This is not the pit, you MAY NOT say that. I have had relatives who committed suicide, so I will not respond to you in kind, but you DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT to say that.
Very, very sorry to hear the news. He was a comic genius and a very capable actor, and he will certainly be missed.
I was just listening to this the other day - 20-some years ago, Robin channeled his inner old Jewish man to very entertainingly retell a Russian folk tale (there’s some good klezmer music in this, too): - YouTube
Fair enough. The thing is, clinical depression isn’t a rational thing, in that it’s not necessarily a direct result of events, and it’s doubly irrational in the case of people with honest-to-God mental illnesses like bipolar disorder.
You can very easily get people like Robin Williams and Kurt Cobain who were well loved, wealthy and who seemingly would have everything to live for, but end up losing the fight with their own demons of despair and depression. Not rational at all, like I was saying.
I agree. Comedy often comes from pain.
Seconded. Seriously. Brother.
I don’t endorse the way they said it, but the idea that “suicide is such a selfish thing to do” is seen as pretty ignorant by a lot of people. I’ve had friends and family kill themselves and suffered from clinical depression, and I wouldn’t call it selfish any more than I’d call somebody in chronic pain from cancer choosing euthanasia “selfish”. Not only does depression completely warp thinking, it’s also extremely painful. I don’t know why there has to be so much self-righteous judgment about people who are ill.
Heavy sigh.
I’m so sad to hear this. He was a brilliant comedian and a wonderful dramatic actor, too. 
In the New York Times article, it said he studied at Juilliard. Does anyone know what he studied there? Do they teach acting or did he play an instrument?
And Dead Poets Society. Those three movies are my favorites of his.
My heart hurts.
I think I was one of the few people who liked the movie Toys, but it’s all I’ve been thinking about this evening.
Dammit. I was just quoting him in a post a few days ago. Loved that guy.
Mine too. Huh, hadn’t thought about that line in decades. I remember my brother and I would throw things up in the air and say in a silly voice, “fly, be free”. Then, a befuddled, “huh”. When they crashed down.
It’s just amazing to think about how many lives he’s positively touched.
How sad.
There’s a shit ton of depressed people on this planet. It’s discouraging to see a gifted person loved by millions take this route. I know it’s a mental disease but if somebody with his financial means can’t get a handle on it then WTH. He literally could have hired a psychiatrist as his full time personal assistant.
Despite the shock some people are obviously feeling and the sensitivity of depression as a subject, this is way out of line. And to everybody else: if you want to bash people for being callous or for saying the wrong thing, do it in the Pit. Don’t muck up this thread.
I can’t tell if you are trying to “blame the victim” here by suggesting that Mr. Williams should have been able to buy his mental health back or if you are commenting on the truly confounding, at times hopeless nature of severe depression, in that it can affect even the richest among us.
I know it got bad reviews, but I’ve always found Popeye and Williams’s performance in it to be weirdly compelling. It was a very dark version of zany – like playing a French video game.
Somebody started a thread not too long asking if anybody had ever shed a tear when a celebrity died. It’s only happened to me twice—Linus Pauling and Charles Schulz. This makes three. The weird thing is, I was just thinking about that thread a couple of days ago.
One of my speech instructors passes out a questionnaire every semester with five questions, one of which is ‘who are (or were) the three greatest orators of the twentieth century?’ He said that one semester, every single person in the class listed Williams.
Seconded. Making demands of someone in pain is selfish.
he studied drama, john houseman was one of his teachers there; christopher reeve was his classmate and roommate. he was there for 3 years.
I liked it quite a bit growing up. My brother and I watched it a lot.