Bob Saget Fights Back Tears Remembering His Friend Robin Williams in New Interview
When Robin Williams release a trio of thriller/horror movies in 2002, longtime fans were shocked. “One Hour Photo,” “Death to Smoochy,” and “Insomnia” showed a darker side of America’s favorite comedian, a grimace behind his grin.
Then, when news of his death broke in 2014, fans were stunned all over again — and none more than Bob Saget of “Full House” fame.
When he discussed his long-running friendship with Williams in an interview with Entertainment Tonight, he struggled to contain his tears.
“In 1978, I moved to L.A. went to the Comedy Store, [and] met Robin right away. He had just finished with [the NBC show] ‘Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In’ [and] it was before ‘Mork and Mindy,’ and he just liked me and my act,” Saget said.
“[He was] a whirlwind of energy a beautiful human being. [His death was] a giant loss.”
But while most assumed Williams’ death was related to a long-running battle with depression, his wife later explained that wasn’t exactly the case. Instead, he had an underlying medical condition few were aware of.
“It was not depression that killed Robin,” Susan Williams told PEOPLE in 2015. “Depression was one of let’s call it 50 symptoms, and it was a small one.”
Williams was suffering from Diffuse Lewy Body Dementia, a neurodegenerative disease in the same family as Alzheimer’s, an illness that can lead to hallucinations, problems with motor function, and (in Williams’ case) depression.
There’s a sad irony in Williams suffering from such a terrible disease in his final days, especially given how much effort he and Saget put into raising funds to fight illnesses such as scleroderma.
“We raised $46 million in those years for research [on behalf of the Scleroderma Research Foundation] because of Robin,” Saget said. “That’s how philanthropic he was.”
But the sadness of Williams’ passing can never erase the excellence of his life and career.
“Even his acting alone was magical,” Saget explained.
“If he had never been a stand-up, which would have been a loss for everybody, if he’d just done the movie parts that he did, [like] ‘Mrs. Doubtfire,’ ‘Goodwill Hunting,’ you’d go, … ‘What a genius actor!’ This is a man that was a force that you don’t see [but] every couple hundred years.”
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