Comedian/actor Billy Connolly always had a lot in common with Robin Williams.
Both are funny men – they had known each other for 30 years – and both had been diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease.
Williams had turned to Connolly, 71, for advice and guidance. "He was diagnosed after me and he was on the phone a lot asking me about it," Connolly says in an interview with The Mirror. "It broke my heart when he died. I was in Malta with my family and my children were all crying. They all loved him."
He went on to say,
"He is a stunning guy… You notice I don't speak about him in the past tense? It's still not sunk in, I keep expecting him to walk in."
In a phone call last month Billy did manage to give him some advice about how to handle the lack of facial expression that is an effect of the disease. And just days before taking his own life, Williams called Connolly to thank him for the tip.
"He phoned me a week later, just days before it happened, and he said 'it's brilliant it's working.'"
And then Connolly says Williams seemed a little strange.
"During the call he kept telling me he loved me. I said 'I know.' But he kept repeating it, saying 'Do you really know I love you?' I was thinking what the (expletive) is he on about?
"After his death I thought, 'Oh my God he was saying goodbye.'"
