Robin Williams
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| Robin Williams |
After his film debut in the musical comedy Popeye (1980), he starred or co-starred in widely acclaimed films, including the comedy-drama The World According to Garp (1982), war comedy Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), dramas Dead Poets Society (1989) and Awakenings (1990), comedy-drama The Fisher King (1991), the animated musical-fantasy Aladdin (1992), drama Good Will Hunting (1997), and psychological thriller One Hour Photo (2002), as well as financial successes such as the fantasy adventure film Hook (1991), comedy Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), fantasy adventure Jumanji (1995), comedy The Birdcage (1996), and fantasy adventure-comedy Night at the Museum (2006).
In 1998, Williams won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as Dr. Sean Maguire in Good Will Hunting. He also received two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Grammy Awards throughout his career, and was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2009.
Childhood
Williams was born at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. His mother, Laurie McLaurin (1922–2001), was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi, whose great-grandfather was Mississippi senator and governor Anselm J. McLaurin. Williams's father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, was a senior executive in Ford Motor Company's Lincoln-Mercury Division.Williams had two elder half-brothers, Robert and McLaurin.While his mother was a practitioner of Christian Science, Williams was raised as an Episcopalian and later authored a comedic list, "Top Ten Reasons to be an Episcopalian". During a TV interview on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, he credited his mother as being an important early influence for his sense of humor, noting also that he tried to make her laugh to gain attention.
Williams attended public elementary school at Gorton Elementary School (now Gorton Community Center) and middle school at Deer Path Junior High School (now Deer Path Middle School), both in Lake Forest, Illinois. He described himself as a quiet and shy child who did not overcome his shyness until he became involved with his high school drama department. Williams's friends recall him as being very funny. In late 1963, when Williams was twelve, his father was transferred to Detroit. They lived in a 40-room farmhouse on 20 acres in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where he was a student at the private Detroit Country Day School. He excelled in school, where he was on the school's soccer team and wrestling team, and became class president.
As Williams's father was away much of the time and his mother also worked, he was attended to by the family's maid, who was his main companion. When Williams was 16, his father took early retirement and the family moved to Tiburon, California. Following the move, Williams attended Redwood High School in nearby Larkspur. At the time of his graduation in 1969, he was voted "Most Likely Not to Succeed" and "Funniest" by his classmates.
College and Juilliard School
After high school graduation, Williams enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California to study political science, then later dropped out to pursue acting. Williams then studied theatre for three years at the College of Marin, a community college in Kentfield, California. According to Marin drama professor James Dunn, the depth of Williams's talent first became evident when he was cast in the musical Oliver! as Fagin. Williams was known to improvise during his time in Marin's drama program, putting cast members in hysterics. Dunn called his wife after one late rehearsal to tell her that Williams "was going to be something special."
In 1973, Williams attained a full scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York City. He was one of only 20 students accepted into the freshman class and one of only two students to be accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program at the school that year; the other was Christopher Reeve. William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were also classmates. According to Jean Dorsinville, classmate Franklyn Seales was Williams's roommate at Juilliard.Reeve remembered his first impression of Williams when they were two new students at Juilliard: "He wore tie-dyed shirts with track suit bottoms and talked a mile a minute. I'd never seen so much energy contained in one person. He was like an untied balloon that had been inflated and immediately released. I watched in awe as he virtually caromed off the walls of the classrooms and hallways. To say that he was 'on' would be a major understatement."
Williams and Reeve had a class in dialects taught by Edith Skinner, who, Reeve said, was one of the world's leading voice and speech teachers. Skinner had no idea what to make of Williams, adds Reeve, as he could instantly perform in many dialects, including Scottish, Irish, English, Russian, and Italian. Their primary acting teacher was Michael Kahn, who was "equally baffled by this human dynamo," notes Reeve. Williams already had a reputation for being funny, but Kahn sometimes criticized his antics as simple stand-up comedy. In a later production, Williams silenced his critics with his convincing role of an old man in The Night of the Iguana, by Tennessee Williams. "He simply was the old man," observed Reeve. "I was astonished by his work and very grateful that fate had thrown us together."
