‘Robin Williams was her hero’: Actor once chartered private plane to pay surprise visit to see dying girl, 5, who’d always wanted to meet him
Robin Williams once chartered a private plane to pay a surprise visit to meet a terminally ill girl after she became too sick to visit him on set.
Following the actor’s sad ԁеаtһ on Monday, a number of people have come forward with inspiring stories about how he touched their lives and the latest is Mark Cole from Greensboro, North Carolina.
He recalls Williams’ kindness and warmth when he paid a special visit to meet his daughter Jessica, age 5, as she lay dying with brain cancer in 2004.
The meeting was arranged through the Make-A-Wish Foundation and Jessica’s final wish was to meet her ‘hero’.
‘Robin Williams was her hero,’ Mark Cole told WFMY. ‘She was a huge fan and especially Ms. Doubtfire.’
Originally Jessica was supposed to travel to California to meet the actor on set, but her condition deteriorated and she was no longer fit to travel.
‘In 2004, it became apparent that there was nothing doctors could do to reverse the process with the tumor growing,’ said her father.
When the kind-hearted actor was informed about Jessica’s condition he chartered a private plane to visit her at home the very next day.
‘She was a little disoriented at that point with extra fluid on her brain, it was out of place for her also seeing Robin Williams walk into our home. She was confused when he first came in. Then he started his Mrs. Doubtfire imitation and then she figured it out pretty quickly.’
The pair spent the day playing cards and watching football.
‘He acted like he had known her forever,’ said Mark Cole. ‘He was a lot of fun to be with.’
Jessica passed away on December 14, 2004.
One of Williams’ most notable film roles was Patch Adams, where he played a medical student who helped his patients by making them laugh with his zany antics.
However, the actor, like the character he portrayed, also had a heart-warming dedication to helping patients after the cameras stopped rolling.
Family members of those he comforted have paid tribute to the 63-year-old, who was found ԁеаԁ in his San Francisco mansion on Monday.
Garry Kravit, whose nephew David Buist was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive form of cancer called hepatosplenic T-cell lymphoma, called the star a ‘comedic Mother Theresa’.
David bravely decided that he wanted to see a new Ronald McDonald House – a charity that provides accommodation for families with children in hospital – built in New York before anything happened to him.
Kravit met Williams at an event and asked him for autographed items for their fund-raising efforts.
Williams went much farther and started calling David to help keep his spirits up as his condition deteriorated.
‘When David was suffering at his worst, Robin would call him to perk him up. David treasured Robin’s calls and it helped to push him forward,’ Mr Kravit said.
Williams even invited the pair to a filming of a comedy special in New York in 2004.
‘He hugged him and spent 20 minutes with him. He didn’t care about anything but David,’ Kravit told CNN.
Buist eventually beat his cancer and is now married with children.
Numerous stories about his kindness have emerged since his apparent ѕսıᴄıԁе.
Susan Jeffer was an extra hired to play golf in the background of Old Dogs, starring Robin Williams.
After filming had finished, the strap on her golf bag broke and she had to carry it across the course in the hot sun.
The only person to help her was the Oscar winner, who, knowing she would get in trouble if she was seen being helped by the star, carried the bag but handed it back just before they reached the rest of the actors and crew.
She said: ‘He really saved me that day. I’ll never forget it.’
