Robin Williams found dead in his Bay Area Home...

[Clueless Morgan]

He was a big player in some of the movies that I consider to define my childhood:
...
Good Will Hunting

My opinion: Robin Williams was the only good thing about that movie. He made the movie work as well as it did by the force of his talent and personality.

Yup. I don't pay concerted attention to most of the movie, but I perk up and watch the scenes with Robin in them.

It's kind of strange how much we care about celebrities. I don't mean to sound cold or anything, but this is somebody that literally none of us knew at all.

People will not know them personally but for many of us they do impact on people's lives in some respects. Robin Williams, for me at least, is a memorable part of my childhood with films like Mrs Doubtfire and Aladdin. It's kinda like when Steve Irwin died, I grew up watching his wildlife programmes and when he died I was pretty upset. Not like, majorly upset, but just sad. It's not that strange when you consider you see these people a lot, albeit through a screen more than anything else.

I agree. I didn't follow RW's career or his personal life in tabloids or anything, I was a fan of his work when I was a kid and have enjoyed those movies into adulthood.

I may not have known him personally, but that doesn't mean that he didn't have an impact of me through his work.

I always got the sense he never really showed his true personality to the public. Like he was hiding his depression behind a façade of comedy.

I've been thinking that also, especially after hearing the news of how he killed himself, along with his drug and alcohol addiction as well as severe depression. It's sad, and it's pretty ironic, too.

Nonetheless, he was a good comedian for sure and I enjoyed most of his movies.

Several years ago I had heard that RW had gone into rehab for problems with alcohol, and I suppose I suspected that there was more lurking under his kooky public persona than he let the wider world see (and why should he let the world see it? It's not our business) but didn't want to post that I saw this coming because, you know, hindsight bias.