The public was shocked by the tragic news of actor Robin Williams' suicide on Aug. 11, including the many fans in 100 Mile House.
Williams, 63, who died by asphyxiation due to hanging, struggled over the years with sobriety, depression and anxiety, as well as early stages of Parkinson’s Disease, which was first disclosed by Williams' wife, Susan Schneider, in a press release on Aug. 14.
The Academy Award-winner and iconic funnyman was known to generations of moviegoers for his comedic and dramatic roles compiled through an extensive career that began in the 1970s. He starred in classic films like Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Good Will Hunting (1997), The Birdcage (1996), Night at the Museum (2006), Patch Adams (1998), Dead Poets Society (1989), Aladdin (1992) and Hook (1991).
Those titles, and many more, are currently on display in a special section at A & B Roberts Video on Birch Avenue in 100 Mile House, and they're some of the ones customers are looking to rent most, says Christine Gallagher, who has been working at the local video store for more than three years.
Several actors, such as Heath Ledger and Philip Seymour Hoffman, for instance, have had untimely deaths in recent years, but those didn't have an impact like the news of Robin Williams, Gallagher says.
“The older generations are coming in and renting his movies to watch with their kids. They feel it's a piece of history.
“Robin Williams made everyone laugh,” she adds. “The saying, 'tears of a clown' really rings true.”
Gallagher loved Williams in Awakenings (1990) in which he starred alongside Robert De Niro. She also loves Williams' stand-up comedy and his breakout role in Mork and Mindy, a TV sitcom that ran from 1978 to 1982, where Williams played “Mork,” an extraterrestrial who comes to Earth assigned to observe human behaviour.
“I remember watching that on TV when it first came out. I'm of that generation. It was so fresh, so different. We'd never seen anything like it.”
Gallagher mentions a customer nearly in tears standing in front of the Robin Williams display recently.
At the very least, she hopes the actor's death will raise a little bit of awareness about mental health and the struggles people go through.
“What we see on the outside doesn't reflect what a person's personality is, which goes for society in general. He was very open about his depression and his demons and his addictions, but a lot of people just hadn't picked up on it.”
As more on-demand video-streaming services are available online, from the comfort of people's homes, video stores, like pay phones, are becoming like a relic of an older time. In rural 100 Mile, however, where Internet isn't universally cheap or reliable, the movie rental business remains steady. DVDs are still the best and most convenient way for a lot of people to watch movies, and there's something nostalgic to be said about the shared experience of browsing the aisles, picking up a physical copy of something, and maybe chatting the clerk up about it.