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Robin McLaurim Williams (born July 21, 1951 or 1952) is an Academy Award-, six-time Golden Globe-, two-time Screen Actors Guild Award- and Grammy Award-winning American actor and comedian who has done television, stage and film work. In part, his big break was from playing Mork from Ork, which was highlighted on Mork & Mindy. Soon afterward he became a film star who is still active as an actor and headlining comic. He was voted 13th on Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time. A hyperkinetic performer who made his name as part of the burgeoning West Coast comedy scene in the late 1970s, Robin Williams first seized the nation's imagination as the ad-libbing extra-terrestrial, Mork from Ork, on the popular sitcom "Happy Days," which quickly led to the spin-off show, "Mork and Mindy" (ABC, 1978-82). Once established as both a stand-up comedian and a small screen star, he moved on to feature work where he has proven successful in both dramatic and comic roles. Williams was born in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Laura McLaurim (née Smith, 1922–2001), was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams (September 10, 1906–October 18, 1987) was a senior executive at Ford in charge of the Midwest area. Williams was raised in the Episcopal Church, though his mother practiced Christian Science, and he grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Marin County, California. He has two half-brothers: McLaurin and the late Todd (deceased August 14, 2007). While in California, Williams attended Redwood High School in Larkspur and grew up in the Marin County suburb of Tiburon. In Michigan, he attended Detroit Country Day School, an exclusive college-preparatory school, which boasts other famous alumni, including Steve Ballmer from Microsoft and Courtney Vance from Law and Order: Criminal Intent. Williams has described himself as a quiet child whose first imitation was of his grandmother to his mom. He did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his high school drama department. In high school, he won an award for "Most Likely To Not Succeed". The only child of an automobile executive and a homemaker, Williams was raised in a wealthy environment and harbored no desire to perform. He preferred sports and his studies until his family relocated to Marin County, CA around 1967. While attending Claremont Men's College, Williams discovered theater and dropped out to pursue a career, eventually landing at Juilliard. After three years in NYC, Williams returned to San Francisco and struggled to find his niche in stand-up comedy. In 1976, he auditioned at the Improv and his career was on its way. In 1973, Williams was one of only 20 students accepted into the freshman class at Juilliard. Even more impressive, Williams, along with Christopher Reeve, were the only students accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program at the school that year. Reeve and Williams had several classes together in which they were the only two students. In their dialects class, Williams had no trouble mastering all dialects quickly, whereas Reeve was more meticulous about it. Williams's manic comedy did not impress all of his teachers, but his dramatic performances impressed everyone. Williams and Reeve developed a close friendship, and they remained good friends for the rest of Reeve's life. Williams visited Reeve after the horseback riding accident that paralyzed him from the neck down and cheered him up by pretending to be an eccentric Russian doctor (similar to his role in Nine Months). Williams claimed that he was there to perform a colonoscopy. Reeve stated that he laughed for the first time since the accident and knew that life was going to be okay. Williams first achieved notice for his stand-up routines, performing for tips only, and working at clubs like The Purple Onion in San Francisco. He has been accused, especially in recent years, of stealing jokes from other comedians and even paying for material after the fact. After appearing in the cast of the short-lived The Richard Pryor Show on NBC, he was cast by Garry Marshall as the alien Mork in a guest role in the TV series Happy Days, As Mork, Williams improvised much of his dialogue and devised plenty of rapid-fire verbal and physical comedy, speaking in a high, nasal voice. Mork's appearance was so popular with viewers that it led to a spin-off hit television sitcom, Mork and Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982. Williams became an overnight sensation, and Mork was featured on posters, coloring books, lunchboxes, and other merchandise. His nonsensical catch phrases, including the greeting "Nanu, Nanu!" and the expletive "Shazbot!", were widely known. Williams made his television debut as a member of the ensemble of a revival of "Laugh-In" (NBC, 1977-78). In February 1978, he debuted as Mork, a manic, fast-talking space alien, on an episode of the ABC sitcom "Happy Days.” Producer Garry Marshall was so impressed, he executive produced the spin-off series "Mork and Mindy,” which paired Williams with Pam Dawber and quickly became a hit with Mork's catchphrase of "Nanu, Nanu" entering into the lexicon. The hyperactive actor continued to make appearances at comedy clubs while starring in the sitcom. The small screen could barely contain Williams and his free associative antics and it was only a matter of time before he would try his hand in features. Although his launch as a film lead, in "Popeye" (1980), was a disappointment audiences were thrown by director Robert Altman's purist vision box-office success came two years later with George Roy Hill's "The World According to Garp" (1982). Except for "Moscow on the Hudson" (1984), in which he believably played a Russian seeking asylum in America, his follow-up features were unmemorable. Starting in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Williams began to reach a wider audience with his standup comedy, including three HBO comedy specials, Off The Wall (1978), An Evening with Robin Williams (1982), and Robin Williams: Live at the Met (1986). His standup work has been a consistent thread through his career, as is seen by the success of his one-man show (and subsequent DVD) Robin Williams Live on Broadway (2002). He was voted 13th on Comedy Central's list "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time" in 2004. After some encouragement from his friend Whoopi Goldberg, he was set to make a guest appearance in the 1991 Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, "A Matter of Time", but he had to cancel due to a scheduling conflict; Matt Frewer took his place as a time-traveling con man, Professor Berlingoff Rasmussen. Williams also appeared on an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? (Season 3, Episode 9: November 16, 2000). During a game of "Scenes from a Hat", the scene "What Robin Williams is thinking right now" was drawn, and Williams stated "I have a career. What the hell am I doing here?" The majority of Williams's acting career has been in film, although he has given some memorable performances on stage as well (notably as Estragon in a production of Waiting for Godot with Steve Martin). His first starring roles, Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982), were both considered flops, but his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) got Williams nominated for an Academy Award and established a screen identity. Many of his roles have been comedies tinged with pathos, for example The Birdcage and Mrs. Doubtfire. Although some of his finest moments in "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987) were the result of on-set improvisations, his unpredictability was at one point seen as a barrier to a dramatic screen career, despite the Best Actor Oscar nomination he received. Williams, however, subsequently defied initial skepticism and proved himself capable of disciplined work. He made a rare dramatic appearance on TV in "Seize the Day" (PBS, 1987) and Peter Weir's "Dead Poets Society" (1989) cast him as a prep school teacher. While he occasionally flashed some of his trademarked shtick in the role, Williams proved a charismatic screen lead and earned a second Best Actor Academy Award nomination. Penny Marshall cast him as real-life doctor Oliver Sacks in "Awakenings" (1990) and despite fine work, co-star Robert De Niro earned most of the accolades. Williams earned a third Best Actor Oscar nod for his turn as a street person in "The Fisher King" (1991). For much of the rest of the decade, Williams alternated between drama and comedy. He made a fine grown-up Peter Pan in Steven Spielberg's bloated "Hook" (1991) but ironically, the actor had one of his best and most successful screen outings with the animated Disney feature "Aladdin" (1992). Supplying the voice of the Genie and freed from the physical restrictions of live-action acting, Williams took off on some inspired riffs, impersonating scores of pop-culture icons from Arnold Schwarzenegger to William F. Buckley, as the animated images provide lightning-fast visual correlatives to his verbal pyrotechnics. (He later reprised the role in the second direct-to-video sequel, 1996's "Aladdin and the Prince of Thieves".). Another box-office triumph resulted when he joined an illustrious group of actors (Dustin Hoffman, Jack Lemmon and the Monty Python comedy troupe, to name a very few), and donned drag to play a elderly Scottish nanny in Chris Columbus' family comedy "Mrs. Doubtfire" (1993). (This was his first film co-produced with his wife, Marsha Garces Williams, under their production banner Blue Wolf Productions.) He had effective cameos