:format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/59758681/81496064.jpg.0.jpg)
During Robin Williams’s life, fans who saw him transition from comedic roles in TV shows like “Mork and Mindy” to more dramatic roles as in “Good Will Hunting” thought they knew what they were seeing.
“I think people want to paint him as the archetype of the comedian who one day woke up and decided he wanted to be serious,” Williams biographer Dave Itzkoff said on the latest episode of Recode Media with Peter Kafka.
In fact, Itzkoff writes in his new book “Robin: The Definitive Biography of Robin Williams,” the actor/comedian “always had both of those parts of his personality,” zany and serious. In addition to being a talented improv and stand-up comedian, he was a classically trained actor who studied at the Juilliard School and two other colleges.
When Williams took his own life in August 2014, the misconceptions continued. Fans and the media rushed to draw conclusions about the suicide and were led astray by incorrect or incomplete explanations.
“People went to the stereotype of the sad clown, the person who outwardly is happy but inside is broken,” Itzkoff said. “And he did have depression and he did wrestle with anxiety — people made that assumption. Then, within about a week of his death, it was disclosed that he had recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and that was correct, to a point.”
“But in fact — and this did not come out until his autopsy, which was several months after his death — that autopsy and the analysis of his brain tissue found the symptoms of what’s called Lewy body dementia,” he added. “The pathology is somewhat similar to Parkinson’s, but the spectrum of symptoms is great and the effect it likely had on him was pretty devastating.”
You can listen to Recode Media on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
On the new podcast, Itzkoff also talked about his interactions with Williams while he was alive, interviewing him and writing about him for the New York Times, where Itzkoff is a culture reporter. In the late aughts, after Williams relapsed into alcoholism, went through a divorce and had to postpone a live tour to get open-heart surgery, Itzkoff was surprised by his candor about those troubles.
“When he and I would have our interviews, he was open about all of this,” he said. “And often, as an interviewer, particularly when you’re talking to highly visible people, celebrities, and it’s known that negative things have happened, they don’t want to talk about it, or you have to really work up to it. You have to carefully construct the conversation so that they feel open enough to discuss some of those things with you.
“Everything with him was on the table, especially alcoholism and recovery and the real understanding of the awful things he had done while he was drinking, his feeling that it had put a stain on him and his family,” Itzkoff added. “He was really willing to go there. If he hadn’t been so candid and open about himself in that way, it would’ve been much harder to write something like this.”
If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:
- Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, is a weekly show featuring in-depth interviews with the movers and shakers in tech and media every Monday and Wednesday. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- Too Embarrassed to Ask, also hosted by Kara Swisher, answers all of the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
- And finally, Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, such as the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pocket Casts, Overcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on Apple Podcasts — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Peter. Tune in next Thursday for another episode of Recode Media!
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
