Robin McLaurim Williams - Comedian - Actor

Description: Robin McLaurim Williams (born July 21, 1951 or 1952)[2] 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.

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Early life
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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.[citation needed] 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".

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.[citation needed] 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.
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?"

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Cinema career
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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 (film) (1982), were both considered flops,[citation needed] but his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) got Williams nominated for an Academy Award and established a screen identity.[citation needed] Many of his roles have been comedies tinged with pathos, for example The Birdcage and Mrs. Doubtfire.

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.[citation needed] 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.[citation needed]

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).

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,[citation needed] 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.

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..

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.

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Personal life
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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.[citation needed] 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".[9] 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."

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Other interests
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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.[23] 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.

Robin is a fan of the NFL team San Francisco 49ers

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Charity work
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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.[citation needed]

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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Filmography
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Year ↓ Film ↓ Role ↓ Gross ↓
1980 Popeye Popeye US$49.8 million
1982 The World According to Garp T.S. Garp US$29.5 million
1983 The Survivors Donald Quinelle
1984 Moscow on the Hudson Vladimir Ivanov
1986 Seize the Day Tommy Wilhelm
Club Paradise Jack Moniker
The Best of Times Jack Dundee US$7.7 million
1987 Good Morning, Vietnam Adrian Cronauer US$123.9 million
1988 The Adventures of Baron Munchausen King of the Moon US$8.0 million
Portrait of a White Marriage Air Conditioning Salesman
1989 Dead Poets Society John Keating
Back to Neverland Peter Pan
1990 Awakenings Dr. Malcolm Sayer
Cadillac Man Joey O'Brien US$27.6 million
1991 Hook Peter Banning/Peter Pan US$119.6 million
The Fisher King Parry US$42.0 million
Dead Again Doctor Cozy Carlisle
1992 Toys Leslie Zevo US$21.4 million
Aladdin Genie US$217.4 million
The Timekeeper The Timekeeper
FernGully: The Last Rainforest Batty Koda US$24.6 million
Shakes the Clown Mime Class Instructor
I'm From Hollywood
1993 Mrs. Doubtfire Daniel Hillard/Mrs. Doubtfire US$219.5 million
Being Human Hector
1994 In Search of Dr. Seuss Father
1995 Aladdin and the King of Thieves Genie US$168.2 million
Jumanji Alan Parrish US$100.4 million
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt
Nine Months Dr. Kosevich
1996 Hamlet Osric US$5.1 million
The Secret Agent The Professor
Jack Jack Powell US$58.5 million
The Birdcage Armand Goldman
1997 Good Will Hunting Sean Maguire US$138.4 million
Flubber Professor Philip Brainard US$92.9 million
Deconstructing Harry Mel/Harry's Character
Fathers' Day Dale Putley US$28.6 million
1998 Patch Adams Hunter "Patch" Adams US$202.2 million
Junket Whore
What Dreams May Come Chris Nielsen US$55.3 million
1999 Bicentennial Man Andrew Martin
Jakob the Liar Jakob Heym/Narrator
Get Bruce
2000 Model Behavior Faremain
2001 A.I.: Artificial Intelligence Dr. Know US$78.6 million
2002 The Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch
Insomnia Walter Finch US$67.2 million
Death to Smoochy 'Rainbow' Randolph Smiley US$4.2 million
One Hour Photo Sy Parrish US$31.5 million
2004 Noel Charlie Boyd/The Priest
House of D Pappass US$210,826
The Final Cut Alan W. Hakman
2005 In Search of Ted Demme
The Big White Paul Barnell
Robots Fender US$128.2 million
The Aristocrats Himself
2006 Night at the Museum Teddy Roosevelt US$250.8 million
Man of the Year Tom Dobbs US$12.5 million
Happy Feet Ramon/Lovelace (voice) US$194.9 million
Everyone's Hero Napoleon Cross (voice) US$6.1 million
RV Bob Munro US$86.8 million
The Night Listener Gabriel Noone
2007 License to Wed Reverend Frank US$43.8 million
August Rush Maxwell "Wizard" Wallace
2009 Old Dogs TBA post-production

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Contact Info:
Website: http://www.robin-williams.net
Office: Hollywood
Location: Los Angeles, CA