as an obstetrician in Columbus' "Nine Months" and as a used car salesman in "To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar" (both 1995) before scoring another box-office hit with "Jumanji" (also 1995). As the adult version of a child who had escaped from a troubled relationship with a distant father into the fantasy world of a board game, Williams drew heavily on his own upbringing. A more subdued performance as Armand, the nightclub owner with a high-strung drag queen lover (Nathan Lane), in "The Birdcage" (1996), Mike Nichols' reworking of 1978's "La Cage aux folles,” followed. That same year, he tried valiantly to salvage the sentimental "Jack", about a ten-year-old with a genetic disorder. Williams round out the year, returning to his classical training to play the fop Osric in Kenneth Branagh's full-length "Hamlet.” His role as the Genie in the animated film Aladdin was instrumental in establishing the importance of star power in voice actor casting. Later, Williams once again used his voice talents in Fern Gully, as the holographic Dr. Know in the 2001 feature "Artificial Intelligence: A.I.", the 2005 animated feature Robots, the 2006 Academy Award winning Happy Feet, and an uncredited vocal performance in 2006's Everyone's Hero. Furthermore, he was the voice of The Timekeeper, a former attraction at the Walt Disney World Resort about a time-traveling robot who encounters Jules Verne and brings him to the future. In 1993, it was reported that he would play The Baker in Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods, which was to be directed by Rob Reiner. The project never came to fruition, but Williams has expressed interest in someday renewing the project though he claims he'd be more likely, because of his age, to play the Mysterious Man, a grizzled forest spirit and the father of The Baker, his original role. Williams has also starred in dramatic films, earning himself two subsequent Academy Award nominations: First for playing an unorthodox and inspiring English teacher in Dead Poets Society (1989), and later for playing a troubled homeless man in The Fisher King (1991);[9] that same year, he played an adult Peter Pan in the movie Hook. Other acclaimed dramatic films include Awakenings (1990) and What Dreams May Come (1998). Since the mid-1980s, Williams, Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal have hosted "Comic Relief,” HBO specials designed to raise funds to aid the homeless. In 1997, he and Crystal teamed onscreen for the lamentable "Father's Day", a weak remake of a French farce. He rebounded literally and figuratively with Disney's "Flubber" (1997), a remake of the 1961 Fred MacMurray vehicle "The Absent Minded Professor", that allowed the comic to tap into his more manic side. Williams went on to deliver one of his best-received performances, for which he earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, as a repressed therapist trying to help a troubled genius in "Good Will Hunting" (1997). After a brief role as an actor whose life is so messy he literally becomes out of focus in Woody Allen's "Deconstructing Harry" (also 1997), Williams undertook the treacly fantasy "What Dreams May Come" and the shamelessly manipulative but crowd-pleasing "Patch Adams" (both 1998), before returning to heavy dramatic material with "Jakob the Liar" (1999), about a man who protects a child from the Nazis. In 1998, he won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actor for his role as a psychologist in Good Will Hunting. However, by the early 2000s, he was thought by some to be typecast in films such as Patch Adams (1998) and Bicentennial Man (1999) that critics complained were excessively maudlin. This apparently prompted Williams to take radically unconventional roles, beginning with a role as a lowlife kiddie show host in the dark comedy Death to Smoochy, followed by One Hour Photo in a watershed performance as an obsessed film developer, Insomnia as a sociopathic writer, and The Final Cut, which is more in tune with Williams as a protagonist. In 2006 Williams starred in The Night Listener, a thriller about a radio show host who realizes he's developed a friendship with a child who may or may not exist. In 2002 it was back to comedy for Williams, providing much laughs in the Danny Devito directed, "Death To Smoochy," featuring Williams as a revenge-seeking children’s' television show host who is fired and replaced by a purple rhino name Smoochy. Not as funny for Williams was the fact that "Smoochy" was a giant flop. As if on cue, Williams next appeared in two dark dramas, as a killer in "Insomnia" and a stalker in "One Hour Photo" (both 2002). Robins earned praise for these daring roles that were a departure from his comedic persona and enjoyed the rare success of performing in an entirely different genre. He followed up with the morally