Robin

by Dave Itzkoff

He was more like an illusionist, and his magic trick was making you see what he wanted you to see—the act and not the artist delivering it.

The real Robin was a modest, almost inconspicuous man, who never fully believed he was worthy of the monumental fame, adulation, and accomplishments he would achieve.

Everyone felt as if they knew him, even if they did not always admire the work he did.

In a room full of strangers, it compelled him to keep everyone entertained and happy, and it left him feeling utterly deserted in the company of the people who loved him most.

“What drives you to perform is the need for that primal connection,” he later explained. “My mother was funny with me, and I started to be charming and funny for her, and I learned that by being entertaining, you make a connection with another person.”

“I made up my own little friends. ‘Can I come out and play?’ ‘I don’t know; I’ll have to ask myself.’”

“Christian Dior Scientist.”

“He’s dead, motherfucker, now get off! You can’t do shit for him, so take your raggedy California ass and get outta my bus!”

Comedy, Leno said, is an unusual discipline where “the affirmation of strangers is more important than that of friends or family members. No comic wants his friends or his family in the audience. They’re either going to laugh too hard or they’re not going to laugh at all. You want complete strangers. They’re the only ones that count.”

From me to you. You got to be crazy. You know what I’m talking about? Full goose bozo. ’Cause what is reality? You got to be crazy. You got to! ’Cause madness is the only way I’ve stayed alive. Used to be a comedian. Used to, a long time ago. It’s true. You got to go full-tilt bozo. ’Cause you’re only given a little spark of madness. If you lose that, you’re nothing. Don’t. From me to you. Don’t ever lose that, because it keeps you alive. Because if you lose that, pfft. That’s my only love. Crazy.

“I did cocaine so I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody,” he said. “For me it was like a sedative, a way of pulling back from people and from a world that I was afraid of.”

At its core, The World According to Garp was about how the things we fear most in life are determined at an early age and amplified, not overcome, as we grow older.

“For a guy who always had these insecurities,” he added, “to finally be praised and all of a sudden to have made it, that was a great moment for him.”

This afternoon—all by myself—I went to see “Dead Poets Society.” It’s a fine film and your performance in it is superb. I admire you greatly and I thank you for enriching the lives of so many through your art. You certainly contribute many verses as “the power of the play goes on.” Gratefully, Fred Rogers

He observed, as many of Robin’s friends did, that there were “multiple Robins.”

“You keep thinking, ‘I can handle this—I got this under control,’” he later explained. “Yeah, for a day. You go a week. And I didn’t drink for a week and then bang. And then the next week I’d be back at it. And then the next.”

“I was shameful,” he said, “and you do stuff that causes disgust, and that’s hard to recover from. You can say, ‘I forgive you’ and all that stuff, but it’s not the same as recovering from it. It’s not coming back.”

It required an intervention—really, an ultimatum—from the other members of his family for Robin to accept that he needed help for his alcohol addiction, and that it was more than any of them could provide. He would have to check into a residential treatment facility and get clean there.

“Dad’s happiness was correlated very much to how he was doing, career-wise,” Zak said. “When there were films that would be less successful, he took it very personally. He took it as a personal attack. That was really hard for us to see.”

“You have to give up. That’s the time when you finally do have hope. That’s that weird thing when you’re totally fucking alone. That’s the moment when the help begins.”