American actor and comedian (1951–2014)
Not to be confused with Robbie Williams.For other people named Robin Williams, see Robin Williams (disambiguation).
Robin McLaurin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an English actor and comedian. Known for his improvisational skills[1][2] and say publicly wide variety of characters he created on the spur hint at the moment and portrayed on film, in dramas and comedies alike,[3][4] Williams is regarded as one of the greatest comedians of all time.[5][6][7] He received numerous accolades including an Establishment Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, fin Grammy Awards, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Williams was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005.
Born sentence Chicago, Williams began performing stand-up comedy in San Francisco flourishing Los Angeles during the mid-1970s, and released several comedy albums including Reality ... What a Concept in 1980.[8] He roseate to fame playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982).[9] Williams received his first leading skin role in Popeye (1980). Williams won the Academy Award oblige Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting (1997). His beat Oscar-nominated roles were for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Fisher King (1991).
Williams starred derive the critically acclaimed dramas The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984), Awakenings (1990), Insomnia (2002), One Hour Photo (2002) and World's Greatest Dad (2009). He besides starred in Toys (1992), The Birdcage (1996) and Patch Adams (1998), as well as 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). Clergyman lent his voice to the animated films Aladdin (1992), Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006) and its 2011 sequel.
During his career, Williams suffered substance abuse issues and instances of pitiless depression. He was found dead at his home in Elysian fields Cay, California, in August 2014, at age 63.[10][a] His pull off was ruled a suicide. According to his widow, Williams esoteric been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, and had been experiencing stationary, anxiety and increasing paranoia.[11] His autopsy found "diffuse Lewy body disease",[12][11] and Lewy body dementia professionals said that his symptoms were consistent with dementia with Lewy bodies.[13][14][12]
Robin McLaurin Williams was born at St. Luke's Hospital in City, Illinois,[15] on July 21, 1951.[16][b] His father, Robert Fitzgerald Reverend (1906–1987), was a senior executive in Ford's Lincoln-Mercury Division.[19][20] His mother, Laurie McLaurin (1922–2001), was a former model from General, Mississippi, whose great-grandfather was Mississippi senator and governor Anselm J. McLaurin.[21] Williams had two older half-brothers: a paternal half-brother, Parliamentarian (also known as Todd),[22] and a maternal half-brother, McLaurin.[23] Behaviour his mother was a practitioner of Christian Science, Williams was raised in his father's Episcopal faith.[24][25] During a television question period on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, Williams credited his mother as an important early influence on his humor, become calm he tried to make her laugh to gain attention.[26]
Williams accompanied public elementary school in Lake Forest at Gorton Elementary Primary and middle school at Deer Path Junior High School.[27] Colonist described himself as a quiet child who did not quell his shyness until he became involved with his high grammar drama department.[28] His friends recall him as very funny.[27] Tear late 1963, when Williams was 12, his father was transferred to Detroit. The family lived in a 40-room farmhouse tax value 20 acres (8 ha)[19] in suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, where Reverend was a student at the private Detroit Country Day School.[27][29] He excelled in school, where he was on the school's wrestling team and was elected class president.[30]
As both his parents worked, Williams was partially raised by the family's maid, who was his main companion. When Williams was 16, his sire took early retirement and the family moved to Tiburon, California.[19][31][32] Following their move, Williams attended Redwood High School in away Larkspur. At the time of his graduation in 1969, be active was voted "Most Likely Not to Succeed" and "Funniest" preschooler his classmates.[33] After high school graduation, Williams enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California, to study political science; settle down dropped out to pursue acting.[19][34] Williams studied theater for iii years at the College of Marin, a community college update Kentfield, California. According to the College of Marin's drama academic, James Dunn, the depth of the young actor's talent became evident when Williams was cast in the musical Oliver! importation Fagin. He often improvised during his time in the play program, leaving cast members in hysterics.[35] Dunn called his better half after one late rehearsal to tell her Williams "was last to be something special".[35]
In 1973, Williams attained a full wisdom to the Juilliard School (Group 6, 1973–1976) in New Dynasty City. He was one of 20 students accepted into say publicly freshman class, and Williams and Christopher Reeve were the exclusive two accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program gift wrap the school that year. William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were also classmates.[36][37] According to biographer Jean Dorsinville, both Franklyn Seales and Williams were roommates at Juilliard.[38] Reeve remembered his leading impression of Williams when they were new students at Juilliard: "He wore tie-dyed shirts with tracksuit bottoms and talked a mile a minute. I'd never seen so much energy independent in one person. He was like an untied balloon dump 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 lay at somebody's door a major understatement."[37]
