Tomorrow marks 10 years since we lost the one-of-a-kind talent, joy, and humanity of Robin Williams. The death of the Oscar-winning actor and comedian in 2014 shocked fans and colleagues alike, with an outpouring of memories, love, and support for his family and friends following in its wake.
To this day, the people who have been fortunate enough to have known Williams personally or worked with him continue sharing stories, with many contributing some recently for a piece in Vanity Fair, including his “Mrs. Doubtfire” co-star Sally Field.
“I never shared this story before,” Field said. “I was in the camper outside of the courtroom where we were shooting the divorce scene. My father had a stroke a couple of years before, and was in a nursing facility. I got a phone call from the doctor saying my father had passed, a massive stroke.”
Field described how the doctor asked if she’d like them to try and resuscitate her father, but she knew he didn’t want that, so she offered her goodbyes and let him go. Despite the intense emotions of this experience, Field tried to push them away to do her job and perform, but was so numb, she couldn’t even get herself to cry as the scene required.
Williams noticed and pulled her aside, away from the set, to ask her if she was okay. Immediately upon finding out her father had died, Williams said, “Oh my God, we need to get you out here right now.”
“And he made it happen,” Field said to Vanity Fair. “They shot around me the rest of the day. I could go back to my house, call my brother, and make arrangements. It’s a side of Robin that people rarely knew: He was very sensitive and intuitive.”
Part of that sensitivity also meant Williams knew how to be in the moment and bring a scene to another level.
“Robin and I made a deal,” “Mrs. Doubtfire” director Christopher Columbus said to Vanity Fair. “He said, ‘We’re going do two or three scripted takes, and then we are going to play.’ The scene where he’s getting out of his Mrs. Doubtfire costume when the social worker arrives was brutally improvised. And the final scene in the restaurant. Sally Field, Pierce Brosnan, and the kids had no idea what Robin was going to say next.“
Field said of working with Williams’ spontaneity, “It was my task to simply respond to whatever he did, as a real person would. I completely loved that stay-on-your-toes feeling. You couldn’t really see what ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ was on the page. It became its own life form primarily because of him.”
