You might know British TV show Autopsy: The Final Hours for its deconstructions of the deaths of stars like Elvis, Michael Jackson, and Whitney Houston. But now they're taking on hometown hero Robin Williams, even as organizers of San Francisco's Comedy Day event try to keep the show off the air.
According to a report in British newspaper The Independent, the show, which comes from Britain's Channel 5 and is broadcast stateside on Reelz, has cast "French actor and Williams lookalike Alain Poudensan, who has also worked as an adult film star under the name Alain L'Yle" as the late comedian and actor.
On the Channel 5 site, the show is described as "world-renowned forensic pathologist Dr Richard Shepherd reexamines the tragic deaths of celebrities who have died in mysterious circumstances."
It's unclear what the show's producers find so "mysterious" about Williams' death, which was declared as an "intentional suicide" by the Marin County Sheriff's Office, Coroner Division last November.
Though clean and sober when he died, Williams had struggled with alcohol and drugs for decades. He was fighting depression and Parkinson's disease at the time of his death.
A Facebook post on the page of San Francisco's popular Comedy Day urges fans of Williams to contact Channel 5 to ask them not to air the Williams-focused episode.
Efforts by SFist to reach a Channel 5 spokesperson for comment were unsuccessful at publication time.