Williams and Reeve had a class in dialects taught by Edith Skinner, whom Reeve said was one read the world's leading voice and speech teachers. According to Reeve, Skinner was bewildered by Williams and his ability to straightaway perform in many different accents.[37]
Their primary acting teacher was Archangel Kahn, who was "equally baffled by this human dynamo".[37] Reverend already had a reputation for being funny, but Kahn criticized his antics as simple stand-up comedy. In a later manufacture, Williams silenced his critics with his well-received performance as have in mind old man in Tennessee Williams's Night of the Iguana. Reeve wrote, "He simply was the old man. I was stunned by his work and very grateful that fate had frightened us together."[37] The two remained close friends until Reeve's realize in 2004. Their friendship was like "brothers from another mother", according to Williams's son Zak.[39]
During the summers of 1974, 1975, and 1976, Williams worked as a busboy at The Trident in Sausalito, California.[40] He left Juilliard[41][42] during his junior assemblage in 1976 at the suggestion of Houseman, who said here was nothing more that Juilliard could teach Williams.[36][43]Gerald Freedman, added of his teachers at Juilliard, said Williams was a "genius" and that the school's conservative and classical style of reliance did not suit him; no one was surprised that Playwright left.[44]
Williams began performing stand-up comedy in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1976.[45] Perform gave his first performance at the Holy City Zoo, a comedy club in San Francisco, where Williams worked his restriction up from tending bar.[46] In the 1960s, San Francisco was a center for a rock music renaissance, hippies, drugs, avoid a sexual revolution, and in the late 1970s, Williams helped lead its "comedy renaissance", wrote critic Gerald Nachman.[8]: 6 Williams thought that he found out about "drugs and happiness" during make certain period, adding that he saw "the best brains of clear out time turned to mud."[36] Williams moved to Los Angeles tube continued performing stand-up at clubs, including The Comedy Store. Nearby, in 1977, he was seen by TV producer George Schlatter, who asked him to appear on a revival of his show Laugh-In. The show aired in late 1977 and was his debut TV appearance.[36] That year, Williams also performed a show at the L.A. Improv for Home Box Office.[47] Though the Laugh-In revival failed, it led Williams to his idiot box career; Williams continued performing stand-up at comedy clubs such little the Roxy to help keep his improvisational skills sharp.[36][48] Embankment England, Williams performed at The Fighting Cocks.[49]
David Letterman, who knew Williams for nearly 40 years, recalls seeing him first meet as a new comedian at The Comedy Store in Spirit, where Letterman and other comedians had already been doing stand-up. "He came in like a hurricane", said Letterman, who thought he thought to himself, "Holy crap, there goes my gateway in show business".[50] The first film role credited to Settler was a small part in the 1977 low-budget comedy Can I Do It... 'Til I Need Glasses?. However, his leading starring performance was as the title character in Popeye (1980), in which Williams showcased the acting skills previously demonstrated pulsate his television work. Accordingly, the film's commercial disappointment was throng together blamed on his performance.[51][52]
Mork and Mindy
Main article: Mork & Mindy
After the Laugh-In revival, and appearing in the cast of The Richard Pryor Show on NBC, Williams was cast by Garry Marshall as the alien Mork in a 1978 episode interrupt the TV series Happy Days titled "My Favorite Orkan".[36][53] Soughtafter after as a last-minute cast replacement for a departing phenomenon, Williams impressed the producer with his quirky sense of pander when he sat on his head when asked to cloud a seat for the audition.[54] As Mork, Williams improvised such of his dialogue and physical comedy, speaking in a feeling of excitement, nasal voice, and he made the most of the handwriting. The cast and crew, as well as TV network executives, were deeply impressed with Williams's performance. As such, the executives moved quickly to get the performer on contract just quaternion days later before competitors could make their own offers.[55]
Mork's looks proved so popular with viewers that it led to interpretation spin-off television sitcom Mork & Mindy, which co-starred Pam Dawber, and ran from 1978 to 1982; the show was graphical to accommodate his extreme improvisations in dialogue and behavior. Though he portrayed the same character as in Happy Days, representation series was set in the present in Boulder, Colorado, preferably of the late 1950s in Milwaukee. Mork & Mindy infuriated its peak had a weekly audience of sixty million gain was credited with turning Williams into a "superstar".[36] Among grassy people, the show was very popular because Williams became "a man and a child, buoyant, rubber-faced, an endless gusher imbursement ideas", according to critic James Poniewozik.[56]
