Robin Williams Called Three Years Of Drinking 'Whatever'

On Friday 4 December 2009, Robin Williams sat down alone with Charlie Rose for a full hour on PBS — the second time in seven years, and two days before HBO aired his stand-up special Weapons of Self-Destruction. Fifty-one minutes, one guest, one round table. He was 266 days past an aortic valve replacement at the Cleveland Clinic (Friday 13 March 2009). A week before that, on 6 March, four Florida shows had been cancelled after he became short of breath and was treated in a Miami hospital. On the tape he tells the story himself: the doctor who wanted to operate the next day, the Italian surgeon who told him he might not want a guy who wants to go on vacation, and the three months it took to get back on the road. But the hour is not really about the valve. At 28 minutes Rose asks whether he "went through a certain kind of whatever" — and Williams takes the word and keeps it: "Yes, I went through a certain kind of whatever, three years of heavy drinking." Our own count of the tape puts the word at about 39 uses, 33 of them inside three minutes. It is not there before Rose says it. Four times Williams says it on his own, in a sentence that is not a joke: about isolation, about consequences, about gratitude, and about forty wristwatches. In October 2006 he said something plainer on Good Morning America after two months at a programme in Oregon: "I need help, and that's the word." This episode sets the two moments next to each other and does not claim they describe the same years. Also on the tape: the anti-Mork, the mime outside the Metropolitan Museum, Jonathan Winters as the Buddha, the lessons from George Roy Hill, Peter Weir and Jeff Bridges, Richard Pryor at the Comedy Store, World's Greatest Dad, and his children. Sources: charlierose.com (the show's own catalogue card, videos/24236); Charlie Rose's own upload of the hour (fVG2L0C7tno); WOIO Cleveland 19 News (March 2009); ABC News (6 March 2009 and 2 October 2006); Playbill (8 July 2009). Every quote was located by ear against the actual audio. Chapters 0:00 Cold open 1:11 The hour, and the word 1:28 The anti-Mork, and a mime on Madison Avenue 4:25 Heart surgery, 13 March 2009 9:40 The valve is not the story 10:00 "A certain kind of whatever" 15:33 Stand-up as a fix 18:24 Pryor, and the truth that sets you free 21:42 Forty watches Sources Every clip is real; every airdate is from the rights holder's own publication, a catalogue or a newspaper listing; every read is attributed to the person who made it. One link per source. • charlierose.com, the show's own catalogue card, "Robin Williams" (videos/24236) — https://charlierose.com/videos/24236 • Charlie Rose (the show's own channel), "Robin Williams" — an hour, reissued under "Charlie Rose Rewind" —    • Robin Williams on Comedy and "Weapons of S...   • WOIO Cleveland 19 News, "Robin Williams recovering following successful Cleveland Clinic heart surgery" — https://www.cleveland19.com/story/100... • ABC News, "Robin Williams Cancels Shows, Faces Heart Surgery" — https://abcnews.com/Health/HeartDisea... • Playbill, "HBO to Air Robin Williams' Weapons of Self-Destruction" — https://playbill.com/article/hbo-to-a... The clips • Charlie Rose (PBS) — Twenty-four clips, all from one tape: the show's own upload of the full hour of 4 December 2009, 51:05. Every quote was located by ear against the actual audio — no auto-captions exist on the tape — and every window is ledgered with its timestamp and its source. About the pictures The clips are real and unaltered. The reconstruction stills between them are generated, including lookalikes of the people in the story; they are not photographs of the events, and no generated picture stands in for a moment on the tape. Catalogue and listing text on screen is the real record, re-set. The narration is synthesised.