Robin Williams: A Manic Mind at Breakneck Speed, an Addiction to Laughter, and the Devil’s Dandruff
Robin Williams’ manic mind moved at such a breakneck speed that cocaine had the opposite effect than it had on most other people: it slowed him down. Robin’s primary addiction, however, wasn’t cocaine. He was addicted to the dopamine rush of being on a stage, where he could let his mind run wild with free association, and be rewarded with uproarious laughter. He was addicted to proving himself as a dramatic actor, even if that meant attempting to trigger his own mental breakdown by running in place for hours. And when he died tragically at the age of 63, the cause of his death was surprisingly not what anyone suspected. It still isn’t.
This episode contains themes that may be disturbing to some listeners, including suicide. If you're thinking about suicide or are worried about a friend or loved one, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Zeth Lundy, good doctor here at Double
Speaker 1: Elvis and co host of the Hollywood dam Podcast, and
Speaker 1: welcome once again as we dive into our archive of
Speaker 1: stories that take place at the intersection of Hollywood and
Speaker 1: true crime. Today, we're bringing you our episode on Robin Williams,
Speaker 1: who passed away far too young, age sixty three, twelve
Speaker 1: years ago this month in twenty fourteen. Robin Williams was
Speaker 1: a multi generational comic and actor. But for me, for
Speaker 1: gen X coming of age in the nineteen eighties, he
Speaker 1: represented total creative and comedic freedom. He was the id
Speaker 1: come to life. He was a wild, untamed river on
Speaker 1: stage the flow State, way back before the flow State
Speaker 1: even had a name. I learn much later that Robin's
Speaker 1: so called flow state was actually the result of hours
Speaker 1: and hours of practice, But that doesn't make it any
Speaker 1: less impressive. I know there are a lot of you
Speaker 1: out there, just like me, who heard Robin's stand up
Speaker 1: album and evening at the in the mid to late eighties,
Speaker 1: dubbed on a crappy old Maxel cassette tape, rewinding bit
Speaker 1: after bit, putting in your own hours of retention and
Speaker 1: appreciation so that you could, at the very least approach
Speaker 1: the flow state which Robin embodied. I hope you dig
Speaker 1: our episode on Robin Williams, and then I hope you
Speaker 1: come back on Wednesday for the Rap Party, where I'll
Speaker 1: respond to your calls and your texts, and again on
Speaker 1: Friday for the Screening Room, in which I'll do a
Speaker 1: deep dive into the nineteen ninety one Terry Gilliam film
Speaker 1: The Fisher King.
Speaker 2: This episode contains content that may be disturbing to some listeners.
Speaker 2: Please check the show notes for more information.
Speaker 3: Hollywood Land is a production of Double Elvis. The stories
Speaker 3: about Robin Williams are insane.
Speaker 2: His manic mind moved.
Speaker 3: It's such a breakneck speed that cocaine had the opposite
Speaker 3: effect that it had on most other people. It slowed
Speaker 3: him down. Speaking of cocaine, he did a line with
Speaker 3: John Belushi at the fame Chateau Armah on the very
Speaker 3: night Juliet Jake Blues died from shooting up a speedball.
Speaker 3: Robin's primary addiction, however, wasn't cocaine. He was addicted to
Speaker 3: the company of women. He was addicted to the dopamine
Speaker 3: rush of being on a stage where he could let
Speaker 3: his mind run wild with free association and be rewarded
Speaker 3: with a broarious laughter. He was addicted to proving himself
Speaker 3: as a dramatic actor, even if that meant attempting to
Speaker 3: trigger his own mental breakdown by running in place for hours.
Speaker 3: And when he did die tragically at the age of
Speaker 3: sixty three, the cause of his death was surprisingly not
Speaker 3: what anyone suspected. It still isn't. And Robin Williams made
Speaker 3: great films, unlike that clip I played for you at
Speaker 3: the top of the show. That wasn't a clip from
Speaker 3: a great film that was a fair use. Sample from
Speaker 3: the Library of Congress of Arthur Collins performing Susie Woozy
Speaker 3: in nineteen oh two. I played you that clip because
Speaker 3: I can't afford the rights to a clip from Jonathan
Speaker 3: Levinman's teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. And why would I play
Speaker 3: you that specific slice of Cowabungo reboot Cheese?
Speaker 2: Could I afford it?
Speaker 3: Because that was the number one movie in America On
Speaker 3: August eleven, twenty fourteen, and that was the day that
Speaker 3: Robin Williams's body was found at his home in California,
Speaker 3: a shocking death that revealed hidden secrets about his life
Speaker 3: in this episode, a manic mind, cocaine, dopamine, Russians, mental breakdowns,
Speaker 3: and Robin Williams. I'm Jake Brennan and this is Hollywood Landlord.
Speaker 3: Pam Dauber didn't have to turn around to know who
Speaker 3: was thrusting something long and hard.
Speaker 2: Against her ass.
Speaker 3: She knew her co star would be right behind her,
Speaker 3: dressed in his bright red leitar to caine in his hand.
Speaker 3: He always knew when she was a little off and
Speaker 3: needed a PERKMIU.
