection were subtle,
inducing an emotional connection to the tragedy suffered by his character.
“It begins with the
king as a boy, having to spend the night alone in the forest to prove his
courage so he can become king. Now while he is spending the night alone he's
visited by a sacred vision. Out of the fire appears the Holy Grail, symbol of
God's divine grace. And a voice said to the boy, "You shall be keeper of
the grail so that it may heal the hearts of men." But the boy was blinded
by greater visions of a life filled with power and glory and beauty. And in
this state of radical amazement he felt for a brief moment not like a boy, but
invincible, like God, so he reached into the fire to take the grail, and the
grail vanished, leaving him with his hand in the fire to be terribly wounded.
Now as this boy grew older, his wound grew deeper. Until one day, life for him
lost its reason. He had no faith in any man, not even himself. He couldn't love
or feel loved. He was sick with experience. He began to die. One day a fool
wandered into the castle and found the king alone. And being a fool, he was
simple minded, he didn't see a king. He only saw a man alone and in pain. And
he asked the king, "What ails you friend?" The king replied,
"I'm thirsty. I need some water to cool my throat". So the fool took
a cup from beside his bed, filled it with water and handed it to the king. As
the king began to drink, he realized his wound was healed. He looked in his
hands and there was the Holy Grail, that which he sought all of his life. And
he turned to the fool and said with amazement, "How can you find that
which my brightest and bravest could not?" And the fool replied, "I don't
know. I only knew that you were thirsty.
That moment changed me.
I’m
not sad that we have lost a talented actor or comedian. I’m not sad that we
lost someone who could make us laugh. I’m sad because I have kind of lost a
friend, someone who has been with me since I was a child. I lost someone I
looked up to and revered, a hero, a man I thought would be the best dad if I
had one. A man whose intelligence, wit and wisdom spoke to me far beyond making
me want to laugh or cry. Far beyond pictures, characters, his top 20 jokes,
one-liners or the best moments from his films. His legacy is far deeper than
that for me.
And
I will remember him beyond the depression, even though I am sad that depression
may have taken his life, like so many in this world.
I
have not been able to bring myself to watch the film, Patch Adams, yet, for this reason;
After
Patch loses his girlfriend to murder, he calls out to “God” at the edge of a
cliff, contemplating suicide:
“So what now, huh?
What do you want from me? Yea, I could do it. We both know you wouldn't stop
me. So answer me, please. Tell me what you're doing. Okay, let's look at the
logic. You create man. Man suffers enormous amounts of pain. Man dies. Maybe
you should have had just a few more brainstorming sessions prior to creation.
You rested on the seventh day, maybe you should have spent that day on
compassion.”
Patch ends the
conversation saying, “You know what? You're not worth it.”
I just wish Robin could have remembered that in his moment of
despair.
To me, Robin is the echelon of the oddities, the weirdos and
the forgotten. He proved that you could be a funny, short, furry guy and be
successful. I looked at him and saw myself. Not as funny, god no, but I saw
someone that was OK being himself. I suppose he's a lil responsible for me
being the way I am. I saw a man that could be loud and reserved, hilarious and
flamboyant, smart and weird and very OTT and figured that if he could be OK with
that, maybe I could be too. Yet it still took me 20 years to find that
acceptance. 20 years to stop thinking about what other people thought and be OK that I was a little flamboyant (OK a lot) and it had nothing to do with
sexuality, and that I could use humour to make people happy, give of myself
freely and without reward or expectation. It took me 20 years, a journey
through religious Christianity and a cult, the loss of family and friends, the
failure of relationships and a near mental breakdown to arrive at a place where
I was safe in the knowledge of who I was. Sure, I will always suffer
depression, anxiety and at times will be controlled by my emotions, but I
recognise the triggers, know what support I need and have people I can rely on.
Not all people who suffer have this. Some suffer in silence.
Life ain’t easy. But I'm still standing. No matter what I have been through, I still stand. And you will too.
“You’ll have bad times,
but it’ll wake you up to the good stuff you weren’t paying attention too.”
~ Good Will Hunting
Thank you, Mr William’s. Rest in peace.
Reach out if you know
of someone who fights with the black dog in their life. There are only two
options in this battle, winning or losing and sometimes we need help to fight.
