Robin Williams

At 63 years old, Robin Williams has this physical status:

Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian.

Born in Chicago, Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the 1970s. Williams went on to become a celebrity on the comedy show Mork & Mindy as the alien Mork in Mork & Mindy.

He was known for his improvisational skills as well as a large number of memorable character voices he created.

Williams appeared in many films that have earned critical and commercial success, including The World According to Garp (1981), Good Morning, Vietnam (1991), and The Night at the Museum (1994), as well as many TV series hits, including the appearance of Terry Jones (1991), Awakenings (1990), Good Will Hunting (1993), and The Man in a Mask (1991). Williams was nominated four times for Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for his role as psychologist Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting.

In addition, he has received two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actor Guild Awards, and four Grammy Awards. Williams died in 2014 at the age of 63 in Paradise Cay, California.

Lewy body disease caused his husband's suicide.

Early life

On July 21, 1951, Robin McLaurin Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois. Robert Fitzgerald Williams, Williams, was a senior executive in Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Division. Laurie McLaurin, a former model from Jackson, Mississippi, whose great-grandfather, Senator Anselm J. McLaurin, was a Mississippi senator and governor. Williams had two older half-brothers: Robert, a paternal half-brother, and McLaurin, a maternal half-brother. Williams was raised in his father's Episcopal faith, although his mother was a practitioner of Christian Science. During a television interview on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, Williams credited his mother as a major early influence on his humor, and he tried to make her laugh to gain interest.

Williams attended public elementary school in Lake Forest, Gorton Elementary School, and middle school at Deer Path Junior High School. He described himself as a quiet boy who didn't get over his shyness until he became involved in his high school drama department. His friends remember him as joking. When Williams was 12 years old in late 1963, his father was relocated to Detroit. The family lived in a 40-room farmhouse on 20 acres in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he was a pupil at the exclusive Detroit Country Day School. He excelled in school, where he was a member of the school's wrestling team and was elected class president.

Williams was partially raised by the family's maid, who was his primary companion, while both his parents were working. His father died early in retirement and the family moved to Tiburon, California, where he was 16 years old. Williams attended Redwood High School in nearby Larkspur after moving. He was voted "Most Likely Not to Succeed" and "Funniest" by his classmates at the time of his 1969 high school graduation. Williams attended Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California, to study political science; he dropped out to pursue acting after high school graduation. Williams studied drama at the College of Marin, a community college in Kentfield, California. The fullness of the young actor's talent was evident when he was cast in the musical Oliver, according to College of Marin's drama professor James Dunn. Fagin is a form of lead. During his time in the drama program, Williams often improved, causing hystericals from cast members. After one late rehearsal, Dunn called his wife to inform her Williams that "was going to be something special."

Williams earned a full scholarship to the Juilliard School in 1973 (Group 6, 1973–1976) in New York City. He was one of 20 students admitted to the freshman class, and Christopher Reeve and Henry Reeve were the only two students accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program at the school that year. William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were both classmates. At Juilliard, Jean Dorsinville, Franklyn Seales, and Williams were roommates. "He wore tie-dyed shirts with tracksuit bottoms and screamed at a mile a minute," Reeve recalled his first glimpse of Williams as a freshman at Juilliard: I'd never seen so much energy concentrated in one person. He was similar to an untied balloon that had been inflated and immediately released. As he practically caromed off the walls of the classrooms and hallways, I stood in awe. It would be a big understatement to say that he was "on" would be a major understatement."

Williams and Reeve had a class in dialects taught by Edith Skinner, who, according to Reeve, was befuddled by Williams' ability to perform in many accents. Michael Kahn, their primary acting tutor, was "equivocally baffled by this human dynamo." Williams had a reputation for being amusing, but Kahn dismissed his antics as simple stand-up comedy. Williams muzzled his readers with his well-received appearance in Tennessee Williams' Night of the Irmians, a "vieux man" in a later production. "He just was the old man," Reeve wrote. "I was astonished by his work and thankful that fate had brought us together." Until Reeve's death in 2004, the two remained close friends. According to Williams' son Zak's son, their friendship was like "brothers from another mother."

