Robin Williams changed ‘Mrs. Doubtfire’ filming order so Sally Field could leave set after her father died
Sally Field shared a never-before-heard story of her “Mrs. Doubtfire” co-star, the late Robin Williams.
The 77-year-old actress starred alongside Williams in the 1993 iconic family comedy. Thirty years later, Field expressed her appreciation for the actor, who died in 2014 at 63, revealing in a recent interview with Vanity Fair that she confided in him when her father passed away.
Field and Williams were filming “Mrs. Doubtfire” when her dad died. She refused to interrupt production with the personal family matter — until the leading man and his intuition stepped in.
“I never shared this story before,” Field said. “I was in the camper outside of the courtroom where we were shooting the divorce scene. My father had a stroke a couple of years before, and was in a nursing facility. I got a phone call from the doctor saying my father had passed — a massive stroke. He asked if I wanted them to put him on the resuscitator. I said, ‘No, he did not want that. Just let him go. And please lean down and say, ‘Sally says goodbye.'”
Field said she was “beside myself,” revealing, “I came on the set trying with all my might to act. I wasn’t crying. Robin came over, pulled me out of the set, and asked, ‘Are you okay?’”
When the actress finally told Williams about her father’s death, he took action.
“Oh my God, we need to get you out here right now,” he reportedly responded.
“And he made it happen — they shot around me the rest of the day,” Field stated. “I could go back to my house, call my brother and make arrangements. It’s a side of Robin that people rarely knew: He was very sensitive and intuitive.”
“Mrs. Doubtfire” featured Williams as a father who started dressing up like a female housekeeper so his estranged wife, played by Field, would employ him and, in turn, he could see their children.
Despite the movie only scoring one nomination and win for Best Makeup at the 66th Annual Academy Awards, it was second highest-grossing film of 1993, with $441 million worldwide.
Field was one of Williams’ many colleagues who shared their fond memories of him ahead of the 10-year anniversary of his untimely passing. Billy Crystal, Matt Damon, Ben Stiller, Al Pacino, Jeff Bridges, and Julianne Moore were also featured.
The two-time Emmy winner took his own life on August 11, 2014, at his California home. At the time, it was claimed his death by hanging was the result of severe depression and a Parkinson’s disease diagnosis.
However, the autopsy later revealed that Williams was suffering from an incurable neurological disorder called Lewy body dementia that went undiagnosed. The disease hinders thinking ability, causes visual hallucinations, and changes in behavior or mood.
Williams’ widow, Susan Schneider Williams, addressed the diagnosis in the 2020 documentary, “Robin’s Wish.”
“We had unknowingly been battling a deadly disease,” she said in the doc. “A disease for which there is no cure. The devastation on Robin’s brain from Lewy bodies was one of the worst cases medical professionals have ever seen, yet throughout all of this his heart remained strong.”
Besides Susan, Williams left behind three children: Zak, 41, from his first wife, Valerie Velardi; Zelda, 35, and Cody, 31, whom he shared with his second wife, Marsha Garces.
