Remembering Robin Grace’s book (above); the two pals celebrate Grace’s wedding in 1988 (below): “Robin hosted a dinner for me and my wife and then put us up at the Carlyle Hotel with a bottle of champagne.”
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hen photographer Arthur Grace was assigned to shoot Robin Williams for Newsweek in 1986, he had no idea it would lead to a lifelong friendship. “We hit it off right from the start,” says Grace, 69. Over the years he often photographed his famous friend, both onstage and off, and looked forward to the day “when I was 84 and Robin was 80 and we would reminisce and put together a book.” It wasn’t to be. “Hit hard” by Williams’s suicide at 63 in 2014, Grace slowly came around to the idea of sharing the photos himself. He hopes Robin Williams: A Singular Portrait, 1986-2002 will give the world a glimpse of the “real Robin” he knew: a kind man who spoke to every homeless person he passed; a devoted dad to kids Cody, Zak and Zelda; an insanely gifted showman who had a pensive side. “He would shut down and get very quiet,” Grace says. “He took time to recharge.” And then he’d be back. “He could make you laugh anytime he wanted to,” Grace says. “He was the funniest man on the planet.”
Making Goggle Eyes “He was totally involved with his kids,” says Grace of Williams (at home with Zelda and Cody in 1995).
Birthday Boy “Every time you were with him was total fun,” says Grace (who shot Williams, holding a glass of nonalcoholic champagne, at his Napa ranch for his 40th-birthday party).
ALL PHOTOGRAPHS © ARTHUR GRACE/CONTACT PRESS IMAGES FROM ROBIN WILLIAMS: A SINGULAR PORTRAIT, 1986-2002 (COUNTERPOINT PRESS, 2016); (BOOK) PETER ZAMBOUROS; INSET: COURTESY ARTHUR GRACE
PEOPLE July 18, 2016
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