The Wallet – Special Statusode – Robin Remembered I was living in Vancouver when I heard news that a friend and stand up colleague of mine, Henry Watson had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Being a comedian, his resources were limited and I decided that I would do my best to put on a comedy fundraiser for him. And that is how I first met Robin Williams. Robin had been in Vancouver for a month or so, and had made a few impromptu appearances at some local comedy clubs, most often at The Urban Well, a popular bar in Kitsilano. There was nothing much special about this basement pub – besides its location just up from Kits beach. (In fact, the consistent odor of the place gave it the nickname The Disturbin Smell.) An open mic ran every Tuesday and Robin popped in once, word got out, and the place packed out. When he returned the next week, the place experienced lines ups for the first time in its history. I got it in my head that if I could talk to him, maybe he would help me raise some money for Henry’s treatment. I lived up the street and so I went down and hung around with my girlfriend waiting to see if I could talk to him. My girlfriend used her charms to sneak in and see that he was leaving out the back door, with his bicycle, which he had been seen peddling around town on, with no security, or entourage. Wherever he went, his whirling dervish comedy went. I was nervous to speak to him, but my girlfriend was very pretty, so if anyone could get his attention, she could. Sure enough he came out into the alley and she walked up to him. She said her boyfriend was a comedian, and I walked up. I will always remember the first words he shared with me. I said, “Robin, I need your help.” His instant response was “What can I do?” I explained the difficulty my friend Henry was in, and my plans to do a fundraiser. I showed him the picture of Henry I had and the information I had compiled for the fundraiser. He said his father-in-law had cancer and it was a cause near to his heart. He listened with eyes that glistened with the intense compassion so familiar in his film portrayals. He gave me his manager’s number and told that he would do his best to help if he could. The next few weeks we talked on the phone, but sadly Henry’s health failed quickly and Henry passed away. The picture my girlfriend took of this conversation in the back alley on Yew Street was on my camera, and I showed it to a friend, who was a freelance entertainment journalist. She asked me to send it to her. The Province newspaper wanted to use the picture, and wanted to know how much I wanted for it. They had a story about how Robin had showed up and bumped all the local comics in order to perform. I told them they could use the picture and for free, but only if the story they told was about how kind and generous he was to me and my friend Henry. They agreed, and the next day the photo of Robin – in his bike gear, chatting with me in the alley – appeared in the Province. During this time, I was negotiating with Bruce Allen’s office to open for Michael Buble’ and they had decided to “go in another direction”. As I sat looking at the picture of Robin and I in the paper, my phone rang. It was one of Bruce’s agents. He said, “So how much did you want for the opening spot on Michael’s show?” I said, “Hey did you see that picture of me and Robin Williams in the paper this morning?” He said, “As a matter of fact we did.” So I got the gig. Unfortunately Robin relapsed in Vancouver, and I knew someone who had talked to him on the phone from rehab and said he was doing well. Later the same reporter who got my photo, asked me if I had anything more on Robin, and I mentioned what I had heard. I didn’t know that she was now writing for Us Weekly, and she wrote a couple paragraphs about what I had said and included my name. This was before I ended up in rehab myself, and so I didn’t realize how wrong I’d been in sharing that. I also didn’t realize the intensity of Robin’s celebrity until I check my website, and saw it had gone from a couple hundred views to about 20,000 in the half hour before it blew up the server. I understand now, why people of his fame need to be protective of their privacy, and what a generous man Robin was, knowing it, and still not being reclusive. I feel I gained more from the brief time we spent together than he, and I learned a lesson about not betraying someone’s privacy. My website never recovered, but I was grateful that Robin had, for a time. Whenever I saw on TV being interviewed after that, with his constant frantic hilarity, I always treasured that he respected me enough as a comedian, and as a person, to not bother being funny. He was a kind, polite, respectful man. It’s too easy to say, he relapsed and that’s what happens. It’s equally too easy to separate depression from addiction. All I can say is we have good days, and bad ones, and I met him on a good day, and I will cherish it always. #thewallet
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 06:29:54 +0000
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