WASHINGTON – At his peak, Robin Williams had the world at his feet. At his nadir, he was weighed down by the world. The immensely gifted entertainer was found dead at his California home on Sunday, with suicide by asphyxiation cited as the probable cause, after years of battling chronic depression that in turn led to alcohol and substance abuse.
How can someone who has given so much happiness worldwide, on stage and on screen, commit suicide, was a question that echoed through the entertainment industry and beyond. It brought attention once again to little-treated and often-scoffed mental illnesses such as depression and bipolar disorder. Evidently, beneath all the laughter and mirth, Williams, who was 63, had fought the twin demons for decades. Alcohol and substance abuse were temporary, intermittent fixes; suicide was the final, terrible way out.
It need not have been so. One expert believes Williams pushed himself to the edge in his pursuit of giving his audience a comedic high.
“Bipolar disorder is best understood as a medical disease characterized by “high highs” (mania) and “low lows” (depression),” says Jay P Singh, a Washington DC psychiatrist and CEO of the Global Institute of Forensic Research. ”This roller coaster can place individuals such as Williams at higher risk of problem behaviors such as self-harm and, in tragic cases such as this, suicide.”
According to Singh, access to appropriate medication and adherence to a routine medication schedule can significantly reduce the likelihood of suicide in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder. But Williams, he says, was known to go off his medications prior to comedy events to induce a manic state. In other words, he pushed himself to the edge to make the world laugh.
Laughter was Williams’ stock-in-trade from the time the Chicago-native began as painted-face mime in front of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City, earning about $ 75 a day. He began his screen career on television with the ironically (in hindsight) named Happy Days, and Mork and Mindy (1978-1982) that became a raging hit and propelled him to stardom. His most recent screen gig was, again, the aptly named The Crazy One,a CBS sitcom that ran only one season.
A sign and a flower are affixed to the front gate at a makeshift memorial outside the home where the 80s TV series Mork & Mindy, starring the late Robin Williams, was set, in Boulder. (AP photo)
The Crazy One he was, in the best sense of the expression. A comedic genius, he turned out a dazzling array of performance between his debut and death, playing such a colorful array of characters on – and off-screen that it was said there were several Robin Williams’, not one.
“He was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien — but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most,” US President Obama said in a tribute. Williams was a liberal Democrat.
Well wishers and members of the media gather in front of the home where actor and comedian Robin Williams filmed the movie Mrs. Doubtfire in San Francisco, California. (AFP photo)
Indian audiences know him mainly though his cinematic oeuvre — the loquacious DJ in Good Morning, Vietnam; the mentor in Dead Poets Society, the therapist (and more about this tribe momentarily) in Good Will Hunting etc. But it was as a stand-up comic that he was at his manic best. Nothing was sacred for this profane, prolific, and profound genius — not Mahatma Gandhi, nor Mother Teresa. In a Broadway stand-up performance in 1999, he even made fun of the Indian nuclear tests, joking that the bomb could ”turn the whole world into chicken tikka.”
In 2010, he acted in Broadway play, “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” by the Indian-American playwright Rajiv Joseph centering on a tiger that haunts the streets of present day Baghdad contemplating the absurdities of war and seeking the meaning of life. It was to be one of the last stage performances before Williams himself was claimed by the absurdities of life.
