Life. Thats why you treat a disease, you win, you lose. You treat a person. I guarantee you, you win. Those are the things i miss the most. Little idio sing crassies that i know about. That is what made my wife and she had the goods on me too. She knew all of my little peckadillos. People call these perfections. But they are not. Thats the good stuff. You are here and life exists and an identity. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. Some of the powerful lines spoken by Robin Williams, an entertainment genius who commanded the spotlight from standup comedy clubs to oscar winning films. Its hard to think of anybody
as naturally funny as Robin Williams. He was wild. He was freewilling and better at improv than anybody and it left audience barrel over in laughter. While his performance broke barriers in the series of leading roles, he was a deeply funny and deeply complicated man. And deeply troubled as well. The comedian and movie star gave us characters full of warmth and life from mrs. Doubtfire to the dead Poets Society. A personal struggle and deep challenges he dealt with depression for years and reportedly checking in a clinic as recently as july and a publicist said he had been battling deep depression. He was found dead in his home in california yesterday. An parent suicide. He was 63 years old and apparently there is a News Conference this morning with details on how this happened. Good morning, everyone. It is tuesday, august 12th. Bus on set we have morning joe
contributor mark halpern and the host of way too early Thomas Roberts and willie geist. From the time in 1978 that he burst on to the scene, it was amazing. Mork and mindy went on the air and a couple of weeks later it was an instant hit. It was an instant hit because of him. Its hard to believe in these days that any Television Show would have 50 million, 60 Million People watching every single week and they did and they did because of Robin Williams. Because you almost were transfixed watching his comedic talent and they left a lot of room for him in the script just to adlib because he was that good. Willie, he was a comedian like no other before him and he broke the mold. You look at jimi hendrix playing the guitar. There was nobody like jimi hendrix before jimi hendrix and never been anybody sense and the same with Robin Williams. Nobody has been like him. I missed mork and mindy. My First Experience with Robin Williams was good morning vietnam. I remember that singular performance and knowing how much of that had been adlibbed and to watch one man carry a movie that way and to go on these extended rifts where youre watching the other characters in the movie break up laughing for real what Robin Williams is doing. He had a lot more dramatic performances that had nothing to do with his comedy chops. Dead Poets Society and good will hunting. He could so so many things. I remember for the first time soon after he started doing movies i think his second movie was world according to garp. He was funny in it but also very complicated and very sad at times. I remember being shocked at his
range. There is a tremendous outpowering of grief and shock following word of williams death. His wife says i lost my husband and best friend while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. Im utterly heartbroken. Actors and artists with whom he worked took to twitter. Steve martin called him a generous soul. Even sesame street chimed in. To what it means to be alive. Even president obama reflekcted saying Robin Williams was a airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president , a professor and everything in between. Williams body of work is staggering in its scope and breadth from his time raising money for the homeless on comic relief to the most provocative performances in cinema. Robin williams was an
entertainer in the classic sense of the word. Bad men distance dance the on field. Reporter a standup comedian and broadway performer and one of the most successful and tv and movie stars of any generation. He was a master of impressions. You remember john wayne going, well, is this a dagger i see before me . Reporter and delighted the impressionable. There is lots of things you can do with a stick. You can start off and be playing baseball in the world series or you can be gene shalit or pinocchio. Reporter his breakthrough came as mork. My name is mork. Nanana. Reporter it drew 60 Million Viewers every week. And provided a National Audience for his genius. I cant let you pass up a chance like me, honey. Stop it mork, will you help me . If you insist. Mind if i cut in . Thank you. Reporter but it wasnt long before he turned his attention to more serious projects, waking up the world in good morning vietnam. In saigon today according to officials nothing actually happened. One thing that didnt happen is a bomb didnt explode 14 hours unofficially destroying jimmys cafe. Get him out of there reporter he mixed the phonetic and the funny. You do fossey, fossey, fossey and. Reporter with the deeply philosophical. The poet. The beauty. Romance love these are what we stay alive for. Reporter he was a regular at the Academy Awards taking home an oscar in 1998, his only one for his role in good will hunting. You dont know about real loss because that only occurs when you love something more than you love yourself. I doubt you ever dare to love
anybody that much. Reporter according to publicist, williams had been battling severe depression and going to rehab in 2006. I went to rehab in wine country. Are you happy . Were you unhappy before you went in . I was pretty much everything before i went in and now its great just to have genuine emotions and being all right with that. Reporter his roles were as complex and as playful as the man himself exploring some of humanitys darkest chapters and along with our greatest triumphs and above all else, he made us laugh. A lot of voices we want to bring in this morning. Mike hogan of vanity fair and brian steinberg. Thank you both for being up e g early with us. I was struck by twitter reading the outpowering of support and not just fans but the Hollywood Community from comedy to drama and felt like he touched
