30

THE SPEED OF LIFE

Shortly after our final show we learned the terrible news that our friend, the wonderful, funny, extraordinary Robin Williams, was dead. And unbelievably, by his own hand. I will never be reconciled to his death, but I will remain forever grateful for his life. He brought me so much joy, so much laughter. For thirty-four years he was my pal. Nobody was ever quite like Robin. He was sui generis, which is Latin for fuck off and don’t be pretentious.

I first saw him in May 1980, in a seedy ex–strip club in Soho, where he was inviting a British audience to pray for the death of a heckler. The previous comedian, Alexei Sayle, had fought desperately against a loud, drunk, aggressive crowd and had virtually given up.

“But,” he said, with a twinkle, “I have a secret weapon.”

Did he ever. He brought on Robin, who from the moment he bounced onstage turned this dangerous, hostile crowd into a docile chorus of grateful adorers who hung on his every line and laughed at his every riff. I have never seen a funnier man. It’s as if Einstein suddenly decided, “Fuck it, I’ll do stand-up.” It was high intelligence, perverted for purely mischievous ends. I’ve seen a few funny people in my time, and I can tell you there was never a one like this. After the show, while I was still gasping for air, we met and went across the street for a meal that started a lifelong friendship.

Life would never be the same again. In conversation, he was so fast you could barely get a thought out before he would seize it, gloss it, show you the opposite, turn it upside down, show you the left and right of it, run multiple variations on it, and then, properly examined, hand it back to you. It was like Mozart improvising on a theme.

In the fall of 1980, around the time we played the Hollywood Bowl, Tania and I visited him and his first wife, Valerie, in rustic Topanga Canyon amongst their goats. Soon afterwards, Robin took me on a wild comedy ride that went from large clubs to small clubs, to extremely tiny clubs in both LA and San Francisco. He never stopped. Every night, he had to work out. Along the way, there would be refueling stops at rich mansions where powerful people bent over powdered mirrors. For it was the time of cocaine. Mountains of it. He would burst on the scene, reduce them to laughter, hit them up for some lines, and we would be off. Finally, in front of as few as six startled customers in some seedy comedy club, he would bounce onstage at three in the morning to excite and ignite, to hit and run and leave them wondering what just happened. Pity the poor young comic he had just preempted and left in his wake to follow him. He was not always popular amongst comedians, because sometimes, while ad-libbing, he would remember someone else’s line, but no one could doubt his status. Finally, toward dawn he would run out of clubs, the coke had by then conclusively clogged his mind, he would cease to be funny, and we could slink off to roost.

We spent a lot of time together before he finally trusted me enough that he didn’t have to be funny every second. I could write a novel about him. In fact, I did: The Road to Mars. When it was published, Steve Martin wrote the best-ever blurb:

“I laughed. I cried. And then I read the book.”

When Robin and Valerie came to stay with us in France, Mork & Mindy was the most popular show on American TV and Robin could go nowhere without being mobbed. In France, he was completely anonymous. He couldn’t believe it. He stood in open disbelief in the middle of a Provençal fete, amazed and thrilled that not a single soul recognized him. Finally, he jumped up and down in the middle of the dance floor yelling, “I’m Mork! I’m Mork!” Nobody turned a hair. The French danced by with hardly a Gallic shrug at this crazy foreigner.

The freedom of anonymity is what you lose most with fame. I told him it’s very important to get away from it all, so your life isn’t just showbiz. There’s got to be a place where you can be you. It’s vital not to lose that sense of yourself, and to get away from time to time so you know who you are. Seeing our French hideaway encouraged him to buy a country place for himself up in Napa. He even managed to escape the shackles of alcohol and cocaine shortly after John Belushi overdosed in a bungalow at the Chateau Marmont. What a terrible waste of a great talent. So many more gifted young comedians would follow. Robin had been one of the last people to visit John and see him alive that night. Now a grand jury was investigating. Time to clean up. No drugs, no alcohol. Robin only became funnier.