Williams worked as a busboy at The Trident in Sausalito, California, during 1974, 1975, and 1976. During his junior year in 1976, he quit Juilliard at the suggestion of a Houseman, who said that Juilliard had no more to teach him. Williams was a "genius" and that the school's conservative and classical style of instruction did not suit him, according to Gerald Freedman, another of his teachers at Juilliard; no one was surprised that he left; no one was shocked that he did not leave;

Personal life

Following a live-in marriage with comedian Elayne Boosler, Williams married Valerie Velardi in June 1978. Velardi and Williams first met in 1976 while serving as a bartender at a San Francisco tavern. Zachary Pym "Zak" Williams, their son, was born in 1983. In 1988, Velardi and Williams were divorced.

Although Williams started an affair with Zachary's nanny, Marsha Garces in 1986, Velardi said in the 2018 film Come Inside My Mind that the friendship with Garces began after the two people broke apart. Williams married Garces, who was six months pregnant with his child, on April 30, 1989. They had two children, Zelda Rae Williams (born 1989) and Cody Alan Williams (born 1991). Garces petitioned for divorce from Williams in March 2008, citing irreconcilable inconsistencies as the reason. In 2010, the couple was divorced.

In St. Helena, California, Williams married his third wife, graphic designer Susan Schneider, on October 22, 2011. The two lived in Sea Cliff, California, California.

"My children give me a lot of wonder," Williams said. "Just want to see them grow into these amazing human beings."

Williams, a member of the West Side YMCA runners' running team in New York City, had promising results with 34:21 minutes in a 10K run in Central Park in 1975.

Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy was one of his childhood favorites, and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which he later shared with his children, was one of his children's favorite books.

Williams was a fan of both pen-and-paper role-playing games and video games. His daughter Zelda was named after the main character from The Legend of Zelda, a family's favorite video game series, and he appeared at consumer entertainment trade shows often.

Williams was a huge fan of anime and collecting figures. His son referred to him as a "figure hoarder"; one of his figures was Deunan Knute from the anime film Appleseed, which he loved. He also liked the film Innocence Ghost in the Shell and was given a DVD copy of Paranoia Agent signed by its producer, Satoshi Kon.

He also became a dedicated cycling enthusiast, beginning to participate in the sport partly as a drug substitute. He eventually built a large bicycle collection and became a devotee of professional road cycling, often attending Tour de France events. In 2016, his children donated 87 of his bicycles to the Challenged Athletes Foundation and the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.

Williams was born and occasionally identified as an Episcopalian. "I have the hope of a Chicago protestant, Episcopal—Catholic light, that is half the shame," he said in a comedy routine. He also referred to himself as a "honor Jew," and on Israel's 60th Independence Day in 2008, he joined many others to wish Israel a happy birthday.

Williams formed Comic Relief USA in 1986, with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal. As of 2014, this annual HBO television charity benefit dedicated to the homeless raised $80 million. Williams was praised because he came from a wealthy household but wanted to do something to help those who are less fortunate. Williams, as well as appearing at veterans' benefits, made benefit appearances to promote literacy and women's rights. He was a regular on the USO circuit, where he travelled to 13 countries and performed to nearly 90,000 troops. "For all he did for the men and women of our armed forces," the USO said after his death.

Marsha Williams and his second wife formed the Windfall Foundation to raise funds for several charities. He sang in French on the BBC-inspired music video of international celebrities performing a cover of The Rolling Stones' "It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" for the charity Children's Promise in December 1999.

He donated all funds of his Weapons of Self Destruction Christchurch show to assist with the city's reconstruction in response to the 2010 Canterbury earthquake. Half of the funds were donated to the Red Cross and the other half to the mayoral building fund. Williams worked with the USO for US troops stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Williams has been a patron of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for many years.

Williams was addicted to cocaine in the late 1970s and 1980s. He was a close friend of John Belushi and the Saturday Night Live comic's death in 1982 from a heroin overdose, which occurred the morning after the two boys had raved together, as well as the birth of his own son Zak, prompting him to avoid opioids and alcohol. Yes, on a massive scale. "The grand jury supported us too." "It sobbed the shit out of me," Williams later admitted after Belushi's death. After Belushi's death, Williams began exercising and cycling to help reduce his depression; according to bike shop owner Tony Tom, Williams, "cycling saved my life."

While working on the film The Big White in Alaska in 2003, Williams began to drink again. He checked himself into a drug rehabilitation facility in Newberg, Oregon, in 2006, identifying him as an alcoholic. Williams admitted that he failed to avoid sobriety for years, but that he never returned to using cocaine, as he said in a 2010 interview.

