“He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible,” makeup artist Cheri Minns told author Itzkoff. “I said to his people, ‘I’m a makeup artist. I don’t have the capacity to deal with what’s happening to him.’ ”
When Minns suggested a return to stand-up comedy as a way out of his depression, Williams wouldn’t hear of it. “He just cried and said, ‘I can’t, Cheri. I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know how to be funny.’ ”
After the failure of his short-lived 2013 television show The Crazy Ones, Williams’s health took a turn for the worse. He lost weight, his voice became tremulous, and he stooped.
Pam Dawber, his co-star from Mork & Mindy, had joined the cast of The Crazy Ones in a last-ditch bid to to raise ratings. She noticed big changes in Williams.
“I would come home and say to my husband, ‘Something is wrong. He’s flat. He’s lost the spark. I don’t know what it is,’ ” Dawber says in the book.
Initally diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease – a diagnosis which said he still had “10 good years” to live – Williams tried to right his health ship, checking into a rehab center in hopes he could manage his illness.
Unfortunately, it was not a disease that could be overcome.
