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Williams holds his daughter, Zelda, at the "Jumanji" premiere in 1995.
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In the wake of his death
from an apparent suicide, that question looms large as fans and friends
try to grasp how someone who brought so much happiness to the world
could leave it under a cloud of such despair.
It's the dichotomy of
fame in that while a celebrity can be so well-known there are parts of
their lives and selves they never share with the public.
And while only his loved
ones truly knew the private aspects of the Oscar-winning actor whose
performances could elicit tears as easily as they could giggles,
Williams did allow us to see how multifaceted he could be.
These are just some of them:
he devoted dad
The last image Williams left for the world on his Instagram
was a poignant one: a black and white image of the actor holding his
then toddler daughter with the caption "#tbt and Happy Birthday to Ms.
Zelda Rae Williams! Quarter of a century old today but always my baby
girl. Happy Birthday @zeldawilliams Love you!" He posted a similar image
earlier in honor of his son Zachary's birthday.
He often spoke lovingly of being father to the pair and another son, Cody. "My children give me a great sense of wonder," Williams said. "Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings."
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| Williams once visited a San Francisco sex shop dressed as "Mrs. Doubtfire." |
The prankster
Sure he was funny on-screen, but Williams also liked to pull a leg or two in real life. He told fans during a 2013 Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session that he once walked into a San Francisco sex shop in full Mrs. Doubtfire make-up and tried to buy a sex toy.
"And the guy was about
to sell it to me until he realized it was me -- Robin Williams -- not an
older Scottish woman coming in to look for a very large [sex toy] and a
jar of lube," Williams said. "He just laughed and said "what are you
doing here" and I left."
The husband
The actor was married
three times. His union with Valerie Velardi from 1978 to 1988 produced
his son Zachary. Williams was married to Marsha Garces from 1989 to
2010, with whom he had Zelda and Cody. In 2011, he married graphic
designer Susan Schneider.
The breakups were costly for Williams, he told Parade magazine.
"Divorce is expensive. I
used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but they
changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your
wallet. Are things good with my exes? Yes. But do I need that lifestyle?
No."
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Williams appears on the first season of "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" in 1992.
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The friend
There was a good reason
Williams has been so deeply mourned by his show business colleagues. He
showed himself to be incredibly loyal to friends such as Jay Leno and
the late Christopher Reeve, who came to love Williams before he was
famous.
After Williams' death, Leno said,
"I saw him on stage that very first time he auditioned at the Improv in
Los Angeles, and we have been friends ever since. It's a very sad day."
It was while students at
Juilliard in New York City that Williams and Reeve -- who would find
fame in the role as Superman in the '70s and '80s -- cemented a bond. In
fact, after Reeve was paralyzed in a riding accident, he credited
Williams with making him laugh again.
Reeve was about to
undergo a serious operation when Williams showed up dressed in surgical
scrubs and speaking in a Russian accent, saying he needed to do a rectal
exam. "For the first time since the accident, I laughed," Reeve said.
"My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be OK."
The mentee
While so many younger
actors looked to Williams for inspiration, he was a a huge fan of the
late comedian Jonathan Winters, whom Williams discovered as a child
while watching Jack Paar on "The Tonight Show" with his father. Years
later, an adult Williams would share the "Tonight Show" stage with
Winters and cast Winters to play his son on his hit show "Mork &
Mindy." When Winters died in 2013, Williams wrote a moving appreciation of his mentor for The New York Times.
"No audience was too small for Jonathan," Williams wrote. "I once saw him do a hissing cat for a lone beagle."
The edgy actor
His skills as a zany funny man were legendary, but Williams could also deliver riveting dramatic performances.
2002 was especially a
break-out year for him as he played a killer in the film "Insomnia" and a
stalker photo technician in "One Hour Photo." Williams not only changed
his look for the latter to play Seymour "Sy" Parrish but he said in an interview
that to prepare, he "watched some interviews with serial killers --
'Psychotics Through the Ages.' It's a collectible tape from Time-Life
Books. But basically, it was using the material and extrapolating from
there."
It's a role that still astonishes.
"Williams' finely
calibrated performance was utterly free of the tics and affectations
that are so tempting to someone who has come to count on and crave the
audience's love," Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday writes. "Rather
than seek his fans' approval with the actorly equivalent of
ingratiating winks, Williams was willing to completely inhabit a
character who was somehow terrifying, pathetic, creepy and vulnerable
all at once."
The philanthropist
As one of the co-hosts
for Comic Relief's debut in 1986, he helped raise both funding for and
awareness about the homeless. But that was just one of the many
charities to which Williams gave his time and resources.
"Robin came from a
family with money -- he was brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth,
and I think he felt so blessed that he wanted to do something for
people who weren't brought up like that," Comic Relief founder Bob Zmuda
told The Los Angeles Times.
The sports enthusiast
Williams involvement
with sports went beyond that time he dressed up a as Denver Broncos'
cheerleader for an episode of "Mork & Mindy."
Die-hard fans remember his hilarious stand-up routine about the origins of golf, and
he would often end up on the cam at various sporting events. The actor
was a close personal friend of then-professional cyclist Lance
Armstrong, who he would join in training.
The sci-fi geek
Perhaps it was playing an alien that did it.
It turns out that
Williams was a bit of a sci-fi geek who when asked his favorite book
said, "Oh my God, Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. It's one of the
greatest books of all time, and the greatest character is The Mule."
The man who struggled
As shocking as his death
has been, Williams was open about his issues with substance abuse and
stints in rehab. He blamed his relapse into drinking for helping to end
his second marriage.
"You know, I was shameful, and you do stuff that causes disgust, and that's hard to recover from," Williams told The Guardian in 2010. "You can say, 'I forgive you' and all that stuff, but it's not the same as recovering from it. It's not coming back."
Even then it seemed that
Williams was trying to find his way. Asked whether he was happier in
his life, he responded "I think so. And not afraid to be unhappy. That's
OK too. And then you can be like, all is good. And that is the thing,
that is the gift."
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