--- title: Robin Williams Dead: Jim Norton Remembers Him description: Comedian Jim Norton remembers Robin Williams and sheds light on why the funniest people are sometimes the saddest canonical: https://time.com/3103256/robin-williams-dead-jim-norton/ author: Jim Norton article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2014-08-12T12:18:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:45:33.078Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why the Funniest People Are Sometimes the Saddest og:description: Comedian Jim Norton remembers Robin Williams and sheds light on why the funniest people are sometimes the saddest og:url: https://time.com/3103256/robin-williams-dead-jim-norton/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a5a1d5ca830358c/69869f1ef983e7663104f300/ap448034576780.jpg?branch=production&width=800&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 800 og:image:height: 450 og:image:alt: Robin Williams og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why the Funniest People Are Sometimes the Saddest twitter:description: Comedian Jim Norton remembers Robin Williams and sheds light on why the funniest people are sometimes the saddest twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3a5a1d5ca830358c/69869f1ef983e7663104f300/ap448034576780.jpg?branch=production&width=800&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why the Funniest People Are Sometimes the Saddest > Sponsored content. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: 10 Questions for Robin Williams [Watch (HLS stream): 10 Questions for Robin Williams](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/e5SUiinR.m3u8) (5:56)  _Published 2011-04-14. The comedian and actor talks about playing a tiger in his first Broadway role, the war in Iraq and why it isn't always a good thing to be funny_ by [Jim Norton](https://time.com/author/jim-norton/) ## Jim Norton Aug 12, 2014 12:18 PM UTC  FILE - This June 15, 2007 file photo shows actor and comedian Robin Williams posing for a photo in Santa Monica, Calif. Williams, whose free-form comedy and adept impressions dazzled audiences for decades, died Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in an apparent suicide. Williams was 63\. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File) FILE - This June 15, 2007 file photo shows actor and comedian Robin Williams posing for a photo in Santa Monica, Calif. Williams, whose free-form comedy and adept impressions dazzled audiences for decades, died Monday, Aug. 11, 2014, in an apparent suicide. Williams was 63\. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File) Reed Saxon—AP by [Jim Norton](https://time.com/author/jim-norton/) ## Jim Norton Aug 12, 2014 12:18 PM UTC I always feel a more intense sense of loss when a fellow alcoholic or addict commits suicide. Possibly because I have thought about it obsessively for years, and slit my wrists on multiple occasions until being forced into rehab and getting sober a year later at the age of 18. No one will ever know exactly what Robin Williams was thinking and feeling when he made the decision to end his pain the way he did. But I do know he wasn’t seeing himself the way the rest of us saw him. I first met Robin in 1998 when he came to the Comedy Cellar in New York City to do a guest spot. Comedians tend to be impossible to impress and love to stress how they’re impossible to impress when bigger, far more famous comedians perform sets. But on this particular night, I noticed that none of the regular comedians were leaving when they were done. We were all finding excuses to hang around. None of us wanted to admit it, but Robin Williams was performing, and we were genuinely excited. Now, any other group of performers would have proudly stood outside with streamers and a welcome banner, but comedians are jaded asses who would rather sit in the back of the room with their hearts pounding while folding their arms and feigning disinterest. What struck me the most about Robin was how important it was to him that the other comedians liked him. He was always gracious to the performer he had bumped off the lineup. That first night, and during his many returns over the years, he would always come upstairs and sit with us at the “comedy table” (made famous on _Louie_). He could have easily dominated the conversation; we all knew the difference between who he was and who we were. Robin was one of the few larger-than-life comedians who could have actually gotten a table full of other comics to shut up and listen. But he didn’t. He joked and laughed with us and went out of his way to not tower above us. He probably never knew how much we loved him for that. By all accounts, Robin struggled with depression and addiction over the years. So many comics I know seem to struggle with the demons of self-hatred and self-destruction. While