Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills and the wide variety of characters he created on the spur of the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike, he is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time.He received numerous accolades including an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.

Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and released several comedy albums including Reality ... What a Concept in 1980. He rose to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). He received his first leading film role in Popeye (1980). Williams went on to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997). His other Oscar-nominated roles were for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989), and The Fisher King (1991).

Williams starred in the critically acclaimed dramas The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990), Patch Adams (1998), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002), and World's Greatest Dad (2009). He also starred in family films such as Hook (1991), Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), Jack (1996), Flubber (1997), RV (2006), and the Night at the Museum trilogy (2006–2014). He lent his voice to the animated films Aladdin (1992), Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006), and its 2011 sequel.

Williams was found dead at his home in Paradise Cay, California, in August 2014, at the age of 63. At the time of his suicide, he had been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. According to his widow, Williams had experienced depression, anxiety, and increasing paranoia.His autopsy found "diffuse Lewy body disease" and Lewy body dementia professionals said his symptoms were consistent with 

Williams’s early movie appearances included leads in Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982), but his first major role came with Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), in which he portrayed the irreverent military disc jockey Adrian Cronauer. The role earned Williams his first Academy Award nomination. His second came soon after for his performance as an inspirational English teacher at a preparatory school in Dead Poets Society (1989). In the early 1990s he lent his talents to a number of successful family-oriented films, including Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), in which he played a divorced man who impersonates a female nanny in order to be close to his children, and the animated feature Aladdin (1992), in which he voiced a frenetic genie.dementia with Lewy bodies

While undoubtedly a successful comedic actor, Williams was equally adept at more-sober roles. He played a distressed former professor in The Fisher King (1991) and a psychiatrist who mentors a troubled but mathematically gifted young man (played by Matt Damon) in Good Will Hunting (1997). Both films earned Williams Academy Award nominations, and for Good Will Hunting he finally received an Oscar.

Robin Williams had a lonely childhood

The couple had children from former partners, but Robin Williams was the only shared child of Laurie and Robert Williams. Robert was an executive at Ford, and the family lived in the well-off neighborhood of Bloomfield, MI. Yet Williams, despite growing up with the trappings of wealth, was lonely.

As recounted in David Itzkoff's Robin Williams biography "Robin" and referenced by comedy writer Merrill Markoe in her review of the book, his mother would later admit "I didn't realize how lonely Robin had been ... [he] had some very lonely years. You think you're being a wonderful mother, but maybe you aren't." It seems Robin actually saw his mother as a source of inspiration.

A Rolling Stone article quotes Robin admitting as much. "The first laugh is always the one that gets you hooked," he pointed out. "For me, it was my mother. I was always trying to make her laugh."

One also can't help but think that it was perhaps this childhood, often alluded to by Williams as one with two somewhat absentee parents, that inspired him to try and be the best father he could when he had his own children.

Young Robin was bullied by classmates

According to the Williams biography "Robin Williams: When the Laughter Stops," the feeling of loneliness that shadowed Williams' younger years wasn't confined to his home life. As an adult, he also looked back on his school years as a somewhat unhappy time, one that found him coping with bullying from his peers.

"I spent about three years in an all-boys school [near Detroit]," Williams is quoted as saying. "It was almost like the one in 'Dead Poets Society.' Blazer. Latin motto. I was getting pushed around a lot. Not only was there like physical bullying, but there was intellectual bullying going on. It made me toughen up, but it also made me pull back a lot. I had a certain reticence about dealing with people. Through comedy, I found a way to bridge the gap."

Like many if not most comedians, Williams coped with his pain by using it as fuel for laughter.

Williams lost friends to overdose and addiction

Gerald Nachman's 2004 book "Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s" quotes Robin Williams describing comedy as "a brutal field" and musing, "They burn out. It takes its toll. Plus, the lifestyle — partying, drinking, drugs. If you're on the road, it's even more brutal. You gotta come back down to mellow your ass out, and then performing takes you back up ... Sometimes they just give up."

Williams came up in this challenging, hard-living world of 1970s standup comedy. When it comes to comedians who partied hard, though, few were as widely known for their hard living as Williams' friend John Belushi. Williams and Belushi were together the night that Belushi fatally overdosed — and understandably, the loss hit Williams hard.

"Here's a guy who's a beast, who could do anything, and he's gone," Williams later reflected. "That sobered the s*** out of me." This period of sobriety helped Williams build his career and focus on raising his son, but it didn't last. "Cocaine for me was a place to hide," Williams admitted. "Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down."

