Remembering Mr. Williams - this reporter's personal encounter.
Robin Williams has been on my mind a lot in the last day or so. I used to be an entertainment reporter before I retired from the Associated Press. I had many opportunities to cover Robin Williams's work, and to interview him and participate in interview junkets with other reporters and entertainment columnists. He was a comedy gatling gun. A machine gun of sight gags and sound gags. He never stopped. He was always "on." And we who were there to witness and to chronicle and curate what he did - were always pretty much on the floor, on our asses, laughing hysterically, or nearly exploding while we tried desperately to stifle laughter so as not to ruin the soundbite. There were lots of his films to cover - "Hook," "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Awakenings," "Popeye" DAMN he was perfect for that character!, "Good Morning Vietnam," "Dead Poets Society," "The Fisher King," and more. And tons of "Comic Relief" coverage.
But there was one moment I shared with him where he was none of those things. It was a real departure - for me as the purportedly objective observer.
I was off-duty, taking my two very little kids to the park. I decided on a different park than the one I always took them to, in our neighborhood - just for something different. After driving around, we wound up in a park near Beverly Hills. The kids ran all over the large grassy area and played around the trees and then gravitated over to the sandbox area. BIG-ASS sandbox - the whole lower end of the park was this sandbox. It took up at least half of the "kiddie area," with the jungle gyms and the swings and slides and stuff. My kids were just digging in the dirt and playing and goofing around, with a couple of other little kids, with plastic shovels and pails and balls and stuff. I glanced up kinda absently and noticed a man there - obviously the dad to the other two kids. He was sitting on the side of the sandbox - on the rim, quietly watching them. Totally unremarkable, ordinary, you'd probably look right past him while scanning the playground for your kid or watching the dog that was being walked nearby. He was in simple jeans and a polo shirt, sorta scruffy-looking like any dad would be on the average Saturday where he didn't have to suit up for his job at the office, sitting elbows-on-knees, quiet, watching the kids. Seemed lost in thought. His hair was blond - dyed for his role in the movie "Toys," I think, so I didn't immediately recognize him. But suddenly I realized - "FUCK! That's ROBIN WILLIAMS! SHIT!" We sorta glanced at each other and nodded. I didn't want to intrude. I was off-duty, and clearly so was he. I didn't want to bother him. It wasn't the place or the time for schmoozing or maybe broaching the usual subject "would love to get a one-on-one interview with you..." It just wasn't the place or the time for that.
I tried not to gape. Hell, it wasn't as though I'd never seen him before. I'd covered all kinds of things he was doing as part of my job. I'd covered him and his career so much that he might even have recognized me as one of the many faces in the press corps that kept showing up for his events and projects. I tried not to stare. We just kinda absently, passively nodded acknowledgement to each other - here we are, some average dad and average mom sitting here at the park by the big sandbox, just watching our kids digging and goofing around in the sand together. Ordinary Average-Joe work-a-day civilians. I stayed there in the sandbox area for about 15 minutes with my brood and then it was time for me to round them up and head home. And as we walked toward the car, I glanced back and he was still just sitting there, watching his kids play. As casual and nondescript as could be.
It was the only time I ever saw him or encountered him in my work or interviewed him or covered his various adventures - where he was actually not "on." It was rather remarkable, considering. Considering the insanely fiery human comedic explosion he always was when he was "on." This was WAY different. Really a remarkable moment for me, and especially now, I'm grateful I got to share that little bit of a moment with him. The only time I ever witnessed Robin Williams deliberately fading himself into the background. And as you'd expect, he did THAT beautifully, too.
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