A couple of hours ago director Barry Levinson, who directed Robin Williams in Good Morning, Vietnam and Toys, posted this on the Variety site: “What makes [Robin’s] death so difficult to understand is the question ‘How can someone so funny be so sad?’ We can reflect on it, try to understand it, analyze it, but nothing will truly answer the question. [But I suspect that] the fragility of the man, his sensitivity, his deep feelings for life…all that allowed for him to carve his comedic sensibilities were the same feelings that took his life. He felt too much perhaps?
“There was always a kindness to Robin. An inquisitive man trying to understand the madness of mankind. But when the comedy motors were off, you could sense the vulnerability of the man. There was always a sense that he could easily be hurt. And if he were hurt, how quickly could he heal? A bleeder in a world of sharp edges. There was an innocence to his thoughtful intelligence. If there were an endangered species list for mankind, he would have been first on that list. He was perhaps too delicate for this difficult world. We lost one of a kind. We all lost a friend.”