Speaker 2: It worked.
Speaker 3: Pam couldn't help but laugh. This was a typical moment
Speaker 3: on the set of Morcan Mindy. Robin Williams had shown
Speaker 3: up late and bleary eyed as usual, then immediately get
Speaker 3: to work without missing a beat, only ever interrupting the
Speaker 3: rehearsal to pull some endearingly inappropriate prank, like pretending to
Speaker 3: shove a cane up her ass. Pam had a sisterly
Speaker 3: affection for the hairy goofball, so she didn't mind. They'd
Speaker 3: do what they always did, laugh, move on work another scene.
Speaker 3: Then she'd go home for the night and get ready
Speaker 3: to do it all again the next day, but not Robin.
Speaker 3: Once they finished shooting, Robin slipped back into his trademark
Speaker 3: rainbow suspenders, strapped on a pair of roller skates, and
Speaker 3: cruised his way through the Paramount Studio a lot with
Speaker 3: a dorky grin on his face. He grabbed a ham
Speaker 3: sandwich as he skated past a Kraft food cart, spinning
Speaker 3: his way around frantic production assistants and set dressers carrying
Speaker 3: tables across the way to yet another sound stage. Eventually
Speaker 3: he made his way to LA's Sunset Strip. He did
Speaker 3: a line of cocaine in the parking lot outside the
Speaker 3: comedy store, ordered a rub and coke at the bar
Speaker 3: as he watched Richard Pryor or Jonathan Winters or some
Speaker 3: no name prankster try to coax a chuckle from the crowd.
Speaker 3: Then Robin Williams hopped on stage and grabbed the mic himself.
Speaker 3: Most comedians had a tightly scripted ten minute set, but
Speaker 3: Robin's style was always a bit more freewheeling. You couldn't
Speaker 3: even tell the difference between the jokes that he'd rehearsed
Speaker 3: and the ones he'd made up on the spot. Do
Speaker 3: you think God gets stoned? Just look at the platypus.
Speaker 3: As soon as he was done, Robin was off to
Speaker 3: see his buddy Taylor mcgroan at the Laugh Factory, do
Speaker 3: another line, have another rum and coke, maybe flirt with
Speaker 3: the waitress, and then get back on the microphone. I
Speaker 3: fucked the prostitute when I turned twenty one. I was
Speaker 3: so bad she gave me a refund. Hewe the laugh
Speaker 3: track in the flood of endorphins, and that's when Robin
Speaker 3: would see another old friend in the corner of the bar.
Speaker 3: Maybe this time it would be Jim Stall from Happy Days.
Speaker 3: The two of them would have another drink, maybe a
Speaker 3: quick bump, okay, just one morning, find another girl to
Speaker 3: flirt with. Sometimes you get to go out of your
Speaker 3: way to get into trouble. It's called fun. And then
Speaker 3: it was off to the next stop of the night.
Speaker 3: Maybe this time it would be the Comedy Magic Club.
Speaker 3: And that was all the way out of her Rosa Beach.
Speaker 3: But Robin's buddy was dating this model who lived around
Speaker 3: the corner. Her place was always packed with beautiful drugs
Speaker 3: and even more beautiful women. Besides, the night was young
Speaker 3: and he didn't have to be on set for another
Speaker 3: eight hours, and if he was still awake when the
Speaker 3: sun came up again. Well, that's why there was cocaine.
Speaker 3: The devil's standrift pruvia merchant pout heer, God's way of
Speaker 3: telling you you're making too much money. Ask anyone who
Speaker 3: knew Robin Williams, and they'd tell you he was fast,
Speaker 3: not just on his roller skates or the way he talked.
Speaker 3: His brain itself moved at breakneck speed. It had nothing
Speaker 3: to do with the cocaine. Hell, most folks said the
Speaker 3: drugs slowed him down more than anything. What would have
Speaker 3: been uppers for anyone else brought his manic mind back
Speaker 3: down to the level that most people called reality. Made
Speaker 3: it easier formed to relate to other people and focus
Speaker 3: on the conversation at hand instead of firing off another
Speaker 3: impulse in his supersonic synapses. Robin existed a totally different
Speaker 3: wavelength from the rest of the world. It's what made
Speaker 3: him such a damn good performer, But it also made
Speaker 3: him lonely. He was always out of sink, functioning on
Speaker 3: a different frequency than everybody else. He'd been that way
Speaker 3: since he was a kid. He was an only child
Speaker 3: as far as he knew. His cold, alcoholic father had
Speaker 3: a corporate job That meant the family moved around a lot,
Speaker 3: which made it harder for Robin to form new friendships.
Speaker 3: His mom was a socialite who used her wit to
Speaker 3: charm strangers and maybe to deflect from her own loneliness.
