Mrs. Doubtfire star reveals Robin Williams tried to reverse her high school expulsion

Lisa Jakub, one of the child stars from Mrs. Doubtfire, recently revealed how Robin Williams tried to reverse her school expulsion while they were shooting the movie.

Williams was seen as a bright light in Hollywood, but it seems like that light extended behind his work in front of the camera as Jakub explained how the actor tried to get her back into school after she was expelled.

Jakub and her Mrs. Doubtfire co-stars, Matthew Lawrence and Mara Wilson, reunited on the Brotherly Love podcast and the actress took the opportunity to tell a heartwarming story about their on-screen father.

“I got thrown out of high school [while filming] 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 school work back and forth to the school. We did that for a while.

“As Matt well remembers, we had tutoring, three hours of schoolwork on set every day. 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,” Jakub 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.”

That wasn’t the only time that Williams stepped up and tried to help his young co-stars get a good education. Lawrence revealed that the actor wrote him a letter of recommendation to get into the University of Southern California after he was kicked out of school due to his acting pursuits.

Despite this setback and Williams’ failed attempt at swaying her principal, Jakub went on to attend the University of Virginia, where her role in the movie followed her around even at the age of 22.

“I took a statistics class and when I got [a grade] back, the TA had written: ‘Dear Doubtfire Girl, you got a B-,’ Jakub recalled.

If you’re looking for more throwback movies, check out our guides to the best Westerns and horror movies.