It’s hard to believe that more than 7 years have passed since Robin Williams passed away. Even though he has been gone for quite some time, however, we still continue to discuss him and his legacy that he left for all of us to appreciate. For some, it is a matter of remembering him from his former years, such as when he was on Mork and Mindy but for others, it may have been his many movies or perhaps his standup that really touched their heart.
We may have thought that we knew something about Williams while he was alive but now that he has passed away, it seems as if we are getting to know so much more about him. Many celebrities have even begun to share their stories about how he touched their lives through his humor, kindness, and personality. It took three months after he died before the world found out why he took his own life.
It was Susan Schneider, his wife who let the world know that the 63-year-old actor didn’t take his own life because of depression or bipolar disorder. He was battling with a problem known as Lewy body dementia, a type of dementia that causes symptoms such as depression, hallucinations and slowed motor function.
Schneider described the disease as “chemical warfare in the brain” and that “no one could have done anything more for Robin.”
She told Good Morning America that he was struggling in the months leading up to his suicide. She was devastated as she watched him slowly deteriorate before her eyes.
She talked about the time she found him on the bathroom floor bleeding after he had hit his head. She asked him what had happened and he simply said ‘I miscalculated’.
Susan described it as watching her best friend sinking but now even more details have come to light.
A new biography has been written by Author Dave Itzkoff. It helps us to see even clearer what was taking place during that time.
He talked about some things that took place while he was working on his final movie, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
“He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible,” makeup artist Cheri Minns recalled in the book. “I said to his people, ‘I’m a makeup artist. I don’t have the capacity to deal with what’s happening to him.'”
He even suggested that Williams start doing stand up again in hopes that the familiarity would help him to cope.
“He just cried and said, ‘I can’t, Cheri. I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know how to be funny.'”
Williams was not aware that he had Lewy body dementia at the time. He had been misdiagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which is also a progressive disorder that attacks the nervous system.
Williams had many symptoms that mimicked Parkinson’s disease, including tremors, speech problems, and impaired movement.
“I put myself in his place. Think of it this way: The speed at which the comedy came is the speed at which the terrors came,” Minns said in the book. “And all that they described that can happen with this psychosis, if that’s the right word — the hallucinations, the images, the terror — coming at the speed his comedy came at, maybe even faster, I can’t imagine living like that.”
Billy Crystal, a longtime friend of Williams comes forward in the book to talk about how he learned about the diagnosis and how it had affected his friend. Crystal, who is 70 said that his friend showed signs when he saw him at an outing.
“I hadn’t seen him in about four or five months at the time, and when he got out of the car I was a little taken aback by how he looked. He was thinner and he seemed a little frail,” said Crystal.
“He seemed quiet. On occasion, he’d just reach out and hold my shoulder and look at me like he wanted to say something. He hugged me goodbye, and Janice, and he started crying,” Crystal said. “I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ He said, ‘Oh, I’m just so happy to see you. It’s been too long. You know I love you.’”
Crystal said that he recognized that his friend was going downhill but Williams didn’t let him see everything that was taking place. He then was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.
His number comes up on my phone and he says, ‘Hey, Bill.’ His voice was high-pitched. ‘I’ve just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s,’ ” Crystal recalled. “I didn’t miss a beat. Because of my relationship with Muhammad Ali, I knew a lot of really good Parkinson’s research doctors. I said, ‘In Phoenix, the research center is great. If you want, we can get you in there. It would be totally anonymous. Do you want me to pursue that?’ Would you?’ ”
He added, “I never heard him afraid like that before. This was the boldest comedian I ever met — the boldest artist I ever met. But this was just a scared man.”
The doctors didn’t figure out that he had Lewy body dementia until after the autopsy.
“I know now the doctors, the whole team was doing exactly the right things,” Schneider said in an interview with People. “It’s just that this disease was faster than us and bigger than us. We would have gotten there eventually.”
Schneider revealed some details in an essay entitled The Terrorist inside My Husband’s Brain. She said that the day was spent doing “all the things we love,” and “it was perfect – like one long date.” She thought maybe he was getting better but he took his life that night.
“I was getting in bed and he came in the room a couple of times and he said, ‘Goodnight, my love,’” Susan recalled. “And then, he came back again. He came out with his iPad, and he looked like he had something to do. And that was like, ‘I think he’s getting better.’ And then he said ‘goodnight, goodnight.’ That was the last.”
Schneider is now trying to raise awareness for that brain disease. She is serving on the Board of Directors for The American Brain Foundation.
She has also sent out a message to anyone who may have loved Williams and may have tried to help him.
“I just want everyone to know that… everyone did the very best they could,” she said. “This disease is like a sea monster with 50 tentacles of symptoms that show when they want. And we can’t find it until someone dies definitively. There is no cure.”
The book is available on Amazon.