Kiwi filmmaker Vincent Ward has paid tribute to his friend Robin Williams, describing the Oscar-winning comedian as a “gentle man, with a wild wit”.
Williams, 63, was found dead at his Californian home at 12.02pm on Monday (NZT 7.02am Tuesday) after an apparent suicide.
The actor first visited New Zealand in 1999 for a screening of the film Bicentennial Man, but made his first visit to Christchurch in November 2010 – shortly after Canterbury’s devastating September earthquake – to perform his “Weapons of Self Destruction” stand-up comedy show.
He donated all proceeds from that show to the city’s rebuild – half to the Red Cross and half to the Mayoral fund.
“It is devastating what has happened in Christchurch, but from what I have learnt, the people there are incredibly resilient,” Williams said at the time.
“I hope this donation will go some way to helping the extensive rebuilding effort in the city.”
Williams had a long-standing connection with New Zealand following his collaboration with Kiwi filmmaker Vincent Ward on the 1998 film What Dreams May Come.
The movie won an Oscar for best visual effects and became one of Ward’s biggest hits.
Ward today remembered his friend’s “extraordinary talent and wicked humour”.
“A gentle man, with a wild wit that comes from a place of both loneliness and affinity with other humans and their and his apparent absurdity, he was most of all a friend and I will miss him dearly.”
Ward, a University of Canterbury adjunct professor, said Williams joked with all the extras during long winter nights filming What Dreams May Come.
“If you have worked with him you know one thing; what a wonderful, extraordinary and kind man he was.
“[He] would keep all of us jollied along, not for his own sake but for all of us.”
Williams later helped Ward raise money for a Shanghai Biennale art project by encouraging people to donate towards the $100,000 needed for the multi-media display.
“It is unusual for someone of that fame to lend their name in the support of a personal project,” Ward said.
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– The Press
