R.I.P Robin Williams
Rob Gilroy pays tribute to US actor and comedian Robin Williams, who took his own life yesterday.
It’s getting so I don’t want to look at the internet anymore. Just when you think it’s safe to log into Twitter, something like this comes along and fucks it all up.
Before I start, let me point out – I know there are terrible things happening all over the world. I know there is death and destruction at every corner – some of it present in the media, some of it hidden from us for fear that we’ll try do something about it. It is all horrible. Mindless, senseless, beyond-comprehensionlessly horrible.
Sometimes, the only thing keeping us sane is laughter. Laughter can be the blinking light in a fridge of dank, smelly darkness; a fog horn of positivity when the fog is as thick as shit. Today, the fridge is darker and the shit is thicker.
I love Robin Williams. Not in a “he’s-my-favourite-actor-I-have-all-of-his-films-(apart from License to Wed) way, but in a real I-love-him-with-all-my-heart way. He was my first comic influence. Before Python, before The League, before stand-up, before sketch, before everything – there was Robin Williams. He was an endlessly funny man – a blackhead of comedy, always waiting to pop.
My first introduction to Robin Williams was Mork and Mindy – shown in the morning on Channel 4, throughout the summer holidays. I would watch this strange programme about an alien with a penchant for braces and badges, who never quite mastered a sofa and loved every minute of it. Or should I say him?
It was so funny – if only because I was watching a grown man behaving in ways I never thought they did – being utterly, uncontrollably silly.
Like a lot of people my age, my main Williams source were his family films – Mrs Doubtfire, Flubber, Jumanji, Aladdin, Popeye, Toys (top contender for weirdest film EVER), Hook, Fern Gully: The Last Rainforest, Patch Adams, Jack, etc. The fact I could go on, shows just how exhaustive his work was.
I don’t feel as though I missed out because I wasn’t old enough to appreciate Good Morning, Vietnam or Dead Poets Society, I feel like I had the best possible introduction to the man, and to comedy. He taught me that silliness shouldn’t stop when you reach adulthood. Robin was living, breathing proof that it could flourish.
His most important role, in my opinion, was Mrs. Doubtfire. I appreciate that this was a mainstream comedy – the main draw of which, was watching a man pretend to be a women, not to mention a smashing side-line in demonstrating how weird Pierce Brosnan looks when he’s doing choking acting (see also Tomorrow Never Dies) – yet this film was the most influential of my childhood.
My parents split up when I was four. While I am aware this isn’t a unique experience to me, this was, without a doubt, the most pivotal moment of my life – narrowly beating the day I was awarded my 15 metre swimming badge.
I was at an age where I understood a little of what was happening around me, but nowhere near enough. I knew my dad had left, but I didn’t know why. This confusion continued well into my childhood. For a number of years, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t understand the reason, so I blamed myself and, wrongly, my mum.
I began acting out, behaving atrociously (worse, even, than those kids on Super Nanny – and they’re proper little shits) and I became emotionally erratic. I dreaded going to school – the moment my mum turned to leave I would break down, crying until I was close to throwing up. I would hold on to her so she wouldn’t leave me. It was horrible; I can only imagine how hard it was for her.
The one real joy I got was seeing my dad on a weekend. I would spend the day with him and all would be OK, until the time came for him to drop me off. For anyone who thinks that divorce is about weekly trips to McDonalds and getting twice as many presents at Christmas and birthdays – try explaining that to the child who has to watch their parent drive away every week.
My inability to cope got so bad that at the age of about 8 my mum decided the best thing for me was to visit the ‘happy doctor’. I only worked out, embarrassingly recently, that ‘happy doctor’ was kid-slang for psychiatrist. I would visit him each week and draw pictures or play with toys whilst he asked questions about my family, as my mum watched from behind a two-way mirror. I was very much the Hannibal Lector of Year 4.
Eventually I was diagnosed with depression. While it certainly explained the screaming and the tantrums, it didn’t make them go away – and it certainly wasn’t conversation fodder, over a packed lunch.
Getting better took time and incredible patience on the part of my family – in particular my mum and step dad. Another huge help was Robin Williams.
Around the same time as this was going on, I developed a love of comedy – mainly from films, and mainly the films of Robin Williams and Jim Carrey. But it was Mrs Doubtfire that struck the biggest chord with me. Not only was it insanely funny – making me forget what I was going through and helping me to laugh louder than I knew I could – but it also helped me to deal with what was happening.
The greatest single element of Mrs Doubtfire, is the fact the main characters don’t get back together. Having spent a lot of my childhood hoping my parents would stop being silly and reunite, this film taught me that it would never happen. And what’s more, it helped me to be alright with that.
It was by no means an overnight conversion, it was still incredibly difficult to wave my dad off each Sunday evening, but eventually I came to deal with it. It took a long time for me to get over my parents’ divorce and in many ways I still haven’t. This is, by far, the hardest and most honest thing I’ve ever had to write.
One of the things that helped me the most was comedy – I started acting in school plays and writing my own little sketches – bribing my teacher to let me perform them at the end of the day. I would embody the mad energy of Robin Williams to make my classmates laugh and I loved it. I’m fully aware that my performing could be seen as a cry for help, but it was also a release – a chance to exorcise the sad feelings inside me by being silly.
While I was still young, I read a quote by Robin Williams in one of my magazines. It was a feature in which celebrities would describe what they were like at school – in it he talked about how he was the shy, chubby kid who didn’t find his voice until he joined his high school drama class. I read these words and looked at what he had achieved and I distinctly remember deciding that I wanted to do the same. And I’m still working on it.
Rest in peace Robin. You never felt you had anyone to turn to for help – I was lucky, I had you.
R.I.P Robin Williams.
