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Penny Marshall Remembers Robin Williams
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/08/25/old-gang
Remembrance
AUGUST 25, 2014 ISSUE
The Old Gang
BY TAD FRIEND
Robin Williams and Penny Marshall at the première
of Awakenings, in New York.
After Robin Williams ended his singularly pyrotechnic life last week, his friend Penny Marshalls phone kept ringing. All the old gangCarol Kane, Julie Kavner, Robert De Nirowere calling, in shock. Marshall, the director who once played Laverne in Laverne & Shirley, said, My brother Garrywho created Mork & Mindy for Williamswas crying, and that made me fall apart more. Ive never seen my brother cry. He could always talk to actors, settle them down. He said he loved Robin but he couldnt get through to him, that some inner layer was out of reach.
She lit a Gambler cigarette, explained her puffy eyesIve got this eye thingand subsided into an armchair in her Upper West Side apartment. Marshall first worked with Williams when, as Laverne, she made a crossover appearance on Mork & Mindy s pilot: Fonzie was in it, and he fixed me up with Mork, because I was a fast girl, and Mork came on to me in his Morkish way, and I had to slap him. She rolled her eyesseventies sitcoms. All of our scripts seemed to blend into each otherwhos got the monkey this week? Whos on roller skates? But wed all go watch Robinhe was just out there, so many voices, so many connections. No one was that fast. Valerie, his first wife, told me, I cant keep up with him. I said, Well, who can?
<>
When Marshall directed Awakenings, in 1990, she cast Williams as a doctor who tries dopamine on encephalitis victims who are unable to move. The treatment works for a time, particularly on Leonard, a patient played by De Niro. Robin had already done a drama, Dead Poets Society, but he told me he was afraid Bobby was going to blow him off the screen. I said, I wont let that happen. So it was my job to keep Robin from being funny. We had a shorthand signal for when he got a little flamboyant, improvising. She curled her fingers tight and dropped the fist to her groin: It meant More balls. She smiled, remembering how hard it was to corral him: There was a scene where a cockroach was going to crawl across the table, and Robin suddenly did a thing where he was a cockroach who was up for a Raid commercial. She went on, Robin could make Bob laugh so hard his face got all red, and Bob was supposed to be, you know, sick.
On the press tour, she recalled, I slurred, and said the film was set at a menstrual hospital, instead of a mental hospitaland Robin immediately said, Its a period piece. But he also made you cry at the end, when all the patients go back to being frozen. She grabbed another cigaretteIm going to stop smokingand continued: We had a Ouija-board scene, and it looked like a monkey was doing it, and I told him, Robin, you gotta take the hair off your hands! He said, I know: I sweat! Im hairy! Gods gifts to me! He made fun of himself, which a lot of comedians cant, and he had a great laugh, and there was not a mean streak in him.
<>
Remembrance
AUGUST 25, 2014 ISSUE
The Old Gang
BY TAD FRIEND
Robin Williams and Penny Marshall at the première
of Awakenings, in New York.
After Robin Williams ended his singularly pyrotechnic life last week, his friend Penny Marshalls phone kept ringing. All the old gangCarol Kane, Julie Kavner, Robert De Nirowere calling, in shock. Marshall, the director who once played Laverne in Laverne & Shirley, said, My brother Garrywho created Mork & Mindy for Williamswas crying, and that made me fall apart more. Ive never seen my brother cry. He could always talk to actors, settle them down. He said he loved Robin but he couldnt get through to him, that some inner layer was out of reach.
She lit a Gambler cigarette, explained her puffy eyesIve got this eye thingand subsided into an armchair in her Upper West Side apartment. Marshall first worked with Williams when, as Laverne, she made a crossover appearance on Mork & Mindy s pilot: Fonzie was in it, and he fixed me up with Mork, because I was a fast girl, and Mork came on to me in his Morkish way, and I had to slap him. She rolled her eyesseventies sitcoms. All of our scripts seemed to blend into each otherwhos got the monkey this week? Whos on roller skates? But wed all go watch Robinhe was just out there, so many voices, so many connections. No one was that fast. Valerie, his first wife, told me, I cant keep up with him. I said, Well, who can?
<>
When Marshall directed Awakenings, in 1990, she cast Williams as a doctor who tries dopamine on encephalitis victims who are unable to move. The treatment works for a time, particularly on Leonard, a patient played by De Niro. Robin had already done a drama, Dead Poets Society, but he told me he was afraid Bobby was going to blow him off the screen. I said, I wont let that happen. So it was my job to keep Robin from being funny. We had a shorthand signal for when he got a little flamboyant, improvising. She curled her fingers tight and dropped the fist to her groin: It meant More balls. She smiled, remembering how hard it was to corral him: There was a scene where a cockroach was going to crawl across the table, and Robin suddenly did a thing where he was a cockroach who was up for a Raid commercial. She went on, Robin could make Bob laugh so hard his face got all red, and Bob was supposed to be, you know, sick.
On the press tour, she recalled, I slurred, and said the film was set at a menstrual hospital, instead of a mental hospitaland Robin immediately said, Its a period piece. But he also made you cry at the end, when all the patients go back to being frozen. She grabbed another cigaretteIm going to stop smokingand continued: We had a Ouija-board scene, and it looked like a monkey was doing it, and I told him, Robin, you gotta take the hair off your hands! He said, I know: I sweat! Im hairy! Gods gifts to me! He made fun of himself, which a lot of comedians cant, and he had a great laugh, and there was not a mean streak in him.
<>
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Penny Marshall Remembers Robin Williams (Original Post)
proverbialwisdom
Aug 2014
OP
Unknown Beatle
(2,672 posts)1. The more I read about him,
the more I miss him. Robin was a true comic genius. There will never be another like him, the same as there will never be another Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon or Mozart, among other greats.
shenmue
(38,506 posts)5. True
underpants
(182,876 posts)2. ‘It’s a period piece.’
progressoid
(49,998 posts)4. ...
I was feeling pretty down and then got to that part...
But now I'm feeling down again.
Gonna miss him.
Baitball Blogger
(46,757 posts)3. Love them all.
I once said that if we had limited space on a space ship that was leaving earth and had to chose between a priest and a comedian, I would pick the comedian.
proverbialwisdom
(4,959 posts)6. Charlie Rose: We remember comedian and actor Robin Williams