Book Review:"Robin" by Dave Itzkoff

The news that Robin Williams died back in 2014 was one of those events where you always remember where you were when you heard about it. I was in the middle of a personal training session at the gym when I looked up at one of the TVs and saw his picture, then heard the anchor announce that he had taken his life.

Williams was an enormous part of my adolescence—Mork and Mindy was one of my favorite shows growing up. (I even had a pair of suspenders like the ones he wore on the show.) I was excited that his movie career started taking off, and one of my greatest memories was seeing him perform in Las Vegas in 2009.

Dave Itzkoff wrote an amazingly thorough and detailed biography of Williams that I have had on my shelf for years. It’s nearly 550 pages and includes insights he gained from interviews with more than 100 of Williams’ friends, family, and colleagues.

The book traces the rise of Williams’ career in television, and then his work in film. It also spends a lot of time dealing with his struggles with addiction and depression, as well as the problems in his marriages. One of the reasons Williams’ was so good in dramatic roles was all of the pain he drew from in his real life. And if all you knew was the man you saw onscreen, you had no idea how troubled he was.

“But who was he? Except for that one stray moment when he had spoken a few tentative words in his surprisingly stately voice and then metamorphosed into a French undersea explorer, Robin had never let the audience see his true self.”

At times the book got a little too dense and detailed (and I hate footnotes), but this is such a comprehensive look at Robin Williams’ career as well as his life away from the cameras and the crowds. There really hasn’t been anyone quite like him since.

“And when he was gone, we all wished we’d had him just a little bit longer.”