The first time I ever saw Robin Williams was on a comedy special on HBO in 1977. I was 14 at the time, acting and studying acting at the High School of Performing Arts, and I was absolutely mesmerised. I was soon infatuated and I eventually became obsessed. I had never had an idol or a model before, neither professionally, artistically nor personally. This man become my artistic idol. This man’s brain was the sharpest, quickest, most varied and complex I had ever seen before. As I have always done, whenever I became interested in an artist, I found all of his material possible and watched him over and over and over again eventually memorising most of his act to the point of boring my friends with constant repetitions of Robin one-liners. I knew I had found the Master.
A few weeks later I was down in the (Greenwich) Village at a clothes store aptly named Unique. I had already started dressing like Robin to a great extent and loved it. I was wearing one of my favourite pairs of black parachute trousers and a black t-shirt and I was trying on rainbow-coloured braces (suspenders for the Americans) with a friend of mine and I was doing Robin’s schtick from the comedy special while playing with the braces. About 10 minutes in to my act my friend’s face went white and awe-stricken. With our mutual theatre training I knew something was going on behind me. But I also somehow knew I shouldn’t turn around. A few seconds later I heard in my ears, coming from behind me, an exact stereophonic replica of all of the words I was saying, with the same perfect timing, in what was unmistakably the original voice. I kept going. When he broke out laughing, I turned around. The man had the biggest smile on his face I had ever seen on anyone prior and this was the first time I heard his actual voice. What a voice! This was what we were training for every day. This was the voice we all wanted to sound like: such strength, quality, diction, power and sheer beauty. He was a truly sweet man and thanked me for the compliment, asked me a bit about what I was doing/learning and which bits I liked best from the special. It only lasted a few minutes. But it is one of the moments that will stay in my memory forever.
Quite a few years later, after my mother had moved me out to southern California, I met him again. This time his wife, Valerie, was working on some dance stuff with my mom and he came around. This second time I met him, again many years after that brief encounter, he immediately looked at me and said Unique!” and plucked at his imaginary braces. He remembered me. I tried desperately not to cry, and I believe I succeeded, but that was yet another unforgettable moment.
This was the late 70s. My memory is blurry to say the least and many of the actual moments themselves were rather blurry as well. But somehow, many months later, I ended up staying in a tiny room at his house, for a short while, looking after his lawn. Basically I fed the dogs a couple of times and Cora, his parrot, and watered the grass. I wish I could remember some of the brief moments. Mostly these would occur at table, although people ate very little in those days, when Robin would either just talk about life in his amazing voice or go off on a tangent and the rest of us would desperately try to keep up.
“One of the secrets to real acting is the same as real improvisation: listen. Listen to your other actors. But also listen to the audience and, most importantly, listen to yourself before you speak.”
During most of these moments I would sit and listen, or I would attempt to join in to a limited extent and once or twice he actually tried to give me advice as an actor. One thing I always remembered was “One of the secrets to real acting is the same as real improvisation: listen. Listen to your other actors. But also listen to the audience and, most importantly, listen to yourself before you speak.” I’ve found this sort of advice helps in life as well and I can only hope to listen as well as he did.
The last episode I remember is more a result than a moment. When I left America in 1983 I sold, or gave away, everything I owned. Robin bought my alto saxophone which I believe he eventually used and played in his film Moscow on the Hudson not long after.
For decades I dreamed of meeting him again. I imagined going to see him in one of his many visits to Paris promoting his films and work. I fantasised that he would remember me and we would laugh. I never went and I never met him again. But I spent all of that time watching him evolve, admiring his work and artistic endeavours, simply blown away by his talent and intelligence. I listened to all his comedy albums and learned many of his routines by heart. I saw all of his movies. I watched as many interviews with him as I could all of which contained brief improvisational moments of genius including the masterpiece moment with a scarf during his Inside the Actor’s Studio interview. I watched his stand up comedy specials and shared them with anyone and everyone I could. When my daughters were old enough, and even a bit before, I shared my love of Robin’s work both as an improvisational artist and a comedian with them. We have spent many hours, if not whole afternoons and evenings, laughing to his work and spellbound by his acting. My youngest daughter wore through our VHS copy of Mrs. Doubtfire, tried to wear through the DVD and has probably seen digital copies more times than they have been cloned. My eldest daughter has taken the torch from me and proselytises the world according to Robin Williams to her friends and contacts and does a wonderful job of using his lines and works with perfect relevance constantly. Robin will always be a love and passion I get to share with my girls… forever.
I was obviously aware of Robin’s drug use in the 70s and 80s. I can’t remember anyone I knew during that period who was not consuming illicit substances in one form or another. I do not deny partaking myself. I knew he was in and out of rehab throughout his life and recently. I knew he had health problems. But I never expected suicide. His intellectual and improvisational genius will live forever and provide the greatest cure to all of mankind’s woes and mistakes: pure, burst out, gut-busting, tearfully joyous, uncontrollable laughter that makes you reflect and think at the same time.
“I’d like to thank my father for coming.”
One of Robin’s earliest one-liners he would say as he would point out somewhere in the audience, “I’d like to thank my father for coming.” I too would like to thank his father for coming.
The man made us simultaneously think and laugh as we all tried to catch up to his non-stop synaptic explosions. Generations of actors and comedians will use him as an example and a model to follow and they will try to achieve a level of intellectual and creative flow anywhere near his.
Robin Williams was unique. There was no artist like him I had ever seen perform, there was no man like him I had ever heard talk and there was no creative and improvisational genius like him I had ever experienced before. But he achieved artistic excellence while remaining a sweet, giving and loving man. Forget his death. Remember his life. Remember the man. I know I will.
I wrote this on 12th August 2014…
