Comedy’s Dark Day, 8/11, The Death of Robin Williams

by Quendrith Johnson, Los Angeles Correspondent

Traditional obituaries are hard to write for comedians, especially legends like Robin Williams (July 21, 1951 - Aug. 11, 2014) who died today, because they have all died so many times. First they all die, then, if they are lucky like the late great fast-talker Robin Williams, they learn to “kill.” 

But today 8/11 the giant killer, the phenomenon who was the heir to all the gifts of Lenny Bruce, Jonathan Winters, George Burns, and Rodney Dangerfield, died of unnatural causes up in Northern California. (Is there a nice way to say “suspected suicide?”)

Williams might have debuted on “Happy Days,” the cute little TV show, but he had the talent of George Carlin, Sam Kinison, John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley, even Gilda Radner, Phyllis Diller, Mae West, and Fanny Brice. He could mimic them all, and Presidents, prophets, puppets, aliens; he could do The Birdcage, Patch Adams, Mork. But Robin Williams did himself best of all. In fact he inspired other people to dare to imitate him, and aside from Frank Caliendo, no one has ever tried.

A world without Robin Williams is just hard to imagine. But here we are, without the man famous for telling us “Suicide is a permanent solution to temporary problems.” Jonathan Winters would be disappointed with the way he went out, but he wasn’t around  to save him either.

Just listen to Robin Williams’ own words, writing about his mentor in The New York Times, “In 1981, my sitcom “Mork & Mindy” was about to enter its fourth and final season. The show had run its course and we wanted to go out swinging. The producers suggested hiring Jonathan to play my son, who ages backward. That woke me out of a two-year slump. The cavalry was on the way.”

The sadness of Williams’ hasty exit will be felt all over the world, not in just Hollywood, as if that cosmic super-moon showed up to take him back home somewhere beyond the stars. There will be Breaking News for days about this, the speculation, the rumors, the innuendo. Unnatural causes, how could he? That is a moot point.