Williams accepted himself into the Hazelden Foundation Addiction Treatment Center in Center City, Minnesota, for alcohol abuse treatment.

He was hospitalized as a result of heart disease in March 2009. He postponed his one-man tour for surgery to repair his aortic valve, repair his mitral valve, and tune his irregular heartbeat. The Cleveland Clinic's surgery was performed on March 13, 2009.

Mara Buxbaum, the author's publicist, admitted to having extreme depression before his death. Williams had been sober for the time before his death, but he was diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's disease, which was something he was "not yet ready to reveal publicly," his wife Susan Schneider said. Williams had diffuse Lewy bodies (which had been misdiagnosed as Parkinson's) which may have exacerbated his depression, according to an autopsy, which may have contributed to his depression.

Schneider said in an essay published in the journal Neurology two years after his death, the pathology of Lewy body disease in Williams was described by several physicians as one of the worst pathologies they had ever seen. She began experiencing the early signs of his disease in October 2013. Williams' first illness was a sudden and persistent rise in anxiety, fear, and insomnia that escalated in severity to include memory loss, paranoia, and delusions. "Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it," Schneider said, "he was aware of it." "I just want to reset my brain," he continued.

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Career

In 1976, Williams began performing stand-up comedy in the San Francisco Bay Area. He appeared at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy bar in San Francisco, where he started his career as a waiter. San Francisco was a nassance, hippies, heroin, and a sexual revolution in the 1960s, and critic Gerald Nachman writes about Williams' contribution to the late 1970s' "comedy revival" in the 1960s. During this time, 6 Williams says he learned about "drugs and joy" and that "the best brains of my time turned to mud."

Williams moved to Los Angeles and continued to appear at bars, including The Comedy Store. He was interviewed by television producer George Schlatter, who begged him to appear on a revival of his show Laugh-In, 1977. The program debuted in late 1977 and was his first television appearance. Williams also performed a show at the Los Angeles Improv for Home Box Office that year. Although the Laugh-In revival fell short, Williams went on to his television career, and he continued to perform stand-up at comedy clubs, such as the Roxy to help keep his improvisational skills sharp. Williams appeared at The Battle Cocks in England.

Williams' comeback on Mork & Mindy (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1983), and A Night at the Met (1986). Williams received the Grammy Award for his film "The Copacabana in New York City" in 1979. What a Concept.

David Letterman, who was with Williams for almost 40 years, remembers seeing him first perform at The Comedy Store in Hollywood, where Letterman and other comedians had already been doing stand-up. "He came in like a hurricane," Letterman said, who then thought, "Holy crap, there goes my chance in show business."

Williams said that he began using opioids and alcohol early in his career partly due to the exhaustion of doing stand-up. He never drank nor took drugs while on stage, but he did appear on occasion when hanging over from the previous day. During the time he was using cocaine, he said it made him jittery when performing on stage.

Williams once referred to stand-up comedians as follows:

Those, including Vincent Canby, were concerned that his monologues were so ardent that it seemed as though his "creative process could turn into a complete meltdown" at any moment. Emily Herbert, his biographer, referred to his "intense, utterly manic style of stand-up [which sometimes defies analysis] [going] beyond energetic, beyond frenetic, and occasionally dangerous... because of what the creator's mental condition."

Williams was confident that he would not run out of ideas because the constant change in world events kept him supplied. He also shared that he used free association of ideas when improvising to keep the audience interested. The show's competitive nature made it difficult. Any comedians, for example, said that Williams had stolen their jokes, which Williams categorically denied. If Williams utter another one of his parody jokes, David Brenner says he confronted Williams' handler and threatened bodily harm. Whoopi Goldberg defended him, saying that it is impossible for comedians not to reuse another comedian's content and that it is done "all the time." To prevent similar allegations, he later stopped going to the performances of other comedians.

Williams was asked if he ever feared losing his balance between his work and his life during a Playboy interview in 1992. "There's this fear, I was becoming not just dull but a rock," he said, "I could't really talk, fire off, or talk about it." ... I get anxious if I stop trying." Williams attributed novelist Jerzy Kosiski's suicide to his fear of losing his creativity and sharpness, but Williams believed he'd be able to overcome those challenges. He praised his father for boosting his self-confidence by advising him that he should never be afraid to discuss topics that were important to him.

