RIP Robin Williams

I think it's like that everywhere, and it's easy to understand. They're mourning the immediate news of Williams' death and how he died is sometimes secondary, and I think part of that is because people don't want to or aren't comfortable acknowledging that someone who is a beloved actor and comedian could be depressed enough to take his own life.

 

Didn't learn of this news until this morning. RIP.

 

It also seems pretty ironic that, in one of his best roles when he was in "Dead Poet's Society", one of the main characters had committed suicide. I know it's just a movie and all, and it may be just me, but I'd feel a little weird watching it.

 

Saw this on Badass Digest, and it's the best thing I've read about Robin Williams since his death.

 

This hit me hard. I thought it would take McCartney dying to get this reaction from me. A skill set that I don't know anybody had as well-honed before him or will from now on. Also known for his activism for the disadvantaged and his philanthropy. And nothing, seemingly, was just a throwaway line. Even something as anticlimactic as his children's show character's closing lines to kids in Mrs. Doubtfire about their parents' splitting up jumped out at you, and undoubtedly helped many children watching the film get through hard times. My favorite performances (at least that I saw) were Good Morning Vietnam and Moscow on the Hudson, but Mrs. Doubtfire probably encapsulated him the best: a kid at heart trying to do the right thing.

 

I saw him do stand-up when I was in high school. Most of the people at the show knew the material, which was from his "Night at the Met" show with about 10-15 minutes of new stuff weaved in there, but nobody cared. Everybody just laughed their asses off and he was just so "on" it was just nuts. I've seen hundreds of comedy shows over the years and none were as high energy as he was. I just remember him running around the stage and he was sweating his ass off. I don't know if he was on drugs at the time, but it would not have surprised me if he was.

This one hit me pretty hard. I found myself turning off the news every time he was brought up last night. I didn't want to hear it. I usually have the opposite reaction to a celebrity death, but I think a lot of people took this news harder than any celeb death in the last decade or so.

 

Hollywood journalists who ask "why?" when its stars crash and burn are intellectually dishonest.
At least some have attempted to analyze this and the hard truth about Hollywood and life.
Celebrities attract parasites, including those who are drawn to magnify their divorces, their overdoses, their arrests, their bankruptcies and their other failures and feed off it for a living. There's also the parasites who hit them up for cash, or who play them for the celebrity marriage lottery that is especially Hollywood's. Then when these celebrities need them, where are they? I've heard the "Maybe this will call attention to mental illness." Can we ask first why people like Williams, and even the average Joes and Janes, are left in this position with no one in their hour of need? No one to care enough to recognize the need and lend a hand? With Williams, a guy who gave so much and seemed so kind, it's sickening to see that no one was apparently there for him.

 

He cheated on one of his wives with their nanny, who I think he later married. Did that result in a poor relationship with his older kids? I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me if it did.

His dad suffered from depression, so there's probably a decent chance Williams did as well. He also had financial issues, health issues, had gone through two divorces, and a show that was supposed to be his comeback, was canceled after one season.

At one point, he was a top 5 movie star, but unless you count Night at the Museum or voice over parts, and you could argue that his last big hit was in 1998. There are a few that were borderline, but he was that far removed from the peak of his career.

 

People took Paul Walker's death pretty hard.

 

There is a Live news conference on his death!?

 

True, but not like this. Same with Philip Seymour Hoffman. As unexpected as Michael Jackson's death was, I think enough people hated the guy that people didn't seem as devastated by it as they were with Williams.