Goodbye You Brilliant Funny Man

Robin Williams has passed away today.

Just let that soak in.

I am admittedly still trying to grasp it myself.

July 21, 1951- August 11, 2014

I wrote this so I could deal with the mortality of one of my heroes. I wrote this as a fan, communicating with other fans, this feeling of loss that many are feeling. I also wrote it like this because, well, this is how most of us knew him. It doesn’t make him any less special.

Countless people are weeping, I have received over 20 calls and 30 texts of people telling me one of my favourite actors is dead, in their own choked back sobs. We here at the Shed are baffled by the news. I’m contemplating on how I should write this. I didn’t know him, I know people who knew him. I have heard nothing but glowing stories, but it’s really not the same is it?

So why are we all so sad?

Because in some ways as fans, we did know him. We loved him for making us laugh. For those moments where your day was pure rubbish and you come home wanting to relax and you look through the list of films, you see his name and you Know, he will make you smile. But more than that, a celebrity though lifted above the masses, still represents ‘Us’ The ‘We’ That is the ideal. So when one of ‘us’ falls, a fellow human, we all feel the ripple.

I could use this opportunity to talk about depression, and how it’s a serious illness. But we know that, and so I won’t. I’ll just say, if you know someone who suffers from depression, don’t judge them, don’t tell them to ‘snap out of it’ they need your compassion and your patience.

I could compare his standup to this final moment and say, “He’s been telling us all along.” But that also serves no real purpose. I could draw parallels from ‘World’s Greatest Dad’ one of my favourite and in my opinion one of the most haunting films of it’s year. I’m not squeamish, I can watch guts strewn, hatchets blazing, psychos carving… But… That movie left me curled up into a ball.

I could go into the details of how he died, maybe I’m right, or maybe I’m just being sentimental, but we all know how he died. He took his own life. That’s been covered over and over again already. Regurgitated news about a trending topic isn’t what this man’s life was meant to be summed up as, and I won’t contribute to that.

Instead, I’d like to remember him in my own way, and maybe you can remember him with me?

I, like many of you, grew up with him in my home, on the screen. He’s been the funny man, the scary man, the magical space man, and just… An amazing man in general. I still remember the first time I saw Good Morning Vietnam. My father rented it for movie night to show us what a ‘good movie looks like’ I scoffed because it wasn’t a cartoon. I found myself immersed and stopped my complaining instantly. What a brilliant film, so funny. I was a little kid so I only got half the jokes, but I knew that man was awesome, and his smile brought me comfort… I became a fan.

And if any of you, like myself, stumbled across his standup at an early age, your mind was blown. I honestly hated the word ‘cunt’ until I heard it coming from his mouth and sounding no different nor perverse than toe, or foot. His standup had a borderline Kaufman feel to it, not in the sense of relentless insults, but vulgarity and crassness done with a style all his own. Though it should be noted, Williams never used a scapegoat.

Now, I am a sentimentalist at heart… I play favourites. If I see a name I will watch the film it is attached to, and I can honestly say I actually haven’t had a bad Robin Williams experience. To the contrary I have always considered him, one of the greatest actors in our time. People have given me a quizzical look to such a statement but I argue that a comedy actor is the actor who can play all roles. The hardest thing to do is to make a person genuinely laugh. Scared, sad, angry, those are actually quite easy to accomplish.  But Look at the films I listed prior along with Goodwill Hunting, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, or The Fisher King…. the list just goes on and on.

We’ve watched him evolve over the years, showing us the range he had to work with. I firmly believe the man could have taken on any role he set out to portray and I was just asking someone last week: “When do you think he’ll do a serious role again?” I really would have loved to see that. His portrayal in One Hour Photo was beautiful. What Dreams May come… well I am watching that right now and I am not ashamed to say that I am weeping like a little baby.

I could give you a filmography in full, but everyone is already doing that, a simple copy & paste from IMDB. Birth place, or other specifics. But I didn’t write this so it would get lost in a sea of repetitive, cold data. I wrote this so I could deal with the mortality of one of my heroes. I wrote this as a fan, communicating with other fans, this feeling of loss that many are feeling. I also wrote it like this because, well, this is how most of us knew him. It doesn’t make him any less special. He is celebrated by us as a fellow living being, and as the man who brought us all so much joy.

There will be some judgmental people out there who will state their opinions about what he did, those are people with far too much time on their hands.  Since the family has asked for privacy on this matter, wouldn’t it be such a beautiful thing if people respected that?

We’ve lost someone special.

Goodbye you brilliant funny man.

We will always love you.

What Dreams May Come