22/12/2025
Faith hope and love
After Robin Williams delivered a breathtaking performance at a press conference, he turned to Glenn Close with worry in his eyes and whispered: "Was that all right?" She never forgot what that question revealed.
It was 1982, during filming of "The World According to Garp." The press room had just witnessed something extraordinary.
Robin—a quiet man Glenn had never seen reading newspapers, magazines, or watching television—had walked into that room and exploded into brilliance. He improvised an astonishing commentary on current events, weaving politics, people, and issues into a cohesive whole with no notes, no preparation, nothing but pure genius.
Everyone was completely blown away by the spontaneity, the wit, the lightning-fast connections only Robin's mind could make.
Then they walked out together.
And this man who had just electrified an entire room turned to Glenn Close and asked, in a worried whisper, if he'd done okay.
She gave him a long hug. "Yes! You were incredible."
He checked to make sure she really meant it. Then he went to his trailer.
In that moment, Glenn saw something the world would take decades to fully understand: behind the transcendent talent was a man who genuinely didn't know if he was enough.
1982. The World According to Garp.
This was Glenn Close's first film. It was Robin Williams' second feature film, and he was already wildly popular from his years playing Mork, the brilliantly funny alien on "Mork & Mindy."
But Robin Williams was seriously determined to become a film actor—not just a comedian who happened to be in movies.
Director George Roy Hill believed in Robin's talent and took his desire seriously. Glenn watched as the two of them worked together, ridding Robin of all the mannerisms he'd developed playing that spontaneous alien character.
It was wonderful to watch someone transform themselves through sheer determination.
What struck Glenn immediately wasn't just Robin's talent. It was his character.
Robin was incredibly sensitive to the crew—to the people who don't always get recognition for the various jobs they do during a shoot. He knew everyone's name. He could always get a laugh, but never at someone else's expense. His humor recognized others, celebrated them, included them.
He was gentle. Loving. Self-critical in ways that surprised her.
And then there was the moment that showed her how deeply he respected her craft.
During filming, Robin surprised Glenn by reciting one of her own monologues back to her—performing it with total seriousness, no jokes, no impressions, no Robin Williams theatrics. Just the words, delivered with the same commitment she'd given them.
He showed her, without saying it directly, that he valued her work. That he saw her as an artist, not just a co-star. That their relationship was built on mutual respect for each other's craft.
That friendship would last thirty-two years.
Glenn watched Robin navigate fame with the same sensitivity he'd shown on set.
While the rest of the world was dazzled by his lightning-fast wit and comedic persona, Glenn was always aware of the deeper sadness he carried. She could see the man behind the performance.
"Robin was so complex," she later reflected. "He had this incredible, lightning-fast mind, but there was always a sadness in his eyes, even when he was making you laugh."
She saw something in Robin that many only recognized in hindsight: a man whose public persona masked private pain.
Their friendship endured through decades. Through triumphs and struggles. Through Robin's comedy career, his dramatic turns, his Oscar win for "Good Will Hunting." Through Glenn's own acclaimed career spanning theater and film.
In 1991, Glenn had a cameo in "Hook" as the pirate Gutless—a role most fans didn't recognize was her. She'd visited the set because Robin was her friend, bringing her three-year-old daughter Annie along. Director Steven Spielberg asked if she wanted to be a pirate, and she said sure.
Because that's what friends do. They show up.
But there was another friendship at the center of Robin's life—one that Glenn witnessed from the beginning.
During the filming of "Garp," Glenn watched something remarkable happen every weekend.
On Friday evenings, Christopher Reeve would literally swoop in, piloting his own plane, scoop Robin up, and away they would fly for the weekend. On Sunday afternoon, Chris would swoop back in and deliver Robin back—Glenn admitted "a little worse for wear."
"Those were the heady days for them both," Glenn recalled. "They were on top of the world. They were living the kind of fast and crazy life that our business can hand to you if you become a wildly famous phenomenon, practically overnight."
Robin and Christopher Reeve had been roommates at Juilliard in the 1970s. Their friendship became legendary—a life-giving force that sustained them both through everything that followed.
When Christopher was paralyzed in a 1995 horseback riding accident, Robin was one of the people the family would call to help lift him out of depression. Robin threw a party for Christopher on the anniversary of his accident every year—calling it a "celebration" and an "appreciation of life."