Speaker 3: Humor was the fastest way to her affection, and that
Speaker 3: left an impression on young Robin, who spent the rest
Speaker 3: of his childhood inside of his own head. Making someone
Speaker 3: laugh was the only way he knew to make a
Speaker 3: genuine human connection. And that's not to say that Robin
Speaker 3: couldn't be serious. After all, he'd attended the prestigious Juilliard
Speaker 3: at School for acting, and although he did drop out
Speaker 3: once he realized that the school's traditional approach which couldn't
Speaker 3: do much for him. Later in life, Robin would be
Speaker 3: celebrated for his dramatic roles in films like Dead Poets, Society,
Speaker 3: The Fisher King and Goodwill Hunting, but his comedy was
Speaker 3: always a constant. More than women, and more than alcohol,
Speaker 3: and even more than cocaine, Robin Williams was addicted to
Speaker 3: the dopamine rush of being on stage, saying whatever came
Speaker 3: into his mind and lighting the audience up in hysterics.
Speaker 2: It was the closest he could come to.
Speaker 3: That ineffable something he was craving, but it still wasn't
Speaker 3: quite enough to save his frantic mind. Maybe that's why
Speaker 3: most of Robin's friends were also comedians, Like Richard Pryor
Speaker 3: and John Belushi. They understood the craving and the thrill,
Speaker 3: the transcendent energy of feeding off the audience like a vampire.
Speaker 3: But Robin also envied them as artists, the way they
Speaker 3: turned their own vulnerabilities into weapons of hilarious delight. Robin
Speaker 3: always wanted to create that sort of confessional comedy, but
Speaker 3: he was afraid of what he'd find when he'd mind
Speaker 3: the depths of his own brain. During one of his
Speaker 3: many marathon La comedy nights in the early eighties, Robin
Speaker 3: ended up at John Belushi's bungalow with the Chateau Armand
Speaker 3: in Sunset Boulevard. He got there at two am, just
Speaker 3: as Robert de Niro was leaving. Belushi was pretty out
Speaker 3: of it. He could barely form words. He strummed a
Speaker 3: boxy guitar, and the sunken night hippie chick sitting next
Speaker 3: to him at a creepy smile.
Speaker 2: She kept fiddling with a syringe. It was a bad vibe.
Speaker 3: Robin stuck around long enough to do an obligatory line,
Speaker 3: and then he get the hell out of there. In
Speaker 3: the next day, back on the set of Morcanmindy, he
Speaker 3: couldn't stop thinking about the night before. Robin wasn't one
Speaker 3: to judge someone else's drug use, but the scene at
Speaker 3: Belushies had been too weird to ignore that girl that needle.
Speaker 3: When Pam Daubern asked if she could talk to him
Speaker 3: during a break in that day's shoot, Robin could tell
Speaker 3: it was serious. Pam had been sent by the show's
Speaker 3: producers to break the news John Belushi, who was dead.
Speaker 3: Robin could easily guess why Pam was sent to soften
Speaker 3: the blow. They didn't want Robin to get too upset.
Speaker 3: They also knew that Robin had been with Belushi during
Speaker 3: his final hours, and they needed to cover their asses
Speaker 3: in case their star was an accessory of manslaughter. Robin
Speaker 3: stood there, wide eyed, with his hands folded at his
Speaker 3: waist while Pam talked. When he finally spoke, Robin just
Speaker 3: kept repeating, I was there last night.
Speaker 2: I was with him. I was there last night. I
Speaker 2: was with him.
Speaker 3: Pam tried to comfort her friend, but eventually something inside
Speaker 3: of her snapped. She placed her hands on Robin's shoulders
Speaker 3: and looked him straight in the eye. If that ever
Speaker 3: happens to you, Pam said, I will find you and
Speaker 3: kill you first. Robin smiled cautiously. He reassured Pam that
Speaker 3: it would never happen to him. Swear to God, he
Speaker 3: hated lying.
Speaker 2: To his friends.
Speaker 3: The Frog Prince was pissed. You could see it in
Speaker 3: the deadness of his bulging plastic eyes. Fuck ABC, Fuck
Speaker 3: every single one of those corporate shtheads and their stupid
Speaker 3: fucking suits. He ripped the web fingers off his hands
Speaker 3: and began to pound the green rubber head on his
Speaker 3: shoulders with his own fleshy fists. They don't have any
Speaker 3: fucking taste, wouldn't know a good joke if they got
Speaker 3: their fucking dick's wet. Fuck.
Speaker 2: It was nineteen eighty two.
Speaker 3: Robin Williams was playing the title role of the Frog
Speaker 3: Prince in the debut episode of Fairytale Theater, a new
Speaker 3: anthology series for the cable network Showtime, directed by Monty
Speaker 3: Python seraic Idel. Robin didn't know what was worse receiving
Speaker 3: the news that his sitcom More to Mindy had just
Speaker 3: been canceled, or the fact that he had to process
Speaker 3: that news while being stuck inside of a stupid, fucking,
Speaker 3: sweaty ass frog costume. You'd be hard pressed to find
Speaker 3: anyone who described Robin Williams as short.
Speaker 2: Tempered or difficult.
Speaker 3: But pressed a little harder and they'd admit that, yeah,
Speaker 3: they'd seen him have a random melt down here and there,
Speaker 3: just maybe not while wearing a giant rubber frog suit.
