Robin Williams wrote a letter on behalf of his young Mrs. Doubtfire co-star Lisa Jakub when her school wanted to drop her.
Making the film was a dream come true for the then-14 year old, until her high school sent her a letter explaining it was "too difficult" to keep her on as a student.
"One day on set, I was very upset, because I had received this letter from my high school saying that it was too difficult for them to work long-distance with me and that I just shouldn't come back to high school," Jakub told Yahoo Entertainment.
"I was really upset about that, and Robin, just being perceptive and kindhearted, reached out and was like, 'Hey, what's going on?' I told him what happened, and he wrote a letter to my school asking them to please reconsider. Would they work with me in trying to balance my education and my career? And he didn't think that that was fair."
The high school's officials framed the letter, but Jakub did not return to school.
"What I love about that story and what I love about Robin, it's just the fact that he would do that for someone, that he would go out of his way, that he would take the time to realise that this would be important," Jakub said. "And even if it didn't work, somebody needed to stand up, and he did that for me. I don't know if he ever knew how massive that was and how much I felt like he was in my corner."
She also shared that Williams, who died in August 2014, was "very open and honest" with her about his issues with anxiety and depression: "I was able to share with him that anxiety was something that I struggled with, and he would talk to me about mental health issues in a way that 14 year olds aren't usually used to adults being really open about those sorts of personal experiences with them (sic)."
