The secrets Robin Williams kept in the years before his suicide are being a revealed in a new documentary. "Robin’s Wish" sheds light on his struggles with Lewy body dementia and reveals his fears on how the degenerative disease would impact his personal life and career through a series of interviews with friends and family members, Vanity Fair reported.
Filmmaker Shawn Levy is among those lending his voice to the documentary and he shared how, towards the end of his life, Williams was having difficulty in his job and was concerned about what it meant for him as an actor.
Levy was directing Williams in what would be his final project, "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb." Shooting took place in May 2014, several weeks before Williams' death at age 63 in August, but the actor was having trouble with his lines.
"Robin was struggling in a way that he hadn’t before to remember lines and to combine the right words with the performance," Levy said. "Robin would call me — at ten at night, at two in the morning, at four in the morning — saying, 'Is it usable? Is any of it usable? Do I suck? What’s going on?' I would reassure him."
At the time of his death, reports indicated that Williams had suffered from depression but an autopsy later revealed that the Oscar-winning comedian had suffered from Lewy body dementia, which can cause depression. Williams also suffered from insomnia and, upon recommendations, made the tough decision to sleep in a separate room from his wife, Susan Schneider. She recalled a sad moment when Williams asked her, "Does this mean we’re separated?"
In a recent interview on the Today show, Schneider said it was a "shocking moment" for her.
"When your best friend, your partner, your love — you realize that there’s a giant chasm somewhere and you can’t see where it is. But that’s just not based in reality. That was a hard moment," she said.
Schneider also reflected on Williams' final wishes.
"I asked him, 'When we get to the end of our lives and we’re looking back, what is it we want to have done?'" she said. "Without missing a beat, he said, 'I want to help people be less afraid.' I thought it was beautiful, and I said, 'Honey, you’re already doing that. That’s what you do.'"
Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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