Speaker 3: At the time of the Frog Prince fiasco, Robin was
Speaker 3: struggling to break into movies. Morgan Mindy was a steady paycheck,
Speaker 3: but Robin knew he was meant for something else. He
Speaker 3: just didn't know what or how to make it happen.
Speaker 3: His only other credit at that point was a low
Speaker 3: budget musical version of Popeye the Sailor Man, and even
Speaker 3: though our tour Robert Altman directed the picture in the
Speaker 3: legendary Harry Nilsen composed the music, the end result was
Speaker 3: so embarrassingly that it became a running gag in Robin's
Speaker 3: stand up Below Me Down, Are you fucking kidding Me?
Speaker 2: That line actually worked on a woman.
Speaker 3: Robin's wife, Valerie had moved back up to Napa Valley
Speaker 3: in the meantime, she wanted to avoid the La spotlight.
Speaker 3: She knew that Robin liked the adoration, but it just
Speaker 3: wasn't her scene. For a while, the two of them
Speaker 3: only saw each other on the weekends are in between projects.
Speaker 2: But something changed that.
Speaker 3: Summer when Valerie told Robin she was pregnant. Robin had
Speaker 3: been trying to take it easy on the drugs after
Speaker 3: Beluci's death, and the sudden realization that he was going
Speaker 3: to have a son made him finally get serious about sobriety,
Speaker 3: and he quit boozing coke straight away. No twelve steps
Speaker 3: or therapy or field good programs, just cold turkey. A
Speaker 3: few weeks later, his next movie, Outing the World according
Speaker 3: to Garb, hit theaters, and the John Irving book became
Speaker 3: an almost instant hit at the box office. Things were
Speaker 3: finally looking up in more ways and one later in life,
Speaker 3: in a letter to his son Zach, Robin would write
Speaker 3: that his birth gave him a new sense of meaning
Speaker 3: and focus it to his life. It also gave him
Speaker 3: plenty of new material. My god, it's a boy and
Speaker 3: he's hung like a bear. Wait no, that's the umbilical cord.
Speaker 3: Of course, there were some habits Robin still couldn't break.
Speaker 3: One was his addiction to the rush of stand up
Speaker 3: comedy and the high that he kept her from the crowd.
Speaker 3: He'd find any excuse to leave Valerie behind with the
Speaker 3: baby and Nappa, and had to la to indulge in
Speaker 3: another one of those in miss all night comedy marathons.
Speaker 3: He even learned to enjoy them without the help of
Speaker 3: mind altering substances, which brings us to the other habit
Speaker 3: that Robin Williams couldn't break. Women Robin had always messed
Speaker 3: around in the past. Valerie would either give him her
Speaker 3: blessing or at least forgive him. She knew her husband
Speaker 3: was a star. She couldn't help the fact that women
Speaker 3: threw themselves at him. Besides, he was out on the
Speaker 3: road a lot all by himself. But after Zach was born,
Speaker 3: it got harder for her to go along with it.
Speaker 3: She resented the fact that she was stuck at home
Speaker 3: with a baby while her husband was off gallivanting with
Speaker 3: some hot young thing.
Speaker 2: And Robin wasn't dumb. He knew it was getting to her.
Speaker 3: He tried to keep it in his pants for a while,
Speaker 3: but then another opportunity would present itself, and as Valerie
Speaker 3: once said, he'd have to be a saint to resist,
Speaker 3: and Robin was certainly no saint. God gave me a
Speaker 3: penis in her brain and only enough blood to use
Speaker 3: one at a time. Robin met Michelle tash Carter at
Speaker 3: the Improv in nineteen eighty four, where she was working
Speaker 3: as a cocktail waitress. The twenty one year old had
Speaker 3: spent her teenage years touring the country as a musician,
Speaker 3: and now she was looking for her big break in la.
Speaker 3: Robin's career wasn't quite in a spot where he could
Speaker 3: help her out with that, but he could still take
Speaker 3: her home again. This wasn't Robin's first affair, and again
Speaker 3: val insisted she was fine with it at first on
Speaker 3: the surface, anyway, It's not like Robin had any investment
Speaker 3: in Michelle had no emotional relationship. They were just fucking
Speaker 3: casually and regularly. For about two years. Well, Robin and
Speaker 3: Valve drifted further and further apart, and by the time
Speaker 3: Robin called things off with Michelle, his marriage was already
Speaker 3: dead in the water. And then Michelle told Robin she
Speaker 3: was also pregnant with his child, and that he had
Speaker 3: given her herpes. A woman would never make something as
Speaker 3: deadly as a nuke. She'd invent something worse, like a
Speaker 3: bomb that makes you feel.
Speaker 2: Really bad for a while.
Speaker 3: It turned out Michelle was not telling the truth, instead
Speaker 3: just trying to extort Robin for his money. When he
Speaker 3: refused to give in to her lies, she sued him
Speaker 3: for six million dollars for personal injury, fraud an intentional
Speaker 3: infliction of emotional distress. At this point, Robin and Valerie
Speaker 3: were just starting their formal divorce process. Michelle Carter wasn't
Speaker 3: the reason for the split, but the added stress didn't
Speaker 3: make it any easier. Robin was already ashamed that he
Speaker 3: had let his marriage fall apart, and now he also
Speaker 3: lived in constant fear that Michelle's baseless claims would create
Speaker 3: a pr nightmare that would skewer his career. The Loved
Speaker 3: Comedian settles herpe's lawsuit and forty eight point font on
Speaker 3: the front page.
