Presence of Mind

Severely depressed individuals often neglect themselves and those who are close to them. Though he was depressed enough to take his own life, Robin Williams had the presence of mind (and love for his children) to tend to his complicated finances before the final act:

Williams took steps to protect his children with the creation of trusts. Williams left behind three children, Zach, Cody and Zelda from two different marriages. The terms of the trusts, while private, have been reported in the press as paying out to his children in three lump sums. The trusts are structured so the children each received 1/3 of the value of his or her trust at 21, half of the remaining assets at 25 and the balance at age 30.

Trust funds are favored as an estate planning tool because they give you control over your assets, but unlike assets that pass through a last will, they are not subject to estate taxes.

In addition to creating trusts to secure his children’s financial futures, Williams also is known to have created a real estate trust, which he named the Domus Dulcis Domus Holding Trust (which translates to Home Sweet Home in Latin). Giving the trust a name with no link to him offered a layer of privacy protection. Both his home in Tiburon and his ranch were placed in the trust and will protect the family from estate taxes on the properties and provide them with important equity in the properties. If these properties were not held in trust, a large portion of the value could be due as estate tax, drastically reducing the family’s holdings.

Most celebrities' reputations diminish substantially after they die, but I suspect Robin Williams' star will shine brightly for a long time.

Robin Williams, Episcopalian (!)

Robin Williams self-identified as one. Herewith his top 10 reasons to be an Episcopalian.

10.No snake handling.
9. You can believe in dinosaurs.
8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.
7. You don't have to check your brains at the door.
6. Pew aerobics.
5. Church year is color-coded.
4. Free wine on Sunday.
3. All of the pageantry - none of the guilt.
2. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.
And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:
1. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

Proving again that if it's funny it springs from truth.

A Gift to the World

Robin Williams, 1951-2014 (Time photo)

We started watching Mork & Mindy in the late 1970's and became instant fans of Robin Williams. We had seen improvisational comedy on Saturday Night Live and the Carol Burnett Show, but those TV classics could not consistently sustain their performances. Robin Williams was always funny. (Wikipedia: "Williams would make up so many jokes during filming, eventually scripts had specific gaps where Williams was allowed to freely perform.")

In his subsequent HBO specials, audiences marveled as he flitted from subject to subject in different voices and characters, comedy on a high-wire sans net. When he appeared on Carson, Letterman, or Leno, we always tuned in. Viewers did not know what to expect, and neither did the hosts.

Robin Williams was that rarest of performers. He couldn't be imitated: [bold added]

Most comics, then and now, honed their routines to letter-perfection. A few courted inspiration, and risked failure, with solo improv comedy. Mad-professor types like Brother Theodore and Irwin Corey turned their performances into rant-lectures that disdained punch lines and spiraled into twisted logic. Lenny Bruce and Richard Pryor were hipster social critics following their own elevated radar. Jonathan Winters, a Carson favorite (as dear Maude Frickert), was closest to Williams: he pirouetted from character to character, emitting more weird noises than a Warner Bros. cartoon soundtrack. The true brethren of these brilliant misfits were not stand-up comics but the most adventurous jazzmen. And if Bruce was the Louis Armstrong of solo improv comedy, and Winters the Charlie Parker, then Williams was Sun Ra, the farther-than-far-out composer who claimed he came from Saturn.

Of course Williams had a notion of what he would say onstage and often played unannounced gigs at comedy clubs to hone his material. But the safety net of even a discursive narrative was too confining for all the voices waiting inside to burst out, like Linda Blair’s devils in The Exorcist, but hilarious. Williams took the anarcho-improv impulse and flew with it–a Robin reaching the surreal stratosphere. When everyone else was analog, he was digital. That’s why his comedy had many admirers but virtually no imitators. Who else could even think of doing that?

Robin Williams pushed both his body and mind to its limits. He leapt, twirled, and gesticulated during a rat-tat-tat performance. Sweating profusely and guzzling water (?), he kept it up for 90 minutes. It would not have been surprising if he had died young from substance abuse, as did his friend John Belushi. But he survived the early attacks of his demons; from that perspective the past 40 years was a gift to the world. © 2014 Stephen Yuen