Browsing through my Facebook news feeds is usually for checking out the latest on health, parenting, current events around the globe and updates on my friends for about 20 minutes and then moving on to other things. The other day's routine check however, made me pause for a bit on a specific article concerning a favorite hollywood actor comedian of mine, Robin Williams. He was found dead at his home in California, at the age of 63 and it looks like he took his own life, which brought about this post.
Who doesn't know the man who won Best Supporting Actor in Goodwill Hunting and was voted "Funniest Man Alive" by Entertainment Weekly in 1997? His God-given talent of making people laugh so hard they pee their pants was a very welcome gift he shared with millions.
He touched our hearts by bringing to life characters such as the loveable Genie, Patch Adams, Jack, Sean Maguire, Popeye our Spinach eating hero, Mork, John Keating, the Peter Pan who grew up in Hook, the hilarious Dr. Kosevich in Nine Months, Alan Parrish in Jumanji, and Professor Philip Brainard who made Flubber, to name a few. He has proven his dramatic acting skills throughout his career but is mostly known for his wild comic talent involving a great deal of improvising on his part. And when I say a great deal of improvisations, it means just that. Did you know that during the course of recording the voice of Genie in Aladdin, he improvised so much they had almost 16 hours of material? And that he also ad-libbed so many of his lines in the movie that the script was turned down for a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award nomination? Well, that's how it went.
Comedy bars (of the present) are one of those things that scare the wits out of me. From what I have seen from Youtube and heard from my friends who frequent them, I can confidently say that I will never grace one with my presence. Now if it was Robin Williams taking the stage, that would be a different matter altogether. I would be first in line for sure. In my opinion, he was one of the best comedians who have ever lived. Did you know he was frequently called up by Steven Spielberg when he was filming the Schindler's List in 1993 and was put on speaker phone, so he could tell jokes to the cast and crew to cheer them up using his Genie in Aladdin character most of the time? He was something special alright!
For the longest time, during my younger years, I only knew him as Mrs. Doubtfire in the movie. For me, it was the one movie that really left its mark on me, with the unique plot (at the time) and his funny over the top antics. It was the only Robin Williams movie that I watched with my family as a child which made it all the more special to me. I remember laughing the whole time I was watching it, with my parents and both siblings one night. It's definitely a classic in my book, a comedy that you can watch repeatedly but still laugh at the same jokes and scenes as if it's always the first time. When he died, he took with him the laughs that I know so well and love so much.
This is just like Dolphy all over again, another legend exits the stage of comedy, and the lights turn off. Thank you for the laughs Robin!
Reference:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000245/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
http://www.imdb.com/
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107614/
https://www.facebook.com/RobinWilliams
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