Coming up this weekend on NBC Bay Area is a mini documentary titled "Bay Area Revelations: The Movies," airing Sunday, January 29 at 7 p.m. And during the shooting of interviews with local filmmakers like Chris Columbus and Philip Kaufman, as well as comedian Margaret Cho and actress Connie Nielsen, the NBC people found they all had a lot to say about the late Robin Williams, what it was like to work with him, and is impact on Bay Area comedy. These clips have become "web extras" and likely don't make it into the final doc.
The Bay Area Revelations series is a new one, and an earlier installment about local musicians aired in the fall.
Cho remembers how much she resented always being bumped by Williams on the open-mic schedule at the Clement Street comedy club he was a partner in, Holy City Zoo. Early in her career, she says, she would go to the club, which had shows every night, and Williams would ride his bike in from Marin and often put himself on the roster, along with some of his friends sometimes taking the stage together to goof around in the wee hours when comedians would arrive from other clubs all over the city after their own sets. And while she still appreciates being in such close proximity to genius for so long, and for what she learned from Williams, she says it was always annoying having to go on after him.
Columbus says "Robin's work ethic was unlike anyone's work ethic I'd ever seen," and he describes how Williams and his ex-wife Marsha Garces Williams brought Columbus and his wife into the fold in the first years after they moved here and made them love San Francisco.
Columbus also describes seeing Williams live doing standup, for the first and only time, at the Comedy Store in Hollywood in the 1980's.
Kaufman describes Williams's incredible spontaneity, and a scene in which he attended a pool party at Kaufman's house and got Kaufman and Milos Forman doing Olympic synchronized swimming moves "spitting water into the air... it was so demented and funny."
Previously: Video: Robin Williams Explains Creative Process Behind Mrs. Doubtfire Voice