Speaker 2: More than anything, he.
Speaker 3: Was terrified of what it might do to three year
Speaker 3: old Zach. Robin couldn't bear the thought of disappointing his son,
Speaker 3: especially after the estrangement. He had felt from his own father,
Speaker 3: who Robin had just reconnected with after learning that the
Speaker 3: elder Williams was dying of cancer. While all of this
Speaker 3: was happening, the divorce, the cancer, the affair, the lawsuit,
Speaker 3: Robin also began a new relationship with Marcia Grace, who
Speaker 3: had been Zack's nanny and later Robin's personal assistant.
Speaker 2: Things with Valerie were.
Speaker 3: Over and done before anything happened with Marcia, but the
Speaker 3: press still spun it into a bigger, uglier drama than
Speaker 3: it actually was. And of course this all exploded publicly
Speaker 3: right as Robin's dramatic acting career was finally taking off.
Speaker 3: It was like the ups and downs experienced in the
Speaker 3: eighties had also helped him tap into the darkness he'd
Speaker 3: been carrying around for his entire life. Nowhere was this
Speaker 3: more apparent than on the set of The Fisher King,
Speaker 3: the nineteen ninety one film directed by Terry Gilliam, another
Speaker 3: former Monty Python member. Robin was cast in the role
Speaker 3: of Parry, a man dealing with homelessness and severe mental
Speaker 3: illness who thinks he's on a quest to find the
Speaker 3: Holy Grail. Robin beat himself up on set most days
Speaker 3: either because he was worried about disappointing fans who liked
Speaker 3: him for his comedy, or because he didn't think that
Speaker 3: he was going dark enough. One day, he was filming
Speaker 3: a scene on a treadmill, running in place so that
Speaker 3: Gilliam could get some close ups during what became a
Speaker 3: terrifying hallucination sequence. It was late at night, but Robin
Speaker 3: kept running. He'd scream in agony, gripping at his heart
Speaker 3: with sweat pouring down his face as he tried to
Speaker 3: trigger his own breakdown. Gilliam said he'd got the shot
Speaker 3: he needed. Robin flipped, no, it's not not yet. He
Speaker 3: was heaving short of death, feet still pounding on the
Speaker 3: mat as he screamed, I can.
Speaker 2: Go deeper, I can feel more, show more.
Speaker 3: Gilliam reminded Robin that it's acting. It's not supposed to
Speaker 3: be real. He encouraged him to save his energy, but
Speaker 3: Robin wouldn't listen. He yelled at the crew for rushing
Speaker 3: him through the scene, even though he'd already been running
Speaker 3: in place for hours. These outbursts became more common as
Speaker 3: they kept filming. There were some nights when Robin's intensity
Speaker 3: legitimately terrified the crew, but he showed his silly side
Speaker 3: just as often, using his improv skills to scare away
Speaker 3: the vagrants who'd wander onto set. During late night shoots
Speaker 3: in Central Park, he reveled in the scenes that had
Speaker 3: him running naked through the park, proudly shaking his hairy ass.
Speaker 3: At the New York City skyline. Another night, a pack
Speaker 3: of pigeons unleashed an onslaught of runny white shit onto
Speaker 3: him and his co star Jeff Bridges right when they
Speaker 3: finished filming an emotional scene at four in the morning.
Speaker 3: Bridges that it was the only time he saw Robin at.
Speaker 2: A loss for words.
Speaker 3: After the movie came out, Robin sat for an interview
Speaker 3: with Playboy magazine. At the end of the conversation, the
Speaker 3: interviewer asked Robin if he had any fears of losing
Speaker 3: the balance between his public and his private life. He
Speaker 3: responded by comparing himself to Jersey Kaczinski and a claimed
Speaker 3: author who had just recently died by suicide after suffering
Speaker 3: a debilitating stroke. He just didn't want to become a vegetable.
Speaker 3: He didn't want to lose his sharpness. Robin said, if
Speaker 3: I felt like I was becoming not just dull, but
Speaker 3: a rock that I still couldn't spark, still fire off
Speaker 3: or talk about things I'd get afraid. Robin explained that
Speaker 3: he had to keep finding new ways to let his
Speaker 3: mind run wild because that's what kept him stable.
Speaker 2: He didn't mention the bird shit, We'll be right back
Speaker 2: after this. We're were were.
Speaker 3: The sudden knock on the door made Robin Williams jump
Speaker 3: so high he almost dropped his bottle. It's hard to
Speaker 3: get that sour mashed smell out of the carpet. Harder
Speaker 3: still to.
Speaker 2: Hide it from your friends. Who is it?