Williams' stand-up work was a consistent theme throughout his career, as shown by his one-man show's (and subsequent DVD): Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002). He was named 13th on Comedy Central's list of the "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time" in 2004. Williams' Weapons of Self-Destruction, a six-year absence, and a six-year hiatus, in August 2008. The tour started in September 2009 and ended in New York on December 3, 2009, and was the subject of an HBO Special on December 8, 2009.

Williams was cast by Garry Marshall as the alien Mork in a 1978 episode of the TV series "My Favorite Orkan" after the Laugh-In revival and appearance in the cast of The Richard Pryor Show on NBC. Williams, who sat on his head as a last-minute cast replacement for a departing actor, impressed the filmmaker with his comedic sense of humor when he sat on his head when asked to audition for the first time. Mork, Williams improved much of his dialogue and physical comedy by speaking in a booming nasal voice, and he wrote the majority of the script. The cast and crew, as well as television network executives, were utterly impressed with his results. As such, the executives pressed quickly to get the artist on contract just four days before competitors could make their own bids.

Mork's appearance soared to such clout among viewers that it culminated in the development of Mork & Mindy, which co-starred Pam Dawber and ran from 1978 to 1982; the show was written to accommodate his dramatic improvisations in dialogue and behaviour. Despite the fact that he portrayed the same character in Happy Days, the series was set in Boulder, Colorado, rather than in Milwaukee's late 1950s. Mork & Mindy had a 60 million viewers per week and was credited with turning Williams into a "superstar" at its peak. "Because of young people, Williams became "a man and a boy, buoyant, rubber-faced, an endless stream of thoughts," according to critic James Poniewozik.

Mork became a hit on posters, coloring books, lunch boxes, and other items. Mork & Mindy was such a success in its first season that Williams appeared on Time magazine's front page on March 12, 1979. According to Mary Forgione of the Los Angeles Times, the front photo, taken by Michael Dressler in 1979, "captured" his various perspectives: the funnyman mugging for the camera and a sweet, more thoughtful pose on a small television he holds in his hands. This image was displayed in the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery soon after his death to encourage visitors to pay their respects. Williams appeared on the front page of Rolling Stone magazine, August 23, 1979, a photograph by Richard Avedon.

Williams began to appeal to a wider audience in the late 1970s and 1980s with his stand-up comedy, Off the Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1983), and A Night at the Met (1986). Williams co-hosted the 58th Academy Awards in 1986. Williams appeared on several talk shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Late Night with David Letterman, on which he appeared 50 times.

In an unscripted cameo at the start of an episode of Friends' third season, Williams appeared with fellow comedian Billy Crystal in an unscripted cameo. Several of his television appearances included an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway?, and he appeared in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Williams appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on January 30, 2006, and was the Surprise Guest at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards in 2006. He appeared on Saturday Night Live in 2010, and in 2012, he appeared in two FX series, Louie and Wilfred. In May 2013, CBS premiered The Crazy Ones, starring Williams, but the program was cancelled after one season.

Robin Williams' first film role is limited to a small part of the 1977 low-budget comedy Can I Do It...'Til I Need Glasses? Williams' first film appearance, on the other hand, is as the title character in Popeye (1980), in which Williams displayed his acting abilities in his television roles; in this case, the film's commercial dissatisfaction was not due to his performance. He went on to appear as the leading character in The World According to Garp (1982), which Williams said "may have lacked a certain madness on film," but it had a solid foundation." He continued to appear in less well-known films, such as The Survivors (1983) and Club Paradise (1986), but he said that these roles did not help with his film career.

Williams' first big break came from his appearance in director Barry Levinson's Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which earned him a nomination for Best Actor of the Academy. The film is set in 1965 during the Vietnam War, with Williams playing Adrian Cronauer, a radio shock jock who keeps the troops amused with humour and sarcasm. Williams was allowed to act out of a script, improvising much of his lines. He created voice impressions of celebrities, including Walter Cronkite, Gomer Pyle, Elvis Presley, Mr. Ed, and Richard Nixon, over the microphone. Williams "managed to produce something new for every single take" after producer Mark Johnson said, "We just let the cameras roll."

