Robin Williams is dead

@Lash,

I just was reading up on Christopher Reeve, and, saw this -

Reeve went through inner anguish in the ICU, particularly when he was alone during the night. His approaching operation to reattach his skull to his spine (June 1995) "was frightening to contemplate. ... I already knew that I had only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the surgery. ... Then, at an especially bleak moment, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and 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 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 okay."[61]

Aw... heck.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Reeve

1 Reply

@Lash,

Lash wrote:

I think a lot of us would check out early with a diagnosis like Alzheimer's or similar. Parkinson's is in that arena.

I have not found an exact quote yet but clearly Christopher Reeves long tortured good bye weighed heavy on Williams at the time...I can well imagine Williams saying to himself " no way am I going to go through that, no way am I go to put my family through that".

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@ossobuco,

Too bad nobody was there to save Robin from his demons.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

HOW can u assert that
without considering his outstanding financial liabilities ?
I dunno how much he owed; do u ?

His estimated net worth of $50 million would take into account his financial liabilities.

He had made very solid real estate investments which he placed into a trust.

Quote:

Public records about Williams’ real estate show that they have significant value. His Napa Valley mansion, which rests on 653 acres and is named Villa Sorriso (translated to the Villa of Smiles), has been on the market since April for $29.9 million. Williams also left behind a 6,500-square-foot waterfront home in Tiburon, California, valued at roughly $6 million. The two properties are subject to mortgages, according to public records, that totaled $7.25 million as of 2011. This means that Williams left behind real estate with equity of around $25 million, depending on what Villa Sorriso can command in a sale.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/trialandheirs/2014/08/12/whats-next-for-robin-williams-family-and-estate/

And, beside his real estate trust, he had put funds into a trust fund for his 3 adult children.

He really didn't have significant financial problems. He was in quite good financial shape. He was a very wealthy man.

Of course, that may not have stopped him from worrying constantly about finances. He had long standing problems with anxiety that were among the demons that he dealt with.

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Quote:

Twitter reviewing policies after Robin Williams' daughter harassed
By Doug Gross, CNN
August 14, 2014

(CNN) -- Twitter is looking to revamp its user-protection policies after Zelda Williams, the daughter of comedian Robin Williams, was run off of the social site by abuse in the wake of her father's apparent suicide.

"We will not tolerate abuse of this nature on Twitter," Del Harvey, Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, said in a statement. "We have suspended a number of accounts related to this issue for violating our rules and we are in the process of evaluating how we can further improve our policies to better handle tragic situations like this one.

"This includes expanding our policies regarding self-harm and private information, and improving support for family members of deceased users."

Zelda Williams abandoned her Twitter and Instagram accounts Tuesday after saying at least two people were sending her Photoshopped images of her father's dead body and other disturbing messages -- some blaming her for father's death.

"I'm sorry. I should've risen above," she wrote in her final tweet. "Deleting this from my devices for a good long time, maybe forever. Time will tell. Goodbye."

The episode proves that, with the anonymity of the Internet, some people will be horrible no matter the situation.

Earlier, Williams, 25, had asked her followers to report the abusive accounts to Twitter, but said they appeared to be creating new accounts after being banned by the site. She later deleted her request, which called the abusive messages "cruel and unnecessary."

On Instagram, she also addressed negativity targeting her in an announcement that she'd be taking a break from the photo-sharing app.

"I will be leaving this account for a bit while I heal and decide if I'll be deleting it or not," she wrote. "In this difficult time, please try to be respectful."

Williams also touched on the personal attacks, albeit in a more light-hearted way, in a statement she posted on blogging site Tumblr.

"To those he touched who are sending kind words, know that one of his favorite things in the world was to make you all laugh," she wrote. "As for those who are sending negativity, know that some small, giggling part of him is sending a flock of pigeons to your house to poop on your car. Right after you've had it washed. After all, he loved to laugh too."

Despite the attacks, the vast majority of social-media messages posted to Zelda Williams' accounts were positive and supportive of her decision to take some time away from the Web...
http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/13/tech/social-media/zelda-williams-twitter/

1 Reply

@firefly,

Quote:

He had made very solid real estate investments

to find out over the last two years that the ranch, which he had been building for three decades designing a lot of it himself, was not worth what he thought it was worth must have been yet another in a long series of later years defeats. It was his last major nest egg, and it turned out that nobody loved it anywhere near as much as he loved it. It is like writing/directing/ taking the lead of a movie over a period of years and then have the audience not show up....it is ego crushing.

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@hawkeye10,

hawk, I'm really not understanding your attack on Robin about his finances. Based on any wealth survey, Robin would fit easily in the top 1% in wealth.

That's successful in any language.

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@hawkeye10,

Hawkeye, the ranch had only been back on the market since April. You don't generally sell property priced at $29-$30 million all that quickly, and I'm sure he knew that. I doubt this was "ego-crushing" for him.

The final value of the property will be determined when it is eventually sold.

The $25 million in equity in his two real estate holdings remained a very tidy nest egg for him by anyone's standards.

His financial affairs were apparently in good order.

Do you know many people who have over $20 million in real estate equity? He made very successful investments.

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https://38.media.tumblr.com/7e8b26573b79f9d8b58e63bb3318f310/tumblr_na64i4ui0L1rbrhnko1_500.gif

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

hawk, I'm really not understanding your attack on Robin about his finances. Based on any wealth survey, Robin would fit easily in the top 1% in wealth.