everybody. Absolutely. One of the things so amazing is right out of the gate at the beginning of his career, Robin Williams was kind of coming out of a world of underground comedy of improv and saying a lot of irrev representative things and acting pretty much totally crazy and people immediately embraced him. I think there was a sincerity underneath all of that manic energy that people grabbed on to right away and responded to and that is what you see. Now with this outpouring of grief everybody from the academy to sesame street to the president of the United States feeling this loss in a way that is unusual. Brian, another thing that struck me reading the reaction was how everyone had a different project. It wasnt like it was just one or two movies that jumped out. We had some people say my kids loved him as popeye or the voice of aladdin or the deeper roles where he was nominated for oscars. He just had a truly an incredible range to him. I think that is right. This is a guy that could really play a great despair or humor as
equal intensity and a rare find in hollywood to have somebody do those things both at the same time. Speaking of adlibbing. Robin williams was known for adlibbing in almost every role hes ever taken. In the animated film aladdin it was rumored 16 hours of recording from his recording sessions kind after nightmare but kind of what brilliance comes from. He improvised him so much the Academy Award turned down the film for best adapted screen play. Look at this. Youre going to grant me any three wishes i want, right . Almost. A couple of quid pro quo. Like . Rule number one. I cant kill anybody, so dont ask. Rule number two. I cant make anybody fall in love with anybody else. You little fun man rule number three i cant bring people back from the dead its not a pretty picture and i dont like doing it
other than that, you got it. Provisos, you mean limitations, wishes . Some unpowerful genie. Cant even bring people back from the dead. I dont know, abu. He probably cant even get us out of this cave. Looks like we are going to have to find a way out of here. Excuse me . Are you looking at me . Did you rub my lamp . Did you wake me up . Did you bring me here . And, all of a sudden, youre walking out on me . I dont think so not right now youre getting your wish so sit down amazing. His mind is so fast when he is adlibbing. Like nobody out there. To go from that you see that and there is a line what he did on mork and mindy. And to go from that Something Like garp or good will hunting and what dreams may come. You can see he was most comfortable when he was adlibbing and that is really when he was at his best. He also, were hearing a lot of stories now about what a good guy and what a good friend he was. He had this long relationship with Christopher Reeves. He attended the premiere of good morning vietnam. That with would earn him an Academy Award nomination. After his accident that left him paralyzed in 1995 it was Robin Williams who helped nurse the actors spirit. He showed up at the hospital dressed in scrubs headtotoe and reeves recalled the interview from 1998. I was so struck by your obvious deep, deep friendship with Robin Williams at the Creative Coalition event. He was the first one to show up down in virginia when he was really in trouble. He came here one afternoon and
just thank god i wear a seat belt in this chair because i would have fallen out laughing. In the middle of a tragedy like this, in the middle of recuperation, you can still experience genuine joy and laughter and love and anybody says life is not worth living is totally wrong, totally wrong. This was as Christopher Reeves was going in for surgery doctors said he had a 50 50 chance coming out of it and he was on his bed and the door forces open. Robin williams saying im your proctologist and just a couple of things before your surgery. Thomas, what is your memory of Robin Williams . I have to think back to mork and mindy. That is what my sister and i watched as kids. Mork showed up on happy days. That was then a spinoff that he got. Jonathan winters was his hero who showed up as his kid on
mork and mindy. And mork was the one that got pregnant after they got married and egg showed up in the attic. The egg from ork and Jonathan Winters comes down and hes the baby. Crazy. Fantastic. But you were talking about the adlibbing, willie. He was known for that. When we see the opening scenes of mrs. Doubtfire is the voiceover artist and actor who gets fired from a job because he doesnt like the way the cartoon is going and the bird is smoking. Pudgy, the bird, oh, no ill get a cancer. No, pudgy is going to smoke but i dont want to send kids the message this kid is going to smoke. He gets canned from the job and ends up as his own kids nanny dressed in drag. There was talks he was going to make mrs. Doubtfire 2. But he will live you forever. These films for kids and adults he touched so many lives. Mark, what about you . For me standup and appearances on late night talk shows and award shows. He was come in and explode any appearance he was on. You can watch lots of them on youtube as i did some last night and this morning where he just came on improv, interaction and a phenomenal genius. One other thing we havent talked about much yet. He did kill himself. What struck me is no one is surprised. No one is surprised that he killed himself because he lived pretty openly about his addiction and his troubles. Its sad and a lot of talk about helping people around the world today who deal with the Substance Abuse and depression he had. That is a thing there was something about him when you saw him in mork and mindy. But if you see him in garp, if you see him in good will hunting. In so many of these roles, you
