Glenn Close has claimed Robin Williams “would still be alive” if his friend Christopher Reeve hadn’t died in 2004.
Williams, who took his own life in 2014, was close friends with the Superman actor, who passed away nine years after a horse-riding accident left him paralysed in 1995.
In a new documentary, titled Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, many areas of Reeve’s life are explored, including his friendship with the comedian and actor.
Speaking in the film, Fatal Attraction star Closesays: “I always felt that if Chris was still around, Robin would still be alive.”
Image: Glenn Close and Robin Williams in 2011 Pic: AP
Williams and Reeve had been close for decades after rooming together at The Juilliard School in New York in 1973.
At the time of his death, Williams was suffering from Lewy body dementia, an incurable brain disease which had been misdiagnosed as Parkinson’s disease.
Many of the Good Will Hunting star’s friends and colleagues recalled that Williams’ deteriorating health led to an intense depression that left him “sobbing” and believing he no longer knew “how to be funny”.
More on Glenn Close
Related Topics:
This is not the first time Close has said she thought Williams would still be alive if Reeve was too.
ET News reported in 2017 that, while speaking at the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation’s annual charity gala, Close described Williams and Reeves’s “connection” as “the stuff of legend”.
Advertisement
“It not only endured, but became a life-giving force sustaining them both,” she said.
Recalling how, during her time filming The World According to Garp with Williams in 1982, Reeves “would literally swoop in, piloting his own plane, scoop Robin up, and away they would fly for the weekend”.
Image: Christopher Reeve and Robin Williams arrive at Reeve’s 50th birthday party in New York City in 2002. Pic: Reuters
“On Sunday, late afternoon, Chris would swoop back in and deliver Robin back – I have to say a little worse for wear.”
She said the pair were “on top of the world” when they spent time together, adding: “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.”
“I am convinced that if Chris were still with us, Robin would be too.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.
In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
It is “pretty surreal”, Academy Award winner Reese Witherspoon admits, finding herself at the top of The New York Times bestsellers list.
When I meet the actress alongside her co-writer, best-selling author Harlan Coben, overnight the pair have learned that their thriller is now at number one.
He jokes: “I was texting her last night and saying you’ll now have to call yourself number one bestselling novelist, forget about Oscar winner!”
Image: Reese Witherspoon and Harlan Coben told Katie Spencer about their novel Gone Before Goodbye
As one of the most successful authors in the world, Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground.
Not content with running a hugely successful production company responsible for a string of hits, as well as one of the most successful book clubs in the world, she explains she felt compelled to give writing a try.
“People want you to stay in your lane… as a creative person I think it’s impossible to just choose one kind of life.
“Creativity is infinite and who I was as a creative person when I was 20 is very different from the person I am now at 49.”
More on Reese Witherspoon
Related Topics:
Gone Before Goodbye, a thriller about a talented surgeon who finds herself caught up in a deadly conspiracy, is the result of Witherspoon daring to put her head above the parapet.
Image: Witherspoon says she felt compelled to give writing a try
Coben admits he was “a little wary” at first.
“I don’t co-write novels but when she made the pitch and started talking about it, I was like ‘dang that’s good, we can do something with that’.”
While countless celebrities work with ghostwriters, Coben says: “I said to her from day one ‘it’s only going to be you and me in here… no third person in here, I don’t do that’. So every word you [read] comes from Reese and me.”
Image: Coben has sold over 80 million books to date, while for Witherspoon this is new ground
Witherspoon explains: “He was like ‘if we’re going to do this, it’s going to have to be at a really high level because people going to expect a lot, so our bar was really high.”
“I said to her, in the beginning, novels are like a sausage,” Coben laughs. “You might like the final taste, but you don’t want to see how it was made and Reese got to see the full sausage getting made here.”
When it came to writing, Coben says they “fell into a rhythm right away”, working together in three-hour stints, “back and forth with a yellow legal pad – what about this? What about that?”
Image: Coben says they ‘fell into a rhythm right away’
Witherspoon says it “feels really deeply personal” to have their work now in print.
“Usually, as an actor, I walk into other people’s worlds and it’s already set up… but this was creating the whole world with Harlan and just from beginning to end feels very personal.”
While the story seems an obvious fit for being adapted to the screen, perhaps with a certain blonde actress in the leading role, Coben says that was never their intention.
“The biggest, biggest mistake novelists make when you write a book is to say ‘this would make a really great movie’. A book is a book, a movie is a movie, and we both focused on wanting this to be just a great reading experience.”
Given that their collaboration is already selling in big numbers, will the pair team up again to write a second?
Witherspoon says: “Let’s just see what people think of this one first.”
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
1:43
May: Eight found guilty over Kim Kardashian Paris heist
Associate professor of neurology Dr Laura Stein told Sky’s US partner NBC News: ” The most well-described risk factors include a predisposition [family history of aneurysm], high blood pressure, cigarette smoking and inflammation.”
She went on to explain that most fatal ruptured aneurysms are in the brain, killing about one in three patients.
“When it’s a blood vessel that’s in the head and it bleeds, there’s a much higher risk of having a very bad problem just because the brain is enclosed in a fixed space,” Dr Stein added.
Low-risk aneurysms are monitored by doctors for growth or abnormalities, and there are a series of potential treatment options for those considered dangerous.
Elsewhere in The Kardashians clip, Kim admitted that her ex-husband Kanye West will be in her life “no matter what” because of the four kids they share together.