Speaker 3: It was Men's, Robin's longtime makeup artists. A new drug
Speaker 3: store was opening up downtown. Men's heard they might cut
Speaker 3: a ribbon, blow up some balloons, might even be cake.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, wow, that sounds like a rollicking way to
Speaker 3: spend the day. Robin rolled his eyes took another swig
Speaker 3: of jack. If only there was literally anything else to
Speaker 3: do here in nowhere, Yukon Territory. They were there to
Speaker 3: work on an indie flick called The Big White. It
Speaker 3: was a smaller production than Robin and his team were
Speaker 3: used to. It was a lot colder and more desolate.
Speaker 3: Than they expected. We could always go outside and throw
Speaker 3: a cup of coffee up in the air, Robin said,
Speaker 3: we can see if it'll freeze before it hits the
Speaker 3: fucking ground. As he took another drink, he realized Min's
Speaker 3: was right. A pharmacy opening probably was the most excess
Speaker 3: anything that was ever going to happen there. Fine, he'd
Speaker 3: be right out. Robin opened the door to find Men's frowning.
Speaker 3: She looked him up and down once twice, and then again.
Speaker 3: She took a big, cartoonish whiff of him and crossed
Speaker 3: her arms. What Robin tried to play innocent, but he
Speaker 3: knew that she knew exactly what was going on.
Speaker 2: He reeked of whiskey. He was wasted. He was eager
Speaker 2: to make some mistakes.
Speaker 3: The Big White seemed like a small commitment when Robin
Speaker 3: took the job in the spring of two thousand and four,
Speaker 3: a few weeks in Yukon, and then another few in Skagway, Alaska,
Speaker 3: and then back to the Yukon before wrapping up in Winnipeg. Besides,
Speaker 3: he'd never acted in sub zero temperatures before, so it
Speaker 3: sounded like a fun challenge. But the lonely tundra also
Speaker 3: gave him plenty of time to reflect on his failings.
Speaker 3: There were no comedy clubs out there, no laughing crowds
Speaker 3: to distract him from himself. Robin's mind had nowhere to hide,
Speaker 3: and he didn't like his own company. At a local
Speaker 3: grocery store, a nip of Jack Daniels caught his eye.
Speaker 3: It had been almost twenty one years since he got
Speaker 3: cold turkey, so he figured he could handle it, just
Speaker 3: to take the edge off right. Within a week, you
Speaker 3: could hear the bottles clinking everywhere he went. In the
Speaker 3: decade or so leading up to his relapse, Robin's career
Speaker 3: had been a roller coaster straight off the Fisher King.
Speaker 3: He started in massive Hollywood hits like.
Speaker 2: Hook and Jumanji.
Speaker 3: He had even more success with his voiceover work on
Speaker 3: Fern Gully and Aladdin, although he got into a bit
Speaker 3: of a pissing match with Disney over using his voice
Speaker 3: to sell shitty toys to children. As an alcoholic, you
Speaker 3: will violate your standards quicker than you can lower them.
Speaker 3: Robin had spent the nineties working to the bone, filming
Speaker 3: projects back to back and releasing up to four films
Speaker 3: a year, and all those highs were met with even
Speaker 3: deeper lows. For every missus doubtfire, there was a flubber,
Speaker 3: or a father's day, an absolute critical and financial disaster.
Speaker 3: Even Robin's mostly successful projects still put him in the
Speaker 3: crosshairs of the critics who said he was too silly,
Speaker 3: or two sacrin or too sentimental, or just two Robin
Speaker 3: Williams phoning in some weird performance that was maybe entertaining
Speaker 3: on its own, but never quite connected to the rest
Speaker 3: of the movie. He finally won his first Oscar in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety eight for his role as a therapist in
Speaker 3: Goodwill Hunting, and eighteen months later he was a joke
Speaker 3: again thanks to buy Centennial Man. By the time Robin
Speaker 3: got to Alaska, he had plenty of regrets to dwell on,
Speaker 3: so he crawled inside a bottle to quiet his thoughts.
Speaker 3: Then six months later, his best friend passed away. Robin
Speaker 3: had met Christopher Reeve in college, and there is sense
Speaker 3: to stardom have been almost parallel. Chris was even godfather
Speaker 3: to Robin's son, Zach. They both struggled with the balance
Speaker 3: of their personal and professional lives, except that Chris had
Speaker 3: literally been both Clark Kent and Superman. After a horse
Speaker 3: riding accident left Chris paralyzed, innovated his friend's entire home
Speaker 3: to make sure everything was still accessible for Chris's new wheelchair,
Speaker 3: and the news of Chris's death sent Robin spiraling further.
Speaker 3: Being a functioning alcoholic is kind of like being a
Speaker 3: paraplegic lap dancer. You can do it, just not as
Speaker 3: well as the others. Things came to a head the
Speaker 3: next year at Thanksgiving. Imagine a shit faced Robin Williams
Speaker 3: with an uncooked turkey neck dangling out of his pants
Speaker 3: as he slurred his way through a monologue about his
Speaker 3: tender meat. Do you think God was high when he
Speaker 3: made Dix? And Yeah, we'll just pull this part back
Speaker 3: and put a mushroom at the tip in Bam, We're done. Oh,
Speaker 3: let's put some balls at the bottom.
Speaker 2: Balls are fun. Who doesn't like balls.
