“Can Your Friends Do This?”

When I was around 9 or 10 – maybe earlier, but I’m not sure – I began singing in my room. Ours was a singing family anyway, so it’s not surprising that I would do it as well, but back then I didn’t listen to a ton of popular music besides Michael Jackson.

Instead, I listened to and sang along mostly with tapes of Disney scores. I was one of the fortunate children who were alive, very young and impressionable during Disney’s wonderful string of animated successes The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. I enjoyed them all, but Aladdin was the absolute tops. Why?

Robin Williams was Genie.

Thinking about it now, it’s not really surprising that so much of what I love about singing was inspired by a singing actor rather than a “singer”. “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali” were thrilling and hilarious. Listening now, I am still impressed by just how much variety he inserts into every word, and I still laugh and marvel. Beyond that, these songs just made me happy. I fantasized about singing them for people (my elementary school, honestly), even though I knew that I couldn’t single-handedly sing every part by myself.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” I wanted to be the Genie. Singing in my room, I parsed the words and tried to sing every line (why else would a ten year old learn “genuflect”?) I never thought of it as something I would do professionally, I just wanted to bring the joy that I felt to more people for its own sake. I’m sure there were plenty of other children who wanted the same.

Fast forward. On Saturday, several days before his death, my wife and I were discussing Disney, and we considered what Aladdin would have been without Robin Williams. More than any of the other famous voice actors Disney has employed (Lion King was especially full), Robin Williams thoroughly dominated Aladdin. The lyrics seemed tailored to his strengths, and it looked like a mutually reinforcing relationship existed between him and the writers. Aladdin without Robin Williams would have been something entirely different. I just can’t imagine it.

Continuing, we moved on to his standup and discussed how it was brilliant, but there was a sad and worrisome edge at times. It was like he was combatting invisible monsters with humor, and if he stopped they’d catch him. Or maybe he was afraid that everyone would stop loving him. Rebekah said she sometimes just wanted to stop him and say, “It’s ok, we like you,” but we knew that would have likely had little effect.

I’m sure the loving people in his life said just that and more, but sometimes it’s not enough. He probably knew that we all loved him and wanted the best for him, but that’s not a cure for depression and addiction. It is painful to think that someone who gave people so much joy – such immense influential profound joy – suffered so much inside, and we on the outside are so impotent in trying to help. It is one of the great unsettling ironies of life and should give us pause in many of our assumptions about the nature of success.

I was and am a fan, but I’m not going to go into the rest of his considerable work, because others can do it better. I’ll leave it at this: Robin Williams is one of the reasons I even pursued performing. If a performer could make an audience feel as good as he made me feel when I listened to Aladdin, then that’s what I wanted to do. Yes, there are valuable lessons to learn from his death, but I’d prefer that he were still here. He was such a gift to all of us, and I wish we could have returned that gift and filled him with the amount of collective joy that he gave us.

Thank you and farewell.