Robin Williams: commentary, analysis, appreciation

Williams.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT: 
■ Robin Williams: An Appreciation
The question from a fan in a Sirius XM interview last year was innocent — what do you think you’d be doing if you didn’t become a comedian? — and within seconds Robin Williams was impersonating physicist Stephen Hawking getting a lap dance at a strip club.

“Now don’t sit on the keyboard!” Williams said, coaxing laughs from a few dozen people in a Manhattan studio...READ FULL

NEWS: 
■ Williams apparently hanged self with belt
Authorities on Tuesday detailed how Robin Williams’ took his life, saying the actor and comedian hanged himself with a belt in a bedroom of his San Francisco Bay Area home.

Marin County Sheriff’s Lt. Keith Boyd said Mr. Williams was last seen alive by his wife Sunday night when she went to bed. She woke up the next morning and left, thinking he was still asleep elsewhere in the home...READ FULL

■ Experts say Williams’ suicide shows depression’s overwhelming effect
Depression can mow down even the wealthiest, most creative people, and those with both mental illness and an addiction are especially vulnerable, mental health experts said Tuesday in the wake of comedian Robin Williams’ apparent suicide.

Joseph Cvitkovic, director of behavioral-health care for Jefferson Hospital-Allegheny Health Network, said it can be difficult for people who don’t have major depression to understand the “intensity of the pain” it causes...READ FULL

OPINION:
■ When laughter dies
Most people who are mourning the death of comedian Robin Williams after his apparent suicide on Monday never met him. Yet millions felt a profound connection to the 63-year-old Oscar-winning actor since he leapt from television screens as the free-associating space alien on Mork & Mindy in the late 1970s...READ FULL