challenging sci-fi thriller "Final Cut" (2004), playing an expert at editing people's memories to give them more palatable personal histories who discovers a dark and disturbing image from his own childhood. Not one of his better efforts, “Final Cut” slipped quietly into the dark night of box office failure. Williams then stole the show in “Robots” (2005), voicing Fender, a robot whose body parts like to fall off at inopportune moments. In his next project, “House of D” (2005), David Duchovny’s first feature as a director, Williams played a mentally challenged delivery man in his 30s who finds himself losing his best friend, a 13-year-old boy (Anton Yelchin) discovering the opposite sex for the first time. Williams then appeared in “The Aristocrats” (2005) as one of a hundred comics telling his version of an old Vaudeville joke that is less of a joke and more of a vehicle for cutting loose with words the more vile and dirty, the better. Williams then returned to the studio fold with the high concept comedy, “RV” (2006), playing an over-worked executive who at the last minute changes his family’s much-anticipated Hawaiian vacation into a road trip from hell to Colorado in an RV he barely knows how to drive. Along the way, they encounter a clan of fanatical RV enthusiasts, forcing them to band together and become a family again if they can avoid driving each other insane. Despite poor reviews, “RV” took its opening weekend with a $16 million haul at the box office. He is known for his wild improvisational skills and impersonations. His performances frequently involve impromptu humor designed and delivered in rapid-fire succession while on stage. According to the Aladdin DVD commentary, most of his dialogue as the Genie was improvised. He is a talented mimic and can jump in and out of characters and various accents at an extremely fast pace. Williams states that he began doing impersonations as a child, mimicking his aunt's southern accent. In 2006, he starred in five movies including Man of the Year and was the Surprise Guest at the 2006 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. He appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired on January 30, 2006. Via a live video link to the De'Aeth family whose house and animal rescue shelter were being made over, he encouraged their son Cory, a budding comedian, and gave the family's shelter a recreational vehicle used in the movie R.V. Prior to an uncredited—and unusually restrained—vocal performance in the never-was animated feature “Everyone’s Hero” (2006), Williams starred in “The Night Listener” (2006), a psychological thriller about Gabriel Noone, a popular late-night radio host (Williams) who develops an intense on-air relationship with Pete (Rory Culkin), a 14-year-old boy living with AIDS. But he soon questions Pete’s identity and his past, thanks to the strange behavior of the boy’s strict and overprotective mother (Toni Collette), leading Noone down a harrowing path to find the truth. Williams then starred in “Man of the Year” (2006), playing a popular Jon Stewart-like talk show host whose mock run for president shocks the nation and himself when he actually wins. Returning to animation, he displayed his vocal talents in “Happy Feet” (2006), a family comedy about Mumble, an Emperor Penguin whose inability to sing—hence attract a mate—is overcome by his talent as a tap dancer. In “Night at the Museum” (2006), Williams portrays former president Theodore Roosevelt, a wax exhibit who dispenses advice to the new security guard (Ben Stiller) at the Museum of Natural History where everything come to life in the middle of the night. Meanwhile, Williams signed on to appear in several more 2007 features, including “License to Wed”, a romantic comedy about a young couple’s wedding plans being interrupted when a pushy priest (Williams) orders them to complete a two-week prenuptial course and “August Rush”, a light comedy about an orphaned prodigy (Freddie Highmore) who seeks to find his parents through their shared musical gifts. At one point, he was in the running to play the Riddler in Batman Forever until director Tim Burton dropped the project. Williams had earlier been a prime candidate to play the Joker in Batman. He had expressed interest in assuming the role in The Dark Knight, the sequel to 2005's Batman Begins, although the part of the Joker was taken by Heath Ledger. He was portrayed by Chris Diamantopoulos in the made-for-TV biopic Behind the Camera: The Unauthorized Story of Mork & Mindy (2005), documenting the actor's arrival in Hollywood as a struggling comedian and becoming an overnight star when he landed the role in Mork & Mindy. His first marriage was to Valerie Velardi on June 4, 1978, with whom he has one child, Zachary Pym (Zak) (born April 11, 1983). The marriage ended in 1988. During Williams' first marriage, he was involved in an extramarital relationship with Michelle Tish Carter, a cocktail waitress whom he met in 1984. She sued him in 1986, claiming he gave her herpes without notifying her. The case was settled out of court. On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces, his son's babysitter. They have two children, Zelda Rae (born July 31, 1989) and Cody Alan (born November 25, 1991). Williams currently resides in a large house in the upper-income Sea Cliff neighborhood of San Francisco. However, in March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, citing irreconcilable differences. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had a serious addiction to cocaine; he has since quit. Williams was a close friend and frequent partier alongside John Belushi. He says the death of his friend and the birth of his son prompted him to quit drugs: "Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped too". He was also quoted as saying, "Cocaine is God's way of telling you, you're making too much money." On August 9, 2006, Williams entered himself into a rehabilitation center for alcoholism. His publicist delivered the announcement: "After 20 years of sobriety, Robin Williams found himself drinking again and has decided to take proactive measures to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family. He asks that you respect his and his family's privacy during this time. He looks forward to returning to work this fall to support his upcoming film releases." On August 20, 2007, Williams' elder brother, Robert Todd Williams, died of complications from heart surgery performed in July. Robin Williams gave a speech at his memorial service. Williams frequently visits Australia during his holidays, he has expressed interest in getting citizenship when he retires from his active movie career. He is currently a member of the Episcopal Church. Williams has described his denomination as "Catholic Lite -- same rituals, half the guilt." Williams is an avid enthusiast of games, and is known to enjoy both pen-and-paper role-playing games and online video games, recently playing Warcraft 3, Day of Defeat, Half-Life, and the first-person shooter Battlefield 2 as a sniper. His daughter, Zelda, is named after Princess Zelda from the Legend of Zelda series of video games. On January 6, 2006, he performed live at Consumer Electronics Show during Google's keynote. In the 2006 E3, on the invitation of Will Wright, he demonstrated the creature editor of Spore while simultaneously commenting on the creature's look: "This will actually make a platypus look good." He also complimented the game's versatility, comparing it to Populous and Black & White. He is known to collect shoes including Nike sb and Bape, and speaks fluent French. Williams is a fan of professional road cycling. During the Lance Armstrong years of domination in the Tour de France, Williams was a regular on the US Postal and Discovery Channel Pro Cycling team bus and hotels. Robin is a big fan of the popular anime series, Neon Genesis Evangelion. The toy used in One Hour Photo belonged to him. Williams and his estranged wife, Marsha, founded the Windfall Foundation, a philanthropic organization to raise money for many different charities. Williams devotes much of his energy doing work for charities, including the Comic Relief fund-raising efforts. He is also a cycling fan, known to own hundreds of bicycles and to attend the Tour de France. Through his interest in cycling, he has been a friend and supporter of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, performing at events for the foundation. In December 1999, he sang in French on the BBC-inspired music video of international celebrities doing a cover of the Rolling Stones's "It's Only Rock & Roll" for the charity Children's Promise. In 2006, he helped fund and also wrote the foreword to the book Home Wasn't Built in a Day with the nonprofit writing center 826 Valencia. The book was written by public school students from Galileo Academy of Science and Technology in San Francisco. Williams has performed in the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq for four years. As recently as January 24–25, 2007, he performed two live stand-up comedy shows in Boston, MA. Donations from the events were split between the USO Operation Care Package and the Greater Boston Food Bank. Robin Williams joined Kid Rock, Lance Armstrong, Rachel Smith (Miss USA 2007), and Lewis Black on December 20, 2007, at LSA Anaconda Balad, Iraq, and on December 22, 2007, at Naval Station Rota, Spain. He is also a celebrity spokesperson for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He appears regularly on TV to promote and solicit donations for this institution which is dedicated to researching and curing cancers in children. |
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