my physically self-destructive days ended when I got sober, the thought of suicide was always there, an option behind glass that I could break in case of an emergency. I glamorized the idea of constructing my own exit. And yet on a day like Monday, that idea seemed terrible and unnecessary. Not triumphant or glamorous but sad and empty and incomplete. The funniest people I know seem to be the ones surrounded by darkness. And that’s probably why they’re the funniest. The deeper the pit, the more humor you need to dig yourself out of it. Over the years, comedy has gone from happy-go-lucky pie-in-the-face jesters to the stuff of the deeply personal and honest with the coming of Lenny Bruce, Richard Pryor and George Carlin. The public began to see, through brilliant material and public battles with personal demons, that the people who made them laugh the hardest seemed to be enjoying life the least. Maybe all those jokes were hiding something much darker. The cracks in the exterior began to show. On Jan. 28, 1977, Freddie Prinze ripped the facade down for good when he shot himself. In the 25 years I’ve been doing stand-up, I’ve personally known at least eight comedians who committed suicide. Years ago, I was told that one of the most important attributes humans _don’t_ have is the ability to see themselves the way others do. This is normally what I think of when people behave like an ass and don’t realize it, or think they’re smarter than they actually are. It’s rare that I think of it in the terms I have been after hearing about Robin. Robin and I had the same managers for the past decade, and one brought him and Billy Crystal in to watch as a surprise on the night I was doing a Jimmy Kimmel warm-up set at the Comedy Cellar. I was nervous and my set was mediocre, but Robin treated me as if I’d just blown away his _Live at the Met_ special. When my mother and father met him after an Atlantic City show, Robin made a point to spend a few minutes with them and say great things about me. My ego would love to believe it’s because I’m so terrific, but the reality is that Robin was smart enough to know how much it would mean to my parents to hear him saying such nice things about their son. And it meant a lot. There is simply no way Robin could have understood the way the rest of us saw him. And there is simply no way he could have understood how much respect and adoration other performers had for him. At least I hope he couldn’t have understood. Because it’s too sad to think that maybe he did understand, and it just wasn’t enough anymore. _Norton is a comedian and New York_ Times _best-selling author and the host of_ [The Jim Norton Show](http://www.vice.com/the-jim-norton-show) _on Vice.com._ _Read next:_ [_Read Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Sweet Tribute to Robin Williams_](http://time.com/3992633/sarah-michelle-gellar-robin-williams-tribute/?iid=time%5Freadnext) [_Download TIME’s mobile app for iOS to have your world explained wherever you go_](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/time-mobile/id328218429) ## Transcript >> I'm not gonna lie. When I get hungry, I get stupid. Twelve years back, I screwed up, okay? I followed the scent. I took a bite and then, fhwipp-- >> A gold [ unk ] gun. >> a tranquilizer dart comes from out of nowhere, and I wake up in Baghdad. >> Sweet ass. >> So, that was depressing. >> Hi. I'm Belinda Luscombe. This is TIME Magazine's 10 Questions. Today, we are asking our questions of Robin Williams. Hello, Mr. Williams. >> Welcome, Ms. Luscombe. >> So, in your new play, the Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, you're playing the tiger. >> Yes. >> How does one prepare to play a tiger? Prowling, little-- >> A little pacing, biting whenever possible. I'm basically playing the soul of a tiger, so I don't have to do a lot of tiger behavior except for that, but it's pretty much two- legged tiger 'cause I'm in a cage, and beginning to treat it more like jail. But it's, you know, the essence of a tiger with not a lot of-- no costume except for just beaten up clothing, you know. >> This is your Broadway debut in a serious Broadway play. >> Yeah. When I did Godot, it was under Broadway. >> That's right. >> That's about 20 years ago, actually. So, yeah, this is Broadway debut. >> And you left Juilliard in, what? 1975? >> Five, yeah. >> Yeah. So-- >> Exactly. I left school, I fell in love, and went back to live in San Francisco. >> This is actually a serious play. >> Uh- huh, very. >> And does your appearance in the play reflect any personal feelings you have about the Iraq war? >> You know, I've been there five times, Afghanistan six. My feelings are more about-- I mean, I'm still wondering, " Where are the weapons of mass destruction ." Even though they had Hussein, you had the guy himself, you think of anybody