Most remember the tragic death of actor and comedian, Robin Williams in 2014. A new documentary, Robin’s Wish, explores the legendary funnyman’s demise from a disease most know little about.

The film is a portrait of Williams’s endearing spirit, and what really happened to one of the greatest entertainers of all time.  

5 Things You Need to Know:

1. In August 2014, at age 63, Robin Williams died by suicide at his home in Paradise Cay, California. His widow, Susan Schneider Williams, medical experts, and the autopsy attributed the suicide to his struggle with Lewy Body Disease.
2. Lewy Body Disease is a type of dementia accompanied by changes in sleep, behavior, cognition, movement, and autonomic bodily functions. Memory loss is not, however, always an early symptom. The disease worsens over time and is usually diagnosed when cognitive decline interferes with normal daily functioning. Together with Parkinson’s disease dementia, DLB is one of the two Lewy body dementias. It is a common form of dementia, but the prevalence is not known accurately and many diagnoses are missed.
3. Director Tylor Norwood said, “1.4 million people have this, they are diagnosed every year with this and the way we can serve those people with Robin’s memory and that more people can get a diagnosis, something robin never got in his lifetime, I think that’s a huge act of service.”
4. According to Norwood and based on the autopsy, doctors were surprised with the amount of brain damage they saw. They were surprise that he could even walk, let alone make decision and do other things.
5. Norwood wanted to make sure that “any scientific stuff that I claimed to have happened to Robin, I backed it up. So, we ended up getting 50,000 neurologists to sign on to the science and the story of this film. We have the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the American Brain Foundation, the Parkinson Foundation, and the Lewie Body Foundation who all say this is correct.”