The world first met Robin Williams as Mork, a fast-talking alien who had come to observe The Fonz and Richie Cunningham in the 1970s hit show Happy Days.
The half-hour guest appearance was all it took for America to fall in love. Williams’ brand of comedy was electric; he moved fast, talked fast and thought faster. Audiences found themselves struggling to keep up, not that they couldn’t understand his humor. The trouble for Williams was finding an audience with the sheer lung capacity to laugh at each joke in his rapid-fire routines. It seemed as if the man was so brimming with all things eccentric and comical, that he could not get it out of himself fast enough.
His guest spot resulted in a spin-off named for his character. “Mork and Mindy” would, in turn, cement Williams as a household name and prompt a near-37-year career as an actor, voice-actor, and stand-up comedian that would leave few untouched by his art. For the college-aged, their first experience with Williams might have been his role as the lovably excitable Genie from “Aladdin.“ If not in the Disney classic, perhaps as a man so desperate to maintain a relationship with his kids that he was willing to disguise himself as the perfect nanny: Mrs. Euphegenia Doubtfire (please read in best high-pitched Mrs. Doubtfire voice) from “Mrs. Doubtfire”. “Good Morning, Vietnam” is still taught and analyzed as a quintessential reflection of the 1960s in UCLA’s ’60s general education cluster, and there are few medical sitcoms that don’t reference or pay homage to “Patch Adams” in one way or another.
His choice of roles set him apart. With each role, he seized the chance to not only make us laugh, but to instill a moral lesson as well. In “Dead Poets Society,” he taught us to seize the day and have the courage to go against the status quo. In “Mrs. Doubtfire,” he used his nanny alter-ego to explain to children that their parents’ separation was not their fault, and that it did not mean that they were loved any less. In Disney’s “Aladdin,” the genie taught us that through dedication and love, a person can change his or her fate, and that spending your life in the pursuit of power might make you seemingly invincible, but it also leaves you alone. From “Patch Adams,” we learned that laughter truly is the best medicine, and from “Hook,” we learned that to live would truly be a great adventure.
This affinity for the sentimental would find him criticism in his later years, which seems like a kind of backwards compliment. Critics are curious creatures that way. Yes, how dare he warm hearts and strive to distract us from life’s tragedies?
It hurts a bit to look at a man who gave the world so much joy and to realize that he must have been hurting, but with each high in life comes a low. According to his family’s press release, Williams had been suffering from depression for quite some time and had recently sought out the aid of a substance abuse facility, not due to a relapse, but to focus on his sobriety.
In the wake of his death, tributes and memorials have flooded the airwaves, attesting to the compassion of the departed comic. According to the estate of Christopher Reeve, William’s former roommate at Juilliard famed for his role as the original Superman, Williams was the first to make him laugh after he was paralyzed in a horseback riding incident in 1995. Even though Reeve had refused to see any visitors, Williams disguised himself as a Russian proctologist and snuck into his hospital room to cheer up his bedridden friend.
In a press release issued shortly after Williams’ death, the Reeve estate said of Williams, “Robin’s unparalleled legacy on screen will last through the ages. But beyond the gift of laughter, he gave our family and the Reeve Foundation the gift of his simple, steadfast friendship. It’s a gift we’ll treasure forever.”
It is a sentiment that has been echoed time and again in the past days by Williams’ friends and colleagues.
It’s hard not to want to look back and begin analyzing his life and career, looking for cracks in the clown makeup and traces of Pagliaccian sadness in the eyes behind the big, red Patch Adams nose. In the end, however, Williams’ life’s work was one of spreading laughter. Despite his personal struggles, Williams took joy in the act of entertaining. That will be his legacy.
So go pop on a Robin Williams film, you have many to choose from, and laugh. If the mood hits you, shed a tear for a fallen titan of comedy, but laugh.
-Nick LaRosa