Williams and Reeve remained close friends until Reeve's death in 2004, following his having become a quadriplegic after a horse-riding accident.Zak, Williams's son, said they were like brothers in their friendship.Williams paid many of Reeve's medical bills and gave financial support to his family.
Williams left Juilliard during his junior year in 1976 at the suggestion of Houseman, who said there was nothing more Juilliard could teach him. His teacher at Juilliard, Gerald Freedman, notes that Williams was a "genius," and the school's conservative and classical style of training did not suit him, therefore no one was surprised that he left.
Career
Stand-up comedy
Williams performing stand-up comedy at a USO show on December 20, 2007
After his family moved to Marin County, Williams began his career doing stand-up comedy shows in the San Francisco Bay Area in the mid-1970s. His first performance took place at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where he worked his way up from tending bar to getting on stage.In the 1960s, San Francisco was a center for a rock music renaissance, hippies, drugs, and a sexual revolution, and in the 1970s, Williams helped lead its "comedy renaissance," writes critic Gerald Nachman. Williams says he found out about "drugs and happiness" during that period, adding that he saw "the best brains of my time turned to mud," (a humorous mis-para-phrasing of the opening of Howl by Allen Ginsberg).
In the early 1970s Williams also worked as a mime and was photographed by Daniel Sorine while performing in 1974 in Central Park.
He moved to Los Angeles and continued doing stand-up shows at various clubs, including the Comedy Club, in 1977, where TV producer George Schlatter saw him. Schlatter, realizing that Williams would become an important force in show business, asked him to appear on a revival of his Laugh-In show. The show aired in late 1977 and became his debut TV appearance. Williams also performed a show at the LA Improv that same year for Home Box Office.While the Laugh-In revival failed, it led Williams into a career in television, during which period he continued doing stand-up at comedy clubs, such as the Roxy, to help him keep his improvisational skills sharp.
Early influences
Williams has credited other comedians with having influenced and inspired him, including Jonathan Winters, Peter Sellers, Nichols and May, and Lenny Bruce. He attributed their influence to their ability to attract a more intellectual audience by using a higher level of wit.He also liked Jay Leno for his quickness in ad-libbing comedy routines, and Sid Caesar, whose acts he felt were "precious."Jonathan Winters became his "idol" early in life; Williams first saw him on television at age 8 and paid him homage in interviews throughout his career. Williams was inspired by Winters's ingenuity, realizing, he said, "that anything is possible, that anything is funny. . . He gave me the idea that it can be free-form, that you can go in and out of things pretty easily."
Williams performing at a United Service Organizations holiday show held for the Aviano Air Base community on December 22, 2007
During an interview in London in 2002, he told Sir Michael Parkinson that Peter Sellers was an important influence, especially his multi-character roles in Dr. Strangelove: "It doesn't get better than that." Williams owned a rare recording of Sellers's early radio Goon Shows. British comedy actors Dudley Moore and Peter Cook were also among his influences, he told Parkinson.Williams was also influenced by Richard Pryor's fearless ability to talk about his personal life on stage, with subjects including his use of drugs and alcohol, and Williams added those kinds of topics during his own performances. By bringing up such personal matters as a form of comedy, he told Parkinson, it was "cheaper than therapy" and gave him a way to release his pent up energy and emotions.
Film career
Williams's first film was the 1977 low-budget comedy Can I Do It... 'Til I Need Glasses?. His first major performance was as the title character in Popeye (1980); though the film was a commercial flop, the role allowed Williams to showcase the acting skills previously demonstrated in his television work. He also starred as the leading character in The World According to Garp (1982), which Williams considered "may have lacked a certain madness onscreen, but it had a great core". Williams continued with other smaller roles in less successful films, such as The Survivors (1983) and Club Paradise (1986), though he felt these roles did not help advance his film career.
His first major break came from his starring role in director Barry Levinson's Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which earned Williams a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. The film takes place in 1965 during the Vietnam War, with Williams playing the role of Adrian Cronauer, a radio "shock jock" who keeps the troops entertained with comedy and sarcasm. Williams was allowed to play the role without a script, improvising most of his lines. Over the microphone, he created voice impressions of people, including Walter Cronkite, Gomer Pyle, Elvis Presley, Mr. Ed and Richard Nixon."We just let the cameras roll," said producer Mark Johnson, and Williams "managed to create something new for every single take."