Shelley Duvall asked me to write and direct the premiere episode of Faerie Tale Theatre for cable TV, and Robin played a frog for me, which won me a CableACE Award. I wrote “The Tale of the Frog Prince” for Robin as the eponymous amphibian and Teri Garr as a petulant princess. One morning on set, I saw Robin in his frog mask with huge tears in his eyes, reading in Daily Variety that Mork & Mindy was being canceled after five years. Nice executive touch, that. Shall we tell him? Nah, let’s just put it in the papers. He was very upset, and he gathered the crew around him and just let go on ABC. He was hilarious and brilliant, deeply hurt and dressed as a frog, and he just let it all out, trashing the network, lambasting the executives, naming the names and taking no prisoners. Ten minutes in which he killed us with his wit, scraped out every last scrap of resentment for our laughter, turned all the hurt inside-out with the truth exposed, so that at the end he was whole again and ready to work. What better example of the healing power of comedy?

I had the pleasure of introducing him to Peter Cook at our London house at a dinner party on April 7, 1992. Here’s the cast list:

Eric and Tania Idle

Robin Williams

Barbara Hershey

Gary and Michelle Lineker

Charles and Kay Saatchi

Lin and Peter Cook

I almost wrote casualty list, for many of us nearly died. None of us could eat. We could hardly breathe. It was the big bang of comedy. The funniest and most original Brit meets the funniest and most original American. They were so hilarious, they sucked all the air out of the room. Comedy kills, they say. That night we were lucky to survive. Billy Connolly, who himself comes close to the title, said Peter Cook was the funniest man in the world. Robin certainly challenged them both.

Often, I would go shopping with him in Beverly Hills, because he was a clothes freak, and he would swish around the stores being outrageously gay.

“Oh Eric, this is so you, it goes with your eyes. Red…”

He reduced shopkeepers to helpless giggles.

He did it again with me shopping for shoes in Florence, speaking fluently in cod Italian, and then spending ten minutes on Michelangelo in a little old Russian voice.

Two Gentlemen of Versace.

“So, this is David? What, he can’t afford underpants?”

He came to visit us in Rome when we were filming Terry Gilliam’s epic misadventures of Baron Munchausen at Cinecittà. The production was a legendary disaster. We were all suffering. The arrival of Robin cheered us all up, and amazingly Terry persuaded him to come back and play the part Sean Connery had just abandoned. His managers didn’t want him to do it, so he appeared under a pseudonym, Ray D. Tutto. This was great news for our little gang of actors. We had been suffering from Valentina Cortese, an Italian actress of the old school. No matter what the scene, or what we had rehearsed, on hearing the word “Action” she always headed directly for the camera and the center of the shot, shoving everyone out of her way. Poor adorable, seventeen-year-old Uma Thurman in her first film was constantly being pushed aside by a very determined Valentina. Robin, who is by no means easily upstaged, instantly arrested this tendency by plonking his foot firmly on the hem of her costume so she couldn’t move, and then shoving a peach in her mouth so she couldn’t speak. Oh, how we applauded.

One weekend we escaped on what we called “The Big Jobbie Tour,” named after a Billy Connolly routine about a floating turd, and I drove Robin, his wife Marsha, and Tania in my fab Citroën CX Turbo from Rome to Sorrento with improv all the way. We got lost and ended up accidentally in a funeral cortege in some little village, crawling along behind the mourners.

“Don’t laugh,” said Robin. “It’s Don Corleone.”

He gave us a misguided tour of the deserted ruins of Pompeii in his flamboyant phony Italian, leaving our real guide doubled over, gasping for air.

“You see they is no roofs on any of these houses because it was so very hot that they never finished building anything. They never finished building the whole city, because all they do is have sex all the time…”

We took a horse-drawn-carriage tour of Sorrento, where the horse was so skinny that Robin suggested we put it in the carriage while we pulled. Next day we took the chair lift to the top of Capri and gazed across the Bay of Naples at Mount Vesuvius. Of course, we took a boat into the Blue Grotto, where even the boatman became hysterical as Robin improvised Tiberius encouraging his naked nymphs to nibble on his testicles, in mad Italian.

On Capri.