Many of his later appearances in comedies were tinged with pathos. One writer was "struck by the breadth" and radical diversity of most of Williams' roles. Williams played in 1989 as a private-school English tutor in Dead Poets Society, which included a final, emotional scene that some commentators said "inspired a generation" and became part of pop culture. In the same way, his success as a therapist in Good Will Hunting (1997) greatly affected many modern therapists. Williams portrays a doctor modeled after Oliver Sacks, who wrote the book on which the film is based, in Awakenings (1990). Later, Sacks described the actor's mind as a "form of genius." He starred as an adult Peter Pan in the film Hook in 1991, but he had to lose 25 pounds for the role. Williams, who starred Williams in two of his films, The Fisher King (1991) and The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), said in 1992 that Williams had the ability to "go from mad to tender and vulnerable." "There is no one like him out there."

Other outstanding Williams performances include Moscow on the Hudson (1984), What Dreams May Come (1998)), and Bicentennial Man (1999). Williams portrayed a murderer on the run from a sleep-deprived Los Angeles police detective (played by Al Pacino) in rural Alaska in Insomnia (2002). Williams also depicted an emotionally disturbed photo production specialist who has been photographing for a long time in 2002. While Williams was alive, his Angriest Man in Brooklyn was his last film to be released. Henry Altmann played Henry Altmann, an enraged, bitter man who is trying to change his life after being told he has a terminal disease.

Williams' appearances have earned him numerous accolades, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in Good Will Hunting; two previous Academy Award nominations for Dead Poets Society; and as a homeless man in The Fisher King. Among the actors who supported him in his acting career, Robert De Niro praised him for his silence and economy of dialogue when acting, according to him. Dustin Hoffman, who appeared in Hook, learned how to act in completely different ways and how to make his characters come from extreme preparation. Hook producer Mike Medavoy told its producer, Steven Spielberg, that he intentionally joined Hoffman and Williams for the film because he knew they wanted to work together and that Williams loved working with Spielberg. Williams was aided by Woody Allen, who supervised him and Billy Crystal in Deconstructing Harry (1997). Allen knew that Crystal and Williams had often performed together on stage.

Although Williams performed characters in several animated films, his voice in the animated film Aladdin (1992) was written for him. The film's producers said they had taken a risk by writing the script. Williams declined the role at first because it was a Disney film, and he did not want the studio to profit by selling merchandise based on the film. "I'm doing it simply because I want to be part of this animation tradition," he said. My children are fine, but I need something for them. One bargain is, "I just don't want to sell anything—as in Burger King as in toys as in stuff." Williams improvised much of his dialogue, recording approximately 30 hours on tape, and impersonated scores of celebrities, including Ed Sullivan, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, Peter Lorre, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Arsenio Hall. His appearance in Aladdin was one of his most well-known and most adored films of 1992, and the film received numerous accolades, including the Special Golden Globe Award for Vocal Work in a Motion Picture for Williams. His presence paved the way for other animated films to feature actors with greater voice. In 2009, he was named a Disney Legend.

Williams declined to sign up for the direct-to-video sequel The Return of Jafar (1994), where the Genie was actually voiced by Dan Castellaneta. Roth, the Walt Disney Studios chairman, arranged a public apology to Williams when Jeffrey Katzenberg was fired by Joe Roth. In turn, Williams will reprise his role in Aladdin and the King of Thieves, a 1996 film.

Williams appeared in several animated films, including FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Robots (2005), the Happy Feet film franchise (2006-2011), and an uncredited vocal appearance in Everyone's Hero (2006). In the live-action film A.I., he also played Dr. Know, the holographic character. Artificial Intelligence (2001). He was the voice of The Timekeeper, a former Disney World Resort attraction about a time-traveling robot that visits Jules Verne and transports him to the future.

Janet Hirshenson said in an interview that Williams had expressed interest in portraying Rubeus Hagrid in the Harry Potter film series, but that was turned down by director Chris Columbus due to the "British-only edict." In 2006, he appeared in five films, including Man of the Year, a political satire, and The Night Listener, a drama about a radio show host who may not exist. After Williams' death in 2014, four films starring Williams were released: Night at the Museum: The Mysterious Tomb, A Merry Friggin' Christmas, Boulevard, and Absolutely Anything.

In 1988, Williams appeared opposite Steve Martin at Lincoln Center in an off-Broadway version of Waiting for Godot. Robin Williams: Live on Broadway, his own one-man performance, whose production appeared at the Broadway Theatre in July 2002. He made his Broadway debut in Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo, which opened at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on March 31, 2011.

Williams was the host of a talk show for Audible that aired in April 2000 but was only available on Audible's website.

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