Personal life
Marriages and children
Williams married his first wife Valerie Velardi in June 1978, following a live-in relationship with comedian Elayne Boosler. Velardi and Williams met in 1976 while he was working as a bartender at a tavern in San Francisco. Their son Zachary Pym "Zak" Williams was born in 1983. Williams and Velardi divorced in 1988.
On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces, Zachary's nanny, who was pregnant with his child. They had two children, Zelda Rae Williams (born 1989) and Cody Alan Williams (born 1991). In March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, citing irreconcilable differences.Their divorce was finalized in 2010. Williams married his third wife, graphic designer Susan Schneider, on October 22, 2011, in St. Helena, California.
Williams stated, "My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings."
Death
Williams committed suicide on August 11, 2014, at his home in unincorporated Paradise Cay, California (15 miles (24 km) north of San Francisco), at the age of 63. In the initial report released on August 12, the Marin County Sheriff's Office deputy coroner stated Williams had hanged himself with a belt and died from asphyxiation. It was revealed following his death that Williams had been suffering from severe depression, and had been sleeping in a different room from his wife due to restlessness and anxiety caused by his Parkinson's.
The final autopsy report, released in November 2014, affirmed that Williams had committed suicide as initially described. Neither alcohol nor illegal drugs were present, and prescription medications were at therapeutic levels. The report also noted that Williams had been experiencing "a recent increase in paranoia".An examination of his brain tissue revealed the presence of "diffuse Lewy body dementia". Williams's doctors believe that Lewy body dementia "was the critical factor" that led to his suicide. A year later his widow echoed this diagnosis, saying that Williams's suicide was not motivated by depression,but by Lewy body dementia and Parkinson's, saying, "If Robin was lucky, he would've had maybe three years left".
Williams's body was cremated and his ashes were spread in San Francisco Bay on August 21.
Tributes
One of several fan tributes to Williams, this at the steps of the San Francisco Pacific Heights home used for Mrs. Doubtfire
News of Williams's death spread quickly worldwide. The entertainment world, friends, and fans responded to his sudden death through social and other media outlets. His wife, Susan Schneider, said: "I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken."Williams's daughter Zelda responded to her father's death by stating that the "world is forever a little darker, less colorful and less full of laughter in his absence".U.S. President Barack Obama said of Williams: "He was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."
Broadway theaters in New York dimmed their lights for one minute in his honor. Broadway's Aladdin cast honored Williams by having the audience join them in a sing-along of "Friend Like Me", an Oscar-nominated song originally sung by Williams in the 1992 film. Fans of Williams created makeshift memorials at his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and at locations from his television and film career, such as the bench in Boston's Public Garden featured in Good Will Hunting; the Pacific Heights, San Francisco, home used in Mrs. Doubtfire; and the Boulder, Colorado, home used for Mork & Mindy. It was also reported that a book biography of Williams's life was in development, to be written by New York Times writer David Itzkoff.
Williams was memorialized online by Apple, Inc., including sentiments by executives Tim Cook and Phil Schiller, and a dedicated memorial webpage which MacRumors says is a rare distinction shared only by Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks, board member Jerry York, and Steve Jobs.
On television, during the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards on August 25, 2014, Billy Crystal presented a tribute to Williams, referring to him as "the brightest star in our comedy galaxy." On September 9, 2014, PBS aired a one-hour special devoted to Williams's career, and on September 27, 2014, dozens of leading stars and celebrities held a tribute in San Francisco to celebrate his life and career.
Shortly after his death, Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior all aired the original Aladdin over the course of a week, with a dedicated drawing of the Genie at the end of each airing before the credits.
British heavy metal band Iron Maiden did a tribute to Williams on their 2015 album The Book of Souls with the song "Tears of a Clown". Blizzard Entertainment added a tribute to the game World of Warcraft in the form of a magic lamp that summons a genie named Robin.
As a result of his death, the name "Robin Williams" became the single fastest growing search term on Google in 2014, accompanied by a rise in searches for the phrase "carpe diem" as associated with Dead Poets Society.
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