One of the child stars of Mrs. Doubtfire has revealed that Robin Williams wrote a letter to her school to try to get her expulsion overturned.
Lisa Jakub, who played the elder daughter Lydia in the 1993 comedy-drama, had been informed by her high school that she was no longer welcome after taking time off to star in the film, when Williams took it upon himself to try to help.
Jakub shared the story during an appearance on the Brotherly Love podcast, where she was reunited with her film siblings Mara Wilson and Matthew Lawrence after 31 years.
“I got thrown out of high school on Doubtfire,” Jakub said. “I’m Canadian. I was attending high school in Canada, then I left for four months to film the movie. We were going to set up this system, pre-internet, where I’d mail my schoolwork back and forth to the school. We did that for a while.”
“We were a couple of months into filming, and my school in Canada sent a note saying: ‘This isn’t working for us anymore, don’t come back.’ Yeah, 9th grade. I was devastated. It was just so heartbreaking, because I had this life that was very unusual, and that was the one normal thing.”
“The amazing thing was Robin saw that I was upset — he asked me what was going on,” she continued. “He wrote a letter to my principal saying that he wanted them to rethink this decision and that I was just trying to pursue my education and career at the same time, and could they please support me in this. The principal got the letter, framed the letter, put it up in the office, and didn’t ask me to come back. Amazing.”
In the film, Williams plays a father who makes the decision to dress up as a female housekeeper in order to stay in contact with his three children, against the wishes of their mother. It was a huge box office success, earning $441million worldwide and finishing 1993 as the second biggest film of the year.
Conversations had been ongoing in the early 2010s about the possibility of a sequel, but those plans were permanently shelved when Williams passed away.
The comic great took his own life in 2014 aged 63 after struggling with a misdiagnosed neurodegenerative disorder. Following his death, an autopsy revealed that he had advanced stages of Lewy body dementia.
Williams continues to be sorely missed by the entertainment industry. At the Kennedy Center Honors at the end of 2023, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal paid him an emotional tribute.
“I want to acknowledge the person who should also be standing here with me is our brother Robin,” Goldberg said as she paused to gesture at the empty space beside her.
“I’m really feeling I’m missing my friend Robin tonight, very much so, because of all of what we did together,” Crystal told reporters. “I know that he would be here, and he is. So, it’s special, and a lot of feelings for me tonight.”
Glenn Close, meanwhile, stated earlier this year that she believes Williams would still be alive if not for the death of his good friend Christopher Reeve in 2004.
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