‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’: The role for which Terry Gilliam couldn’t credit Robin Williams
As one of the biggest stars in the industry at the peak of his powers, the entire point of casting Robin Williams in a movie was to leverage his name value and popularity to encourage audiences to go to the theatre to catch the comedy icon’s latest performance on the big screen.
Williams was already a legend of the stand-up circuit before he broke through in cinema, notching a Grammy for ‘Best Comedy Album’ in 1984, having already made an impact on the small screen with his Golden Globe for ‘Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy’ in 1979 for Mork & Mindy.
His first attempt at celluloid superstardom didn’t go according to plan when Robert Altman’s Popeye was greeted with a shrug of indifference, but by the end of the 1980s and into the ’90s, he was firmly on top of the world, earning acclaim and awards season recognition to go along with the healthy box office performance of Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, and more.
Whether it was comedy or drama, Williams’ presence was often enough to entice viewers, and any production in which he appeared would always feature him heavily in the marketing. However, on one occasion, his representatives put their foot down and banned any teasers, trailers, or promotional spots from mentioning his name or showing his face, which extended to the credits at the end of the picture.
Terry Gilliam has never been a stranger to a difficult shoot, and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was no exception. Carrying the Monty Python veteran’s heftiest budget by far and carrying very little star power in the ensemble, his ambitious fantasy adventure was far from a guaranteed hit. Fortunately, he drafted in an A-lister, only to discover that he wasn’t allowed to acknowledge their existence.
“The deal was that we couldn’t use his name because his agents said, ‘We don’t want you pimping his ass for your film,'” Gilliam explained to The Hollywood Reporter. “And I thought, ‘What are you talking about?’ But that was the attitude, so that’s why Robin is not credited.
In The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Williams was caked in makeup to play the King of the Moon. However, in the end credits, the part is listed as having been portrayed by Ray D Tutto, which is an anglicised translation of “Re di tutti,” the Italian for ‘king of everybody’.
“That was another ridiculous one,” Gilliam lamented. “That we couldn’t use Robin to help sell the film.” One positive is that it fostered a friendship between director and star, which came in handy a couple of years later when the auteur was dispatched to honeytrap the actor into The Fisher King at the studio’s request, an Academy Award-nominated turn where he was at least allowed to be billed as himself.