Speaker 3: It got so bad that Zach Now in college, had
Speaker 3: to carry his father up the stairs and wrestle him
Speaker 3: onto the bed. But Robin still hadn't found his rock bottom,
Speaker 3: not even in two thousand and six. It can when
Speaker 3: he drunkenly dropped hundreds of thousands of dollars at a
Speaker 3: charity auction. At one point, Robin stumbled up to the
Speaker 3: podium with a pair of design Her sunglasses on to
Speaker 3: hide his bloodshot eyes, and proudly proclaimed, I just bought
Speaker 3: a forty thousand dollars coke file. It was actually a
Speaker 3: diamond necklace from Harmani. The paparazzi were there to document
Speaker 3: the night, so Robin thought the ruse was up. It
Speaker 3: was so clearly tanked that someone had to figure it out.
Speaker 3: But everyone else thought it was one big joke, and
Speaker 3: everyone adored Robin's wacky improv skills. Everyone that is, except
Speaker 3: his wife Marcia. Grace was mortified until she saw how
Speaker 3: much money he'd spent on that private Whiteclough Sean concert
Speaker 3: eighty grand. Then she was just pissed. A few weeks later,
Speaker 3: Robin sat naked in a hotel room with his pal
Speaker 3: Jack Daniels by his side. Fuck life, he said out loud.
Speaker 3: A little voice inside his head was sober enough to
Speaker 3: hear him. It spoke back, seriously, what the fuck?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: You got it pretty fucking good, right? You think maybe
Speaker 3: that bottle there might be influencing your thought process?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 3: Great, So let's save the suicide discussion for another day,
Speaker 3: maybe after.
Speaker 2: We started therapy.
Speaker 3: Not long after Zach got the family together to stage
Speaker 3: an intervention, Robin agreed to spend the summer of two
Speaker 3: thousand and six at a residential rehabilitation center in Oregon.
Speaker 3: He was still a little hesitant about the twelve step program,
Speaker 3: and after all, he'd gone cold turkey once before, he
Speaker 3: could do it again right. But then he realized that
Speaker 3: was exactly the problem. He had never stopped to reflect
Speaker 3: on why he'd been abusing drugs and alcohol the first
Speaker 3: time around. Robin's time in Oregon brought him clarity and
Speaker 3: helped him find a new perspective on life. His new
Speaker 3: commitment to sobriety meant new beginnings. Zach had just moved
Speaker 3: to New York with his own fiance, and Robin was
Speaker 3: eager to get to know him as an adult instead
Speaker 3: of just as a son. He was just as excited
Speaker 3: to see his daughter, Zelda finish high school and moved
Speaker 3: to la to start her own acting career, but his
Speaker 3: real relationship with Marcia Grace never quite recovered. The betrayal
Speaker 3: of his relapse and the lies that came along with it,
Speaker 3: had left a wound too deep to heal. But It
Speaker 3: wasn't just emotional wounds that Robin had to contend with
Speaker 3: or the crazy shit he had done while he was high.
Speaker 3: It was something else, something inside of him waiting to
Speaker 3: go out of sync one final time. Robin Williams couldn't
Speaker 3: stay single for long. In twenty eleven, he got married again,
Speaker 3: this time to a visual artist named Susan Schneider. Together
Speaker 3: they settled into a new home in the Bay Area,
Speaker 3: in a small town of ten thousand people. When he
Speaker 3: wasn't doing stand up at the local community theater near
Speaker 3: by a playhouse, he went to regular meetings for his
Speaker 3: twelve step program. He even returned to Broadway for a stint.
Speaker 3: As Robin entered into his sixth decade of life, he
Speaker 3: was finally feeling content and ready to enjoy things at
Speaker 3: a slower, steadier pace. But Robin's brain was always fast,
Speaker 3: and it slowed down even faster. In twenty thirteen, Robin
Speaker 3: took another TV gig on a show called The Crazy Ones.
Speaker 3: It was his first regular sitcom role since Mork and
Speaker 3: Mindy and seemed like a nice easy paycheck at the time,
Speaker 3: but he had trouble keeping up his energy, and even
Speaker 3: more trouble hiding it. He thought maybe it was a
Speaker 3: lack of a live studio audience to feed off of,
Speaker 3: And then his body started aching in new and unexpected ways.
Speaker 2: And things got worse from there.
Speaker 3: At one point, the producers convinced his old More co
Speaker 3: star Pam Dauber, to come out of retirement for a
Speaker 3: recurring role in the show in the hopes that it
Speaker 3: might get right and spirits up. It didn't. After the
Speaker 3: show ended, Robin traveled to Vancouver to reprise his role
Speaker 3: as Teddy Roosevelt in the third night at the Museum.
Speaker 3: Movie Men's, his long time makeup artist went with him
Speaker 3: as usual, and once again she knew something was up.
Speaker 3: She found him in his hotel room sobbing. The hell
Speaker 3: is wrong with me? Robin asked, can't even remember my
Speaker 3: goddamn lines. Men's thought maybe he just needed that audience
Speaker 3: adrenaline and that always cheered him up. She'd gotten him
Speaker 3: by the arm to try and pull him off the bed,
Speaker 3: which was far easier than she expected. He'd lost a
Speaker 3: lot of weight. She reminded him about a comedy club
Speaker 3: down the street and they should go check it out.