new. Saddam, what is it? I'm not telling. Too late, he's gone. How weird is that. Crazy. But my feelings about the war is just the idea of ghost especially in this war, is because I was just there recently, and you know, they're " winding down ." They're supposed to be out of there by Christmas next year. So, where do we come back from? What's the damage to the Iraqis? What's the damage to us? What do you leave for them when it just ends? You know, like he said, in the lines in the play about, " The Americans think when something dies, that's it, it's over ." But when you go to Middle East, you realize there's a real sense that things stay around. >> You did a stand- up tour in 2009 ,-- >> Right. >> Weapons of Self- destruction. >> Yes, yes. >> If I went to the right club on the right night, might I find you? Do you still have a-- >> I haven't been able to go out yet since I've started the play, but I think I'm gonna have to start to go out again 'cause it's about time, now, that I've the gig. >> Yeah. >> I can start to go out and, you know, do shows maybe on the weekends. And just I-- 'cause I've started, you know-- I'm starting to get the urge to go back in again. And it's important to go out and do it 'cause there's so much to talk about. The fact that Donald Trump wants to see Obama's birth certificate, it's kind of, " I wanna see his hairline first ." >> Absolutely. >> I think so. >> When did it stop? >> I believe the hair is actually him. I believe, at night, he walks into a small room, sits down and the hair goes, " Who should we marry next? We're going out! Put your name on that building !" >> Okay. Leading on from that question to that answer ,-- >> Leading onto that. >> Is being funny sometimes a hindrance to social interaction? >> Example, I was once walking in an airport, and a woman came up to me and said, " Be zany !" >> No. >> Big time. >> But what about with, say, family? Do you sometimes-- >> Oh, no. It's-- Years ago, my-- I was reading a story to my-- to my daughter. I was doing voices and everything and she turned to me and said, " Just read the story ." >> Ouch. >> Yeah. It was just-- >> Not. >> Yeah, it was just-- And just stay to the main points. >> Okay. No voices? >> No voices. Yeah, " Thanks dad ." >> How often does someone else make you laugh? >> Oh, big time. >> Is it kids? Or is it-- >> No. Kids do and comics, comedians that make me laugh, Chris Rock, Louis C. K ., Puddin Oswalt. I've now been hanging out with Mort Sahl and that's been a gift. I've been hanging out with him is two things. It's history, but it's also that he's amazingly funny and still has everything going and also in which which has been wonderful. >> So, you can-- when you get older as a comic, you stay funny, you can still-- what do you need to-- >> You try to stay funny as you get older as a comedian and then you get to this program, " Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Robin Williams. Thank you for coming to my show ." You try to stay funny, yeah. I mean, when you seem like that and [ unk ]. When you see these guys who are just still doing great, that's what keeps them alive. I mean, that's what keeps them going. >> Billy Crystal had said that stand- up is how comedians process things that are painful. >> Yeah. >> But does that mean we have to wish more painful things on you? Or-- >> You don't have to. I find them. I was coming in with-- you know, that concept of the Tourette's is the thing where people say kind of nasty things. Is there-- Is there another thing of like a positive Tourette's, like, " That dress is beautiful. Your legs are nice ?" So, everything is wonderful, like, " You really are lovely. Nice, nice eyes. Nice eyes !" Something like, " Your teeth are beautiful. Your teeth are beautiful, all of them ." >> Why do they have to get it the other way? >> Yeah. Oh, I think-- >> Do you think they did? >> But because-- it actually because it's the subconscious creeping out, but then you think, " Is there a nice side of your subconscious going, " I really like you. I just wanna pet you in a nice way ." >> You are sort of unique among comedians and I don't think you've actually written a book. >> No. I hope not to. >> You have not to? >> Especially biography. I mean, I have a lot of friends who are authors, who are great. I just don't have the discipline to do it. The learning is somewhat, but the discipline is to really sit down and write a book. Maybe, I've got to five years from now. I'm here with my new book, so that's the way you like it. But I don't think so. I think-- >> You know, you could just talk into a tape recorder and then someone will-- >> You're right. >> type it up. We do that here at TIME. >> Oh, then, I should do a book. >> I've got-- You've gone through all my questions. >> We did every question. 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