Sally Field sheds light on a touching moment with the late Robin Williams.
In a recent Vanity Fair Commemorative story of the tenth anniversary of the Mrs. Doubtfire Following the star’s passing, Field reflected on a touching gesture from Williams on set, a story he claimed he had “never shared” before, according to Page six.
“I was in the trailer outside the courtroom where we were filming the porce scene,” she recalled. “My father had suffered a stroke a couple of years earlier and was in a nursing facility. I got a call from the doctor telling me that my father had passed away, a major stroke.”
Field was asked if he “wanted to be put on the resuscitator,” but said his father “didn’t want that” and urged them to “just let him go.”
“And please bow down and say, ‘Sally says goodbye,’” she shared.
While Field said she “was of course on the side [her]herself,” she tried to maintain her composure at work, stressing that “she came to the set trying her hardest.” [her] “I could act” and “I wasn’t crying.” However, Williams noticed something was not right.
“Robin came over, pulled me off the set and asked, ‘Are you okay?’” she continued. “‘Yeah, why?’ ‘I don’t know, I just thought… [I’d ask] that.'”
After Field told Williams that her “father had just passed away,” Williams immediately took steps to ensure she could grieve appropriately.
“Oh my God, we have to get you out of here right now,” Field recalls Williams telling him. “And he made it happen – they filmed around me for the rest of the day. I was able to go home, call my brother and make arrangements. It’s a side of Robin that people rarely knew about – he was very sensitive and intuitive.”
Among the others who spoke with Vanity Fair Among the actors portraying Williams were the film’s director, Christopher Columbus, as well as Mara Wilson, who played one of his and Field’s children on the beloved comedy. Wilson reunited in the spring with Matthew Lawrence and Lisa Jakub (the other two actors who played Williams and Field’s children in the film) for an episode of Lawrence’s series. Brotherly love podcast.
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