It was a wonderful weekend but then it was back to the chaos of Cinecittà, where each week our drivers became better dressed and drove newer cars. Someone was making money. At first it was fun driving past the Colosseum on the way to work, but soon it turned into a nightmare that lasted six months. I had my head shaved every morning and then three hours of makeup. Gilliam swore to me he would shave his head if I did, but the minute I did he reneged, the bastard. Often the cast would get made up and then be told, oh no, they wanted the younger version. Back for another three hours of makeup.

Munchausen was a long and difficult shoot. I said I’d rather go back to boarding school, but Terry has the most amazing stamina and willpower, and how he kept it together I have no idea. Seeing him recently I realized he is only happy in chaos, and he made me laugh so much talking about directing while incontinent with a catheter on his latest film, Don Quixote, which he had amazingly just finished. He laughed at his own folly, but he is still the funny, crazy Terry Gilliam I’ve known all these years. Although he does seem to attract trouble…

Robin taught me the meaning of private-jet lag. We were always off on holidays or cruises, to the West Indies, to the Bahamas, to Venice, and to Greece. Occasionally we would have some nice private times together, when he could just be sweet and serious. I can remember swimming ashore with him from a boat in the Aegean. It was a lot farther than we thought, and we both struggled. We hugged as we finally reached the beach. Always a bit too far out.

Suffering from private-jet lag in the Aegean.

Once, for his birthday, he picked me up in his jet from Montreal and flew me to Paris. Just the two of us. We shopped, we dined, and we went to the Crazy Horse. He was scared Marsha would find out, and I said, “Don’t worry, she will, because I’ll tell her. We’re looking, not shopping.”

Next day was the final day of the Tour de France, where for the last two laps we had the unbelievable treat of being in the little red Renault that is the lead car, a seat usually reserved for presidents but on this day filled with three very excited men: me, Robin, and Michael J. Fox. It was the most exciting thing I have done with my pants on. The lead riders were eight yards behind us sprinting up the Champs Élysées. We couldn’t believe we were that close. We screamed and yelled like ten-year-olds. It was the best seat for any sport ever. As we passed the Louvre and headed down into the tunnel, a hundred riders were pedaling hard behind us for the final bell. As we climbed out of the little red Renault totally exhilarated, Michael J. Fox said, “We will always have Paris.”

Robin took me to the Tour de France three times and we always had fun. He excelled at cycling and would go riding with Lance Armstrong’s team on their day off. It was sad about Lance. The French always said he was cheating. Seven Tours in a row?

Robin and I were computer geeks, and both of us used the same Toshiba dealer in Beverly Hills. One day I was in the shop and I heard the guy answer the phone, “Oh hello, Robin.” I could tell by the tone it was The Robin. I said to the guy, “Let me talk to him,” and he handed me the phone. So I started talking in a very cod, over-the-top comic Indian accent.

“Hello, who is this, please? Oh, Mr. Villiams. Oh yes, sir, this is Ramshid, sir. I understand you have a problem. Oh yes, I can help you, no problem. Vat is the issue?”

Robin is speaking in this serious little-boy voice because he really wants help; his hard drive has crashed and he’s lost all sense of humor. He explains what has gone wrong while I say, “Oh yes, yes, yes, oh dear, dear, dear. Vell, I am thinking you are having problems with your Ram Dass Dat Bat file. Yes, sir, your Ram Dass Dat Bat file. It’s under the Dis Dat Rom Bat file. Well, can you see the Dos Dat Dot Rom Com file? You can’t find it. Okay, let’s look for it in the P file. The P file. You don’t have a P file? Oh dear, well we can make one, but first of all I want to try a little test, sir. I have a quick fix that may just work. Put one hand on your computer. Yes, right. Now take your other hand and touch the wall. Yes, stretch out and touch it. This gives better grounding, sir, for the electro static. Which may be part of the problem. So, now you’re touching the wall? Good. Now I want you to take your hand off the wall and just very quickly touch your bottom. Yes, sir, near the buttocks. Yes, sir, this will discharge some of the electro static buildup. It’s what we call the Bombay Fix. Yes, sir, the Bombay Fix. By the way, do you know who you are talking to? No, sir, this is not Ramshid, sir, this is your friend Mr. Idle, and I just got you.”

A howl of anguish on the other end and Robin laughed for five minutes.