Speaker 3: Robin looked at Min's with sunken eyes. His heart began
Speaker 3: racing faster, faster, faster, still, a steady rhythm pounding in
Speaker 3: his ears, a pulsing pain that started in his core
Speaker 3: and pushed up through the center of a skull. He
Speaker 3: clenched a hand against his chest as if he could stop.
Speaker 3: His lungs were shriveling tighter inside of him. I can't
Speaker 3: him in, as he said, I don't know how. The
Speaker 3: room seemed to shrink and then collapse all around him.
Speaker 3: The walls heaved in and out. He tried to breathe,
Speaker 3: but it was like someone was squeezing his throat shut,
Speaker 3: and there was no way out, no way out of
Speaker 3: the room, no way out of his mind. Several weeks
Speaker 3: after Robin suffered a full blown panic attack, a doctor
Speaker 3: diagnosed him with Parkinson's decease. Robin probably had at least
Speaker 3: ten good years left in him if he did things right.
Speaker 3: But Robin's relief was short lived. He wasn't having any
Speaker 3: trouble with motor functions. Whatever was happening to him, it
Speaker 3: was in his mind. Robin went home to his wife, Susan,
Speaker 3: and suddenly started losing entire days as soon as they happened.
Speaker 3: I just want to reboot my brain, he told her.
Speaker 3: Some days he calls Zach ranting paranoid about how Susan's
Speaker 3: friends were all drug addicts, had to steal his money
Speaker 3: and then forget the entire conversation. One night, Robin saw
Speaker 3: a fellow comedian, Dana Carvey, in the parking lot of
Speaker 3: the Bay Area theater that had become a second home.
Speaker 3: Robin ran after him, pleading tears streaming down his face.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry about my dick, he said. How I call it,
Speaker 3: mister happy?
Speaker 2: That was your joke.
Speaker 3: I stole it from you all those years ago, and
Speaker 3: I just pretended like it never happened. I'm so sorry,
Speaker 3: Dana hell Robin while he cried and gently tried to
Speaker 3: explain that actually, that wasn't his stick joke. If Robin
Speaker 3: had stolen it, he must have gotten it from someone else,
Speaker 3: and this just made Robin even more confused. Over the
Speaker 3: course of that summer in twenty fourteen, Robin's friends and
Speaker 3: family became increasingly concerned about his behavior. They all tried
Speaker 3: in their own ways to gently intervene. On a Sunday
Speaker 3: night in August, he said good night to his wife,
Speaker 3: did some reading on his iPad, then went into the
Speaker 3: other room and hanged himself. After Robin's death by suicide,
Speaker 3: a medical autopsy revealed that nearly every single neuron in
Speaker 3: his brain and had been ravaged by Louis bodies. These
Speaker 3: are the same degenerative proteins that caused Parkinson's, but Robin
Speaker 3: was actually suffering from a different disease, a cousin to Parkinson's,
Speaker 3: called Louis body dementia. Several doctors said he had the
Speaker 3: single worst case they'd ever seen. Instead of affecting Robin's
Speaker 3: motor skills, the Louis bodies attacked his amignola in his brain,
Speaker 3: rapidly destroying his ability to process memories, make decisions, or
Speaker 3: regulate his emotions, and by the time of his death,
Speaker 3: nearly half of the dopamine neurons in his brain had
Speaker 3: been destroyed. There's an old joke. Guy goes to a shrink,
Speaker 3: says he's depressed. Shrink tells him to go see a
Speaker 3: clown called Polyacci who's performing in town that night, and
Speaker 3: that'll cheer him up. And then the guy says, but doctor,
Speaker 3: I am Polyacci. It's not uncommon to hear about the
Speaker 3: pressed comedians. But that's not what happened with Robin Williams.
Speaker 3: Sure he struggled with his mental health for other reasons
Speaker 3: throughout his life. Obviously, no one can know what was
Speaker 3: going through his head at the time of his death,
Speaker 3: but the Louis body dimension meant that he was literally
Speaker 3: losing his entire sense of pleasure or reward. By the
Speaker 3: time he died, Robin was physiologically incapable of being happy.
Speaker 3: Robin Williams' Blitzkrieg brain was his greatest gift to the world.
Speaker 3: It was also the thing that killed him. But like
Speaker 3: the man himself once said, death is just nature's way
Speaker 3: of saying your table's ready. I'm Jake Brennan and this
Speaker 3: is hollywood Land.
Speaker 4: Hollywood Land was created by Years Truly and is produced
Speaker 4: in partnership with Double Elvis.
Speaker 2: Follow like, rate and.
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Speaker 4: in touch with us on social media.
Speaker 3: At double Elvis.
Speaker 4: If you like Hollywoodland, check out my other show, the
Speaker 4: award winning Disgraceland, which looks at the world of music
Speaker 4: through the lens of true crime.
Speaker 3: Just search for Disgraceland or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2: Good there's a laugh