In a moving new documentary on Christopher Reeve, Glenn Close sheds light on his close friendship with Robin Williams and speculates that the “Superman” star might have been able to help Williams near the end of his life, as he coped with a devastating form of dementia that was known to cause a decline in mental abilities and mobility.
“I always felt that if Chris was still around, Robin would still be alive,” Close says in the film, “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story,” which recently premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Actor Christopher Reeve who portrayed Superman in the movie, presents Robin Williams, Mork of “Mork & Mindy” with the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New TV Program, at the Fifth Annual People’s Choice Awards in Los Angeles, Calif., March 8, 1979.
Close’s comments left some people “catching their breath” in the premiere screening of the film on Jan. 21, according to the Washington Post. At the screening, “snobs and sniffles echoed constantly throughout the theater,” the Washington Post said.
Close’s comments probably struck a strong emotional chord because it’s a reminder that the world prematurely lost two beloved film stars who happened to be lifelong friends. The two men first became close after studying together at New York’s Juilliard School and rooming together in the early 1970s.
Reeve died first in 2004 from a cardiac arrest. He was only 52. His death came nine years after he fell during an equestrian competition in Virginia. The accident left him paralyzed from the shoulders down, in a wheelchair and dependent on a ventilator to breathe.
Williams died by suicide 10 years later in his Marin County home. The Academy Award winner was 63 and had been open about dealing with anxiety, depression and addiction for much of his life. After his death, it was learned that he had Lewy body dementia, a progressive disease that operated as a “terrorist” inside his brain, causing memory loss, paranoia and delusions, his widow, Susan Schneider Williams, later revealed.
Close became a witness to Williams’ friendship with Reeve when she and the “Good Will Hunting” actor worked together on the 1982 film, “The World According to Garp,” Entertainment Tonight reported. While speaking in 2017 at a gala to support the foundation that Reeve started with his late wife, Dana Reeve, Close recalled the bond the two men shared.
“My first connection to Christopher Reeve was through Robin Williams, when we were shooting ‘The World According to Garp,’” Close began, according to “ET.” “It was the summer of 1982, when we were filming on Fishers Island. On Friday evenings, Chris would literally swoop in, piloting his own plane, scoop Robin up, and away they would fly for the weekend. On Sunday, late afternoon, Chris would swoop back in and deliver Robin back — I have to say a little worse for wear.”
Robin Williams, left, and Christopher Reeve, attempt to hail a taxicab in New York City on Feb. 9, 1981. Williams went to see Reeve, who is appearing in the play “The Fifth of July”, backstage after his performance Friday night. (AP Photo/Steve Sands)
“Those were the heady days for them both,” she continued, ET reported. “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.”
During that speech, Close also said she was “convinced” that Williams would still be alive if Reeve were, too, “E.T.” reported.
“Their friendship, their connection, is the stuff of legend. It not only endured, but became a life-giving force sustaining them both,” Close said.
The new Reeve documentary includes interviews with Reeve’s three children Matthew, Alexandra and Will, who attended the Sundance premiere, People reported. His wife, Dana, died from lung cancer, 18 months after his death. Their children all serve on the board of directors for the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which is dedicated to researching a cure for spinal cord injuries.
The interview also features interviews with Close and Reeve’s other celebrity friends, including Whoopi Goldberg, Susan Sarandon and Jeff Daniels. It furthermore covers a memorable anecdote that involves Williams and that is mentioned in Reeve’s 1998 memoir “Still Me.” It involves a visit Williams paid to Reeve in the hospital, shortly after his friend’s riding accident.
Reeve was in a particularly dark place, as he wrote in his book. He had just learned that his first and second vertical second cervical vertebrae had been destroyed, that his spinal cord was damaged and that he wouldn’t be able to breathe without a ventilator. He felt that he had ruined his life and would be a burden to his family. He told his wife that it might be best for him to “slip away.”
Nights in the ICU were especially difficult, Reeve recalled. During one bleak moment, he received a visit from a hurried-looking squat man, wearing a blue scrub hat, a yellow surgical gown and glasses. Speaking in a Russian accent, the man announced that he was a proctologist and was going to perform a rectal exam on Reeve.
It turned out the doctor was Robin Williams, reprising his character from the film “Nine Months.” Reeve wrote: “For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be OK.”
The documentary shares how Williams continued to support Reeve through his rehabilitation, the Washington Post reported. Williams and his second wife, Marsha, bought the Reeve family a special retrofitted van to get him to an appearance at the Academy Awards 10 months after the accident. Williams also joined the board of Reeve’s foundation and became an advocate himself for people with disabilities.
At Reeve’s funeral in 2004, Williams called Reeve his brother and said that Reeve had been a steady rock for him, according to the Washington Post. “I was chaos for him,” Williams explained but he explained that Reeve had loved it.
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