know, there was something very real, there was something very funny about the guy, but also something very sad. I read in the New York Times this morning, i had no idea as a child, they talk about how he grew up in detroit a privileged son of a detroit auto executive that lived in a mansion and played by himself in a room with thousands of toy soldiers and there was just sort of this sadness that went along with the joy and, youre right, nobody was surprised. For all of us who have seen people and known people that have struggled with depression or struggled with bipolar disorder or any of these Mental Health challenges, we understand what a battle it is just to get through the day and he did so many like a lot of great artists, he used his suffering and he used his daily challenges and put it in i think it made
him a greater artist, a more sensitive artist, a more feeling artist, but it also, of course, led to a life of struggle. Yeah. He was able to exude such extreme elation and pleasure and joy and humor and also the depth of pain in his work. Everyone talks about his range and that obviously those extremes plagued his life as well. He talked about his own struggle using drugs and alcohol using it actually as material for his standup. This is whaty i had to give alcohol because you have to pay the next day. Dear lord, please dont hurt me now. Lying in bed and you feel like the scenes in the movie going, help me help me the entire room is spinning like a roulette wheel. Place your bets place your bets the old toilet in the corner going, talk to me here is a warning sign if you
have a cocaine problem. If you have only a couch in and your cat is going [ bleep ] me too. You cant fall asleep and doing cocaine in your sleep and cant fall asleep and you wake up and youre doing cocaine, bingo. Number three if on your form it says 50,000 for snacks, mayday mike hogan, he speaks, obviously, from experience and in a way that connects with the vulnerable. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, its just, once again, you see that there is this manicness that is pushing and kind of playing those high notes to try and almost distract you and him from Something Else that is a little darker underneath. I think that is what a lot of people are responding to today. But it also made him such a talented versatile actor where when he did dial it back down, you really got these very soulful performance like the one he won the oscar for in good
will hunting. Brian, is there something that sticks out to you that you think he can be most reminded for . Im reminded of an early 70s performance where he is talking about the comedy routine saying, oh, no, im doing it wrong. Amazing stuff and very inventive and fertile mind that will not be duplicated any time soon. Mike hogan and brian steinberg, thank you. We will have much more on the life and genius of Robin Williams throughout the show. President obama hits pause on his vacation to grating tcon the new Prime Minister in iraq. There is a problem. What is that . The old Prime Minister refuses to go away and calling the move illegal. Later, mrs. Say all options remain open in the fatal accident involving nascar driver tony stewart. Could criminal charges be coming soon . First, bill karins with a check on the forecast. Good morning on this tuesday. Yesterday, we got soaked in detroit. It wasnt your normal soaking. They had over four inches of rain. The second most rain they had in their recorded history in one single day and their records go back to the 1800s. Every highway in the city was flooded at one point. 4 1 2 inches of rain. Its drying out today but that slow moving soaker is now pushing east. We are going to see very heavy rain today. Areas of new york, pennsylvania, and eventually shifting into the big cities on i95. Already the green on the map is light rain d. C. To baltimore and scranton area light rain. A closer view shows you right over the loop there around d. C. Around 295 and 495. We do have a little bit of light rain but not the heavy stuff. That will come later today and maybe thunderstorms. If you have travel plans at the airports or the roads expect delays especially late today and tonight. New york city we are expecting as much as 3 inches of rain later this evening in a very, very slow wednesday morning commute because of those downpours. That is going to be moving out into areas of central new england by the time we get through wednesday. Everything else around the country looks okay today but that travel trouble spot is on a busy i95 corridor later today into tonight. The New York Times youre dry this morning and driving home in some rain. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. vo ours is a world of passengers. The redeyes. daughter im really tired. vo the transfers. Well, thats kid number three. vo the copilots. All sitting. Trusting. Waiting. For a safe arrival. Introducing the allnew subaru legacy. Designed to help the driver in you. Care for the passenger in them. The subaru legacy. Its not just a sedan. Its a subaru. If energy could come from anything . Or if power could go anywhere . Or if light could seek out the dark . What would happen if that happens . Anything. Welcome back to morning joe. More on the passing of Robin Williams in a moment. Some other news as well. Dueling conflicts are fueling questions about the future stability of iraq. The countrys new president has picked the countrys deputy
speaker to be the next Prime Minister. Al maliki refused to leave the post. He accused iraqs president of violating the constitution and accusing the u. S. For not su