Williams had his own battles with addiction

In Dave Itzkoff's Robin Williams biography "Robin," Williams is open about the cocaine culture that was prevalent during his early career. "They give it to you for free," he explains. "'You have a drug problem?' 'No problem. Everybody's got it.'"

John Belushi's death led to Williams getting sober. As he told People in 1988, Belushi's death "caused a big exodus from drugs. And for me there was the baby coming. I knew I couldn't be a father and live that sort of life."

Williams got sober for a long time — until 2003 when, on location in Alaska, he relapsed. "One day I walked into a store and saw a little bottle of Jack Daniel's," he remembered in a 2013 Parade article. "And then that voice — I call it the 'lower power' — goes, 'Hey. Just a taste. Just one.' ... Within a week I was buying so many bottles I sounded like a wind chime walking down the street."

Williams went to rehab in 2006 and checked himself into a renewal center in 2014, shortly before his death.

Live, , love

Robin Williams was married to his first wife, Valerie Velardi, for 10 years, and with her had his first son, Zak. In the documentary "Come Inside My Mind," Velardi discussed their relationship, including his infidelities. The Sun quotes her as saying, "He loved women. Absolutely loved women."

Velardi tried to make peace with Williams' straying. "I understood and I wanted him to have that," she explained. "But I also wanted him to come home." The marriage ended in divorce, and Williams started a relationship with Marsha Garces, the nanny they'd hired to take care of Zak. Marsha became Williams' second wife, with whom he had a daughter, Zelda, and a son, Cody. Following the dissolution of his marriage to Marsha, Williams married his third wife, Susan Schneider, in 2011. They remained married until his death in 2014.

While the heart wants what it wants and Williams always seemed to treat the women in his life respectfully, his eventual alimony of over $30 million to his ex-wives (according to the New York Daily News) was undoubtedly an expense he would have preferred to avoid.

Williams' daughter has dealt with online harassment since his death

In 2014, Robin Williams' daughter Zelda, an entertainer in her own right, quit social media after being harassed on Twitter and Instagram, according to a CNN article. She was reportedly sent Photoshopped images of her father's death and worse, which prompted Twitter to evaluate its handling of abuse. 

Unfortunately, she's still being harassed years later. In 2021, after a clip of a man named Jamie Costa impersonating Robin Williams went viral, Zelda was bombarded with the footage; according to many sources, including US Magazine, she openly asked people to stop sending it to her.

"Guys, I'm only saying this because I don't think it'll stop until I acknowledge it ... please, stop sending me the 'test footage,'" Zelda tweeted. "Jamie is SUPER talented, this isn't against him, but y'all spamming me an impression of my late Dad on one of his saddest days is weird." 

It isn't that Williams is opposed to discussing her father — she just deserves to do it on her terms. "New, old, the connective tissue of that deeply human pain can be hard to bear, but I find it easier sometimes knowing how many others have felt the same sting," she tweeted on the anniversary of his death in 2021. "We're not alone. X."

His legacy reaches beyond his body of work

Robin Williams has been immortalized by his many unforgettable performances. His standup is the stuff of legend, and even today, watching one of his old routines can bring even the most jaded viewer to uncontrollable fits of laughter. Following his death, he left another legacy — one that may have a more profound effect on the people who most need it.

As stories about his life have come to light, the world has increased its discussions of such long-taboo subjects as depression, substance abuse, and the pressures of living in the public eye. It has maybe made people more cognizant of the emotional hardships often endured by those who entertain us, making us laugh and cry and feel part of the human experience through their work. The tragic details of Robin Williams' life have prompted us to look at those people who seem to have a perfect life and try to look past the mask.

Not only will we forever have the Genie from "Aladdin," Sean from "Good Will Hunting," and Adrian from "Good Morning Vietnam" — among many other roles — but we will also have Robin Williams himself, a man whose story offers an ever-timely reminder that everybody needs support and understanding.

Awards and nominations

Main articles: List of Robin Williams performances and List of awards and nominations received by Robin Williams

Throughout the course of his career Williams won numerous awards, including an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Good Will Hunting (1997).^[209] He also won six Golden Globe Awards, including Best Actor—Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his roles in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), The Fisher King (1991) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), along with the Special Golden Globe Award for Vocal Work in a Motion Picture^[97] for his role Genie in Aladdin (1992), and the Cecil B. DeMille award in 2005.^[210] He also received two Primetime Emmy Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Grammy Awards.^[211][212]