We spent wonderful family holidays at the Connollys’ lovely Scottish home, Candacraig, just a fart away from Balmoral. Billy and his wife, Pamela, organized ceilidhs (Scottish dances) where young and old danced together after dinner, and we wore kilts and went to the Lonach, the local Highland games, where Robin joined the fastest and toughest for the grueling three-mile hill climb, and always finished in the top ten. On the morning of the Lonach an entire company of armed Scotsmen with pikes and kilts marched up the drive behind a bagpipe band. It was a tremendous sight. While we all watched, Billy would take the salute from the wonderful Sir Hamish, who had escaped from Colditz Castle in World War II. Then they would all be given a dram of whiskey, salute, and march back down the drive to another twelve large houses. Behind them there followed an attendant with a small donkey cart, to collect those who could not take the whiskey. They would enter the arena later proudly proclaiming, “There is nae one in the cart!”

With some of the funniest people in the world staying just up the road, Prince Charles would sometimes call up and say, “Billy, I hear you have some interesting people staying. Can I come to dinner?” One night at Billy’s dinner table with Judi Dench and Prince Charles, there was a heated conversation about the movie Mrs. Brown and whether or not Queen Victoria had actually slept with Mr. Brown. Two said yes—Billy, who played Mr. Brown, thought yes, while Judi Dench was adamant: “I’m sure they did.” Only one insisted the answer was no. But then, for the naysayer, she was his great-great-great-grandmother! I think I’d trust the actors on this, and since the main job of Royals is shagging (to produce an heir and a spare), I imagine they have become quite good at it. Queen Victoria apparently was very fond of it: she had nine children.

So, in Scotland at the castle of the Connollys, young and old had fabulous and hilarious times. I dubbed their court Pamelot, because it was all organized by the amazing (now appropriately Lady) Pamela Connolly. I emailed Billy recently, congratulating him on his knighthood. He wrote back:

Dear Eric,

As you rightly observed, I was knighted this morning, and, in my new position as Knight of the Realm, I have decided that I will no longer squander my good time by hanging out with scruff like you.

So you can fuck off.

Famous comedian, and friend of the great,

Sir Billy Connolly, CBE

Unbearable Shit (Don’t you forget it)

I accepted his kind invitation to fuck off. He always gave us the best of times. Once they flew us all to Fiji to celebrate Billy’s sixtieth birthday! The first year we went to Scotland I wrote and recorded a song called “Candacraig” with Peter Asher, in order to thank them. Steve Martin played banjo, and Robin ended up ranting in a Scottish voice about the colon-unclogging effects of haggis.

“Haggis, nature’s way of saying slow down.”

I was asleep when Eddie Izzard called me from the Edinburgh Festival to tell me Robin was gone. I had been trying to get him to come over to London to do the final night of the Python Show at O2 and be our Guest Celebrity in “Blackmail,” but he wrote back anxiously begging off. I should have guessed something was up; Robin not wanting to perform?

Listen, I wrote him, you don’t have to come onstage, just come here for our last show.

But he didn’t. And now he was gone. Forever. It was hardly three years since we had danced at his wedding to the lovely Susan. He seemed so happy. “Eric,” he said to me, “I have finally found my Tania.” And now this.

I went through all the emotions. Shock. Denial. Disbelief. Anger. Guilt. Could I have done something? Could anyone have done something? I knew he was depressed. But then who knew how badly? The manner of his death was so awful. His suicide seemed inexplicable until finally an autopsy revealed that he had been suffering from an unusually severe case of Lewy body dementia. In the months before his death, Robin was besieged by paranoia and so confused he couldn’t remember his lines while filming a movie. He was wrongly diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, and the telltale signs of Lewy body dementia in his brain were not discovered until the autopsy. Now all we have left are memories. It was too sudden, too soon, and too awful. At his memorial that September in San Francisco, my daughter Lily and I sang a little song for him.

Goodnight, Robin

Thanks for all the laughs…

It still doesn’t seem real. I can’t bear it. It’s too fucking sad. Shortly afterwards Mike Nichols died, and then Garry Shandling, and then Carrie Fisher. It was all too much.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.