Robin Williams

Robin Williams

(For more go to www.zanesmall.com)

Influences: Richard Pryor, Jonathan Winters, Peter Sellers Mel Brooks, Stanley Kubrick Influenced: Frank Caliendo, Conan O'Brien, Paul Livingston

Spouse: Valerie Velardi (1978-1988), Marsha Garces Williams (1989-2008)






Robin Williams



Academy Awards



Best Supporting Actor



1997 Good Will Hunting



Emmy Awards



Best Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program

1987 Carol and Carl and Whoopi and Robin



Golden Globe Awards



Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical or Comedy

1987 Good Morning, Vietnam

1991 The Fisher King

1993 Mrs. Doubtfire

Best Actor in a Television Comedy or Musical

1978 Mork and Mindy

Cecil B. DeMille Award (2005)



Grammy Awards



Best Comedy Album

1980 Reality...What a Concept

1988 A Night at the Met

1989 Good Morning, Vietnam

Best Spoken Comedy Album

2003 Robin Williams - Live 2002



Screen Actors Guild Awards



Best Cast in a Motion Picture

1996 The Birdcage

Best Supporting Actor - Motion Picture

1997 Good Will Hunting



American Comedy Awards



Funniest Male Performer of the Year

1987, 1988

Funniest Male Stand-Up Comic

1987, 1988, 1989

Funniest Male Performer in a TV Special

1987 Robin Williams: Live at the Met

1988 Comic Relief '87

1990 Comic Relief III

Funniest Actor in a Motion Picture (Leading Role)

1988 Good Morning, Vietnam

1994 Mrs. Doubtfire









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Robin Williams
Robin McLaurim Williams (born July 21, 1951 or 1952) is an American television, stage and film actor and comedian who has won an Academy Award for his performance in Good Will Hunting, as well as six Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and three Grammy Awards. His film career began in 1980 following his success in the television series Mork & Mindy, and he remains active as a film actor and stand-up comedian. He was voted 13th on Comedy Central Presents: 100 Greatest Stand-Ups of All Time.














Robin Williams

Biography

Early life

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 Lincoln-Mercury Motorship in charge of the Midwest area. Robin originates from Scotland and Wales. Williams was raised in the Episcopal Church, though his mother practiced Christian Science, and he grew up in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan where he was a student at the Detroit Country Day School, and Marin County, California where he attended the public Redwood High School. He has two half-brothers: McLaurin and the late Todd (deceased August 14, 2007).

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".














Robin Williams

Career

In 1973, Williams was one of only 20 students accepted into the freshman class at Juilliard. 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.

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.

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;[13] Matt Frewer took his place as a time-traveling con man, Professor Berlingoff Rasmussen.

Williams also appeared on an episode of the American version 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?"














Robin Williams

Cinema career Genie in Disney's AladdinThe majority of Williams' 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 performance in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) got Williams nominated for an Academy Award. 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.

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); 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. 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.

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.

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.














Robin Williams

Stand-Up Career

Robin Williams has done a number of stand-up comedy tours since the early 1970's. Some of his most notable tours include An Evening With Robin Williams (1978), Robin Williams: At The Met (1986) and Robin Williams LIVE on Broadway (2002). The latter broke many long held records for a comedy show. In some cases, tickets were sold out within thirty minutes of going on sale.

In August 2008, Williams announced a brand new 26-city tour titled "Weapons of Self Destruction". After a six year break from his record breaking tour, Robin decided the time was right to perform again due to the material that could be generated by a presidental election. Also, he was quoted as saying that this was his last chance to make cracks at the expense of the current Bush Administration.














Click here to see a great Robin Williams video clip









Personal life

His first marriage was to Valerie Velardi on June 4, 1978, with whom he has one child, Zachary Pym (Zak) (born April 11, 1983). 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 nanny who was already several months pregnant with his child. They have two children, Zelda Rae (born July 31, 1989) and Cody Alan (born November 25, 1991). 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.














Other interests

Williams is an avid enthusiast of games, enjoying 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. 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.

Robin Williams has gone on record as a fan of the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion, and incorporated a scene referencing it in One Hour Photo.

A fan of professional road cycling, he was a regular on the US Postal and Discovery Channel Pro Cycling team bus and hotels during the years Lance Armstrong dominated the Tour de France.

He also enjoys Rugby Union and is a big fan of former All Black, Jonah Lomu.














Charity work

Williams and his former 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. 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.

Williams has performed for four years with the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq.







Click here to see a great Robin Williams video clip









Filmography

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 (Voice) Merchent (Voice) 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 (Voice) 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 Man of the Year Tom Dobbs US$12.5 million

Night At The Museum Teddy Roosevelt US$250.8 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 Lead post-production

Shrink TBA filming

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian Theodore Roosevelt filming














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Don't ask for a discount because you won't need one.



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Discography

Williams sings a version of "Come Together" with Bobby McFerrin on In My Life, a Beatles tribute album produced by George Martin. He also sings "A Mi Manera (My Way)", on the Happy Feet soundtrack. For the 1993 soundtrack of Mrs. Doubtfire, and the film, he sings a rendition of a fragment of Gioacchino Rossini's "Largo al factotum" from The Barber of Seville.

Williams also appeared in the music video of Bobby McFerrin's hit song "Don't Worry, Be Happy".

Reality...What a Concept (1979)

Throbbing Python of Love (1983)

A Night at the Met (1986)

Pecos Bill (1988)

Live 2002 (2002)

DVDs and videos

An Evening with Robin Williams (1982, VHS)

Robin Williams: Live at the Met (1986, VHS)

Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002)














Television guest appearances

As "Robert Ellison" on Homicide: Life on the Street (1994)

As "Thomas" on Friends (1997)

Whose Line is it Anyway? (2000)

"That's Fucking Historical" episode of Mind of Mencia (2006)

Real Time With Bill Maher (2006)

CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 It Helps To Laugh (2006)

TV Land's Sit Down Comedy with David Steinberg (2007)

CBS's Late Show with David Letterman (2007)

BBC's Men Who Do Comedy (2007)

CBS's Late Show with David Letterman (2008) (First show after start of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike)

ABC's Jimmy Kimmel Live 2008 (Segment titled "I'm Fuckin' Ben Affleck")

"The Russian Idol" on American Idol's 2008 "Idol Gives Back" special



As Merritt Rook on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2008)