That's successful in any language.

I find it impossible to believe that you have not personally known the anguish of people who have owned homes that are supposed to be worth $1 million, which they have been trying to sell for $900,000 but cant, and dont have the money to pay the property taxes. It takes some liquidity to manage real estate wealth, and it is not clear that Williams had it. More than just a few property owners in Silicone valley have had this problem...if they need to get out at a certain time and for whatever reason can not they are pretty well fucked. Needing to sell at firesale prices a property that you have owned for three decades, that you have designed and been building over these three decades, would put most of us into a depression I think.

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@firefly,

Quote:

Hawkeye, the ranch had only been back on the market since April. You don't generally sell property priced at $29-$30 million all that quickly

reports are that it was taken off the market the first time after there was a complete lack of interest in the sale ( the fact that they did not leave it up with a $35 million asking price tends to confirm this account) . If he lowered the price 15% and there was still a complete lack of interest ( which I dont know to be true) then Robin knew that this place was not going to sell right now for anything close to $30 million.

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@firefly,

No, that's off. He had it on and off over years - or maybe all on over three years -and April was just a new sales effort and baseline.

I've on purpose not linked the real estate site that shows it (there are likely a few and easy to find). I had read it a few months ago since I follow that area real estate in the SF Chronicle. (I said as much early in this thread). Why? I like land, landuse, and architecture and particularly that land. I'm picky though, and don't like a lot of stuff that comes up on real estate sites, even mansions.

I'm not going to go look for it right now, but the land is visibly wonderful. I had quibbles about the villa, but that's me, I remember that I'd want to fix it, but not why. I'm not wealthy, the direct opposite, but I do read about land and buildings.

1 Reply

Another thing about the ranch.....waiting a year to try to sell it turned out to be a very bad move, as one of the major alleged potentials of this property is that it is zoned to allow it to become a full scale winery. However, given the states current water issues there will be no new wineries built for the foreseeable future. Williams was in no position to wait a decade or more to see if the water problem goes away so that this property can meet its value potential. A year ago few people believed that the state faced a serious long term drought problem, now just about everyone does.

Yet again we see that everything that Robin Williams had tried over the last years turned to crap, stunningly quickly in fact.

There might be some ability of the estate to sit on this property if there were substantial life insurance payouts, but at this point we dont know.

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@ossobuco,

Quote:

I'm not going to go look for it right now, but the land is visibly wonderful. I had quibbles about the villa, but that's me, I remember that I'd want to fix it, but not why. I'm not wealthy, the direct opposite, but I do read about land and buildings.

you more than most here I bet understand how crushing it must have been to Williams that something that he loved this much, that he spent this much time building, was not worth (right now at least) what he had for years thought it was worth) When he found that out he must have also been very heartbroken that he did not have the funds to hold onto it for awhile so that he could try again latter.

EGO. CRUSHING.

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@hawkeye10,

That's a point.

I don't think the tipper, myself.

I'm still following firefly's general take - but I know nothing, and I'm uncomfortable trying to analyze someone's despair.

I'd rather remember he is one of all of us.
Still is.

1 Reply

@ossobuco,

ossobuco wrote:

That's a point.

I don't think the tipper, myself.

I'm still following firefly's general take - but I know nothing, and I'm uncomfortable trying to analyze someone's despair.

I'd rather remember he is one of all of us.
Still is.

that ranch was supposed to be where he lived out his retirement in bliss. Imagine if you had been spending a decade designing and building a villa in Italy for your blissful retirement, then you had several setbacks and found yourself needing to sell it before you ever got retired ( and then just for kicks finding out that it was not worth what you thought it was) . WOW, what heartbreak. Now I know you had hopes. but you never actually built the place, lived in the place.

I generally believe that it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all, but this might be an exception....there is just so much ego crushing going on.

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@hawkeye10,

Oh! Our home is worth more than $1 million. We bought this home for $50,000 in the early seventies, and we have made complete renovations on this house since we bought it. We live in a high demand ZIP code area of Silicon Valley, and our home is only one block from the hospital, and easy access to expressways and to freeways. Apple Computer is building Campus 2 just a few blocks from where we live, and it will house over 12,000 workers there when completed in 2016. The demand for this house is going to go through the roof! *We really don't need to wait for that kind of money, because we have enough in our retirement investments to live comfortably.
Our investments are up 5.23% YTD.

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@cicerone imposter,

that is great, but the point was that from your vantage point you likely have known people who were real estate rich and cash poor, and saw how their wealth evaporated if they could not unload their property when they needed to, for what they had for years thought it was worth. I lived in Monterey for a total of 5 years over three different times, three of those years in military housing, and even I came to know people like that.

One was a landlord. Evaporation of his wealth when he could not unload a house when he needed to eventually cost him his marriage as owning rental property was his get rich scheme that the wife went along for the ride with, when it crashed and burned she did not trust him anymore and took a hike.

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@hawkeye10,

Hey, that happened to me, no need to imagine. Not at his income level, but essentially the same and about his age. (none of anyone's beeswax)

I still think despair has it's own qualities, that many people live it in struggle over years, and still pick life.

And sometimes that breaks down.

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@cicerone imposter,

What an obnoxious post, CI.

1 Reply

Robin Williams is dead

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