At one point, Robin even pretended to be a Russian proctologist who was supposed to examine Christopher in the hospital—reprising a character from his film "Nine Months" to make his paralyzed friend laugh.
"I knew then," Christopher told Barbara Walters, "if I could laugh, I could live."
Christopher Reeve died in 2004 from cardiac arrest. He was 52 years old.
Ten years later, Robin Williams died by su***de on August 11, 2014. He was 63.
An autopsy revealed he'd been suffering from Lewy body dementia—a devastating neurological disorder that causes hallucinations, confusion, depression, anxiety, and memory problems. He'd been misdiagnosed with Parkinson's disease and didn't know what was actually destroying his mind.
"Their friendship, their connection, is the stuff of legend," Glenn reflected years later. "It not only endured, but became a life-giving force sustaining them both."
Then she said something heartbreaking:
"I am convinced that if Chris were still with us, Robin would be too."
When Robin died, Glenn wrote a tribute that captured everything she'd learned about her friend over three decades.
"Robin was a world treasure," she wrote. "As we mourn his tragic death, we must remember him for the great waves of laughter that he was able to elicit from us, how his humor and insights—though they came from a place of pain and uncertainty—connected us and reminded us of how flawed and fragile, how human we are. How we are capable of moments of inspired transcendence and others of unspeakable despair."
She understood something crucial about Robin that the world was only beginning to grasp:
His genius and his pain weren't separate. They were intertwined.
The same sensitivity that made him recognize every crew member by name, that made him perform her monologue with such respect, that made him ask "Was that all right?" after brilliance—that sensitivity was also what made him vulnerable to the darkness.
Glenn Close has her own experience with that darkness.
She's spoken publicly about her own struggles with depression, describing it as "a low-grade depression that can sometimes feel like a mist or a veil, but you've gotten so used to living with it that it's not something you think of much."
She takes daily antidepressants. Her sister Jessie was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 50. Her nephew has schizoaffective disorder.
Glenn understands mental illness from the inside. She runs "Bring Change to Mind," a nonprofit dedicated to mental health advocacy.
When she talks about Robin, she talks about the cruelty of depression—how it lies to the sufferer, making them feel isolated despite being surrounded by love.
"It's a chronic illness," she's explained. "It's not who you are. It's something, because we have this amazing, wondrous, fragile brain, it's part of being a human being."
She may have recognized in Robin what her own family had taught her to see: the signs of someone struggling with an invisible enemy.
That moment at the press conference in 1982—when Robin whispered "Was that all right?" after a performance that left everyone breathless—revealed everything Glenn needed to understand about her friend.
He could electrify a room. He could make millions laugh. He could win an Oscar. He could be called a genius by everyone who knew him.
And still, at his core, he wondered if he was enough.
The man who gave so much to the world—laughter, joy, brilliance, friendship, support—struggled to believe he had value.
Depression doesn't care how talented you are. It doesn't care how loved you are. It doesn't care how many people you've helped or how much laughter you've created.
It tells you lies. And sometimes, tragically, you believe them.
Glenn Close continues to honor Robin's memory by doing what he would have done: showing up for others.
Through her mental health advocacy, she works to ensure that people struggling with depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other conditions know they're not alone. That their illness is not their identity. That help exists.
She cherishes the gift Robin gave her over thirty-two years of friendship: the experience of being truly seen and accepted by someone who understood what it meant to carry both light and shadow.
On August 11, 2014, the world lost Robin Williams.
But the lessons of his life—and his friendship with Glenn Close—remain:
Genius and pain can coexist in the same person.
The people who make us laugh the hardest may be fighting battles we cannot see.
Asking "Was that all right?" after your greatest performance isn't weakness. It's humanity.
And sometimes the most important thing we can do is what Glenn did in that moment after the press conference: give someone a long hug and say, "Yes. You were incredible."
Because maybe, for just a moment, they'll believe it.
In memory of Robin Williams (1951-2014), who asked "Was that all right?" when he was always more than enough.
In honor of Glenn Close, who saw both the brilliance and the sadness in her friend's eyes, and loved him for both.
And in memory of Christopher Reeve (1952-2004), whose friendship was a life-giving force—proving that sometimes the people who save us aren't the ones wearing capes in movies, but the ones who show up every Friday in a plane to remind us we're not alone.
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