Robin Williams - When the Laughter Stops 1951-2014 by Emily Herbert Page A

years, of course, the various establishments where Williams studied were all exceedingly keen to ally themselves with a fine actor and comic genius, as he was. He even stayed in touch with some of them, including James Dunn at College of Marin, and his death came as a terrible shock to the institutions and individuals involved in his career, with many of them wishing to pay tribute to the master who had left them (and everyone else) behind.
    ‘For the first time his eyes looked deep set and his face looked tired,’ Dunn, who occasionally saw Williams over the years, told
MailOnline
, of the last occasion on which they met. ‘He always had an impish charm about him for as long as I can remember but that vanished. There was always this aura around him. He always had women attention. You just couldn’t not love him and that definitely rubbed off on the ladies. He was a womanizer, there’s no doubt about that – and he always seemed to be able to deal with anything.’ (It should be said that Dunn was speaking of the past, not Robin’s marriage to his third wife, Susan Schneider, which had been extremely happy.)
    ‘He was a sharp guy,’ he continued. ‘And even until recently Robin still seemed to be in good shape despite the major heart problems. There are some people who have demons but Robin wasn’t that way, I never saw him as adark person but some comics do have a dark side. I think it’s hard to be funny and pull out the absurdities of life. He did a lot of drugs and then cleaned up on that. Then he got into alcohol and was in rehab a couple of times. When you look back on it you think, “Well, he lived life,” he was like a moth to a flame – eventually he burnt out.’
    It must be said that not everyone agrees with Dunn – many believe that Robin Williams had a very dark side indeed. Always there was an underlying sadness there, even in his most manic moments.
    Naturally, The Juilliard was similarly affected by his death. Ironically or not, Robin Williams is among its most famous alumni, the boy considered too individual to train as an actor and yet turned out to be one of the finest actors of them all. It put out the following statement.
    STATEMENT FROM THE JUILLIARD SCHOOL ON THE PASSING OF ROBIN WILLIAMS
    The Juilliard community is deeply saddened by the death of our distinguished alumnus Robin Williams. Robin’s genius for comedic improvisation, which quickly surfaced in his studies at Juilliard, was matched by his deep understanding of the actor’s art and how to touch his audience in meaningful ways. He was a generous supporter of the School’s drama students through the Robin Williams Scholarship, which supported the tuition cost of a drama student each year. As an artist, he brought together a unique mix oftraditional actor training with a creative spirit that set new standards for performance in cinema, television and live theater. His caring ways and effervescent personality will be missed by all who were touched by this special person.
    Joseph W. Polisi
    President of The Juilliard School

CHAPTER FOUR
SEVENTIES SENSATION
    ‘Comedy is acting out optimism.’
    R OBIN W ILLIAMS
    Post-Juilliard, Williams moved back to California, the place that was to become home for the rest of his life. Whatever his experiences had been to date – and his acting ambitions burned as strongly as ever – one thing was clear: he was blessed with a comic genius and he was going to put it to good use. In his own words though, it came about because his acting wasn’t going so well: ‘I left school and couldn’t find acting work so I started going to clubs where you could do stand-up,’ he said. ‘I’ve always improvised and stand-up was a great relief. All of a sudden it was just me and the audience.’ And didn’t he put it to good effect?
    Of course, Robin had some previous stand-up experiencebut now it was time to make it his career. Already he had performed in San Francisco but now it was time to move on