Why does the gift for great performance seem to go hand in hand with unshakeable depression ?
By Dick CavettRobin Williams will not be the last cherished performer to be snatched from our midst by depression and suicide .
It's a melancholy fact that what a musician friend calls the real blues and Winston Churchill calls the black dog seems to have much too close an affinity to the performer's life . Depression seems to stalk the lively arts like Jack the Ripper , accompanied by depression's handmaiden , suicide .
No one I know claims to know why . Is there something in the brain chemistry of the performer that produces this woeful result ? I could fill this page and another with the names of famous and less so actors , comics and musicians who live miserably ... and die ... in association with the demon of a hound .
Booze is the flavored self-treatment . Not surprising , because you will feel a little better , for a bit ...a brief and costly reprieve , since alcohol is a depressant of the central nervous system .
I guarantee you that thousands , hearing of Robin's death , asked how he could do it when he had everything : fame , wealth , adulation , family love and another supposed insulator against the worst of blues ... plenty of work . No combination of those adds up to insurance . And the hectic , nerve-racking ups and downs of fortune in show business are , of course , a major factor in emotional disequilibrium .
You , yourself may have thought , "How could he do this to his wife and kids ?" Easy . Because that's what been call the worst agony devised for man doesn't allow you to feel any emotion for kids , spouse , lover , parents ... even your beloved dog . And least of all yourself .
I know Robin knew this . His death recalled a moment with him years ago in a small club . He came off after lifting a cheering audience to its feet . "Isn't it funny how I can bring great happiness to all those people , He said . "But not to myself ."
The nonfactor has a major advantage , because its harder to hide symptoms . The actor knows how to act . To play having fun . How often its "He was the life of the party that night . And then he went home and ..."
Robin and I agreed once that it's galling to hear ... when you're "in it" ... the question : "What have you got to be depressed about ? The British actor and comedian Stepan Fry , a fellow sufferer , replies , "And what have you got to have asthma about ?"
Robin , like my idol Jonathan Winters , must have had one of the world's hardest talents with which to live and still retain personal balance . Sitting next to him on my old PBS show was like sitting in the Macy's barge next to the fireworks going off . He was at full manic comic frenzy for an hour without letup . (We even improvised a short Shakespeare play together with and without rhymed couplets .) I caught his manic energy . It was exhilarating . And exhausting .
When it ended , I was wet and spent . It took him a while to come down (partially) down and I thought , "Can this be good for anyone ? Can you be able to do all these rapid-fire personality changes and emerge knowing who you yourself are ?"
But can any of us really see ourselves ? I was unable to watch a show I once did with Laurence Olivier while I was virtually blind with depression . I later told Marlon Brando I could never watch it , knowing I'd look dead , slow and stupid . "Do me a favor ," he said . "Watch it ." I Made myself watch . I looked fine . My eyes was bright and the silences I recalled was gone . I called Brando and asked him what explained that . "Automatic pilot." We all get by on it when the clouds roll in . Too bad they roll in when the performance ends and you get back under the bed ."
This will not brighten the picture . I said to a brilliant psycho-pharmacologist recently that there must be a lot of progress and new medications since I suffered back in the 70s . The answer : "No , we're really not making much progress , I'm afraid ."
Someday, will some chemical link be found between great , great performing talent and susceptibility to the awful conqueror of the talented performer ? Are the gods jealous ? Do the immortals cruelly envy the greatly gifted and , in the classic Greek manner , smite them low ? The somewhat grim answer we'd better enjoy them while we can .
Dick Cavett was the host of the Dick Cavett Show from 1968 to 1982 . He is the author of the forthcoming Brief Encounters Conversations , Magic Moments and Assorted Hijinks .
