Yesterday a knowing, insightful and very well-written piece about Robin Williams was HuffPost-ed by screenwriter Jerry Leichtling (Peggy Sue Got Married, Blue Sky) who knew Williams as a friend for many years: “In the last two days people have said repeatedly ‘I feel like I knew him.’ My answer was ‘you did know him.’ Whenever I saw him as an actor, I always felt ‘Oh, that’s Robin.’ Christian Bale, Daniel Day Lewis — Robin wasn’t a transformer like them.” Exactly, and relatively few actors are when you get right down to it. Are you listening, Bob Strauss?

“There were only two comedic geniuses in my generation — Robin and Richard Pryor. Together they were like the Beatles and Dylan — everyone else was a runner-up. Robin had his Relativity Theory: his equation was Time and Velocity = Improv.

“My other thoughts [about his passing] are mostly anger — that no one realized what was happening and intervened. Why wasn’t he on a 24/7 suicide watch? The story, true or not, will come out. And it won’t change a fucking thing — nobody stepped in. They never do. Robin, Belushi, Kurt Cobain, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Elvis, Michael Jackson etc. — no one had the strength to dissuade these ‘forces of nature.'”