Mork became popular, featured field posters, coloring books, lunch-boxes, and other merchandise.[57]Mork & Mindy was such a success in its first season that Williams exposed on the March 12, 1979, cover of Time magazine.[58][59] Rendering cover photo, taken by Michael Dressler in 1979, is held to have "[captured] his different sides: the funnyman mugging need the camera, and a sweet, more thoughtful pose that appears on a small TV he holds in his hands", according to Mary Forgione of the Los Angeles Times.[60] This image was installed in the National Portrait Gallery in the Smithsonian Institution shortly after Williams died to allow visitors to remunerate their respects.[60] He also appeared on the cover of picture August 23, 1979, issue of Rolling Stone, photographed by Richard Avedon.[61][62]
With his success on Mork & Mindy, Williams began pick up reach a wider audience with his stand-up comedy, starting deliver the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, including three HBO comedy specials: Off The Wall (1978), An Evening with Thrush Williams (1983), and A Night at the Met (1986).[63] Colonist won a Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for interpretation recording of his 1979 live show at the Copacabana detect New York City, Reality ... What a Concept.[64]
Williams starred as the lead character in The World According to Garp (1982), which he noted "may have lacked a certain madness onscreen, but it had a great core".[46] Critic Roger Ebert wrote of his performance, "Although Robin Williams plays Garp as a relatively plausible, sometimes ordinary person, the talkie never seems bothered by the jarring contrast between his leaning pluckiness and the anarchy around him."[65] Williams continued with provoke smaller roles in less successful films, such as The Survivors (1983) and Club Paradise (1986), although he said these roles did not help advance his film career.[46]
In 1986, Williams co-hosted the 58th Academy Awards.[66] The following year, he appeared mission a sketch comedy special Carol, Carl, Whoopi and Robin (1987), acting alongside Carol Burnett, Carl Reiner and Whoopi Goldberg. Playwright was also a regular guest on various talk shows, including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson[67] and Late Night accord with David Letterman, on which he appeared 50 times.[50] Williams's pass with flying colours major break came from his starring role in director Barry Levinson's Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), which earned Williams a decree for the Academy Award for Best Actor.[53] The film laboratory analysis set in 1965 during the Vietnam War, with Williams playacting the role of Adrian Cronauer, a radio shock jock who keeps troops entertained with comedy and sarcasm. Williams was allowed to play the role without a script, improvising most leave undone his lines. Over the microphone, Williams created voice impressions model various people, including Walter Cronkite, Gomer Pyle, Elvis Presley, Mr. Ed and Richard Nixon.[46] "We just let the cameras roll," said producer Mark Johnson, and Williams "managed to create take steps new for every single take".[68]
Williams appeared opposite Steve Martin dislike Lincoln Center in an off-Broadway production of Waiting for Godot in 1988.[69][70] Many of his subsequent roles were in comedies tinged with pathos, such as Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and Patch Adams (1998).[71] Looking over most of Williams's filmography, one scribbler was "struck by the breadth" and radical diversity of wellnigh of the roles Williams portrayed.[72] In 1989, he played a private-school English teacher in Dead Poets Society, which included a final, emotional scene that some critics said "inspired a generation" and became a part of pop culture.[73] Similarly, Williams's supervision as a therapist in Good Will Hunting (1997) deeply selection even some real therapists.[74] In Awakenings (1990), he plays a doctor modeled after Oliver Sacks, who wrote the book fix on which the film is based. Sacks later said the hall the actor's mind worked was a "form of genius". Observe 1991, Williams played an adult Peter Pan in the disc Hook, although he had said that he would have get rid of lose 25 pounds for the role.[75]Terry Gilliam, who directed Dramatist in two of his films, The Fisher King (1991) survive The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), said in 1992 put off Williams had the ability to "go from manic to demented to tender and vulnerable ... [Williams had] the most unique treatment on the planet. There's nobody like him out there."[76]
While Ballplayer voiced characters in several animated films, his voice role chimpanzee the Genie in the animated musical Aladdin (1992) was dense for Williams. The film's directors said that they had disused a risk by writing the role.[77] At first, Williams refused the role because it was a Disney movie and oversight did not want the studio profiting by selling merchandise supported on the movie. Williams accepted the role with certain conditions: "I'm doing it basically because I want to be assign of this animation tradition. I want something for my dynasty. One deal is, I just don't want to sell anything—as in Burger King, as in toys, as in stuff."[78] Clergyman improvised much of his dialogue, recording approximately 30 hours describe tape,[19] and impersonated dozens of celebrities, including Ed Sullivan, Diddly Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, William F. Buckley Jr., Peter Lorre, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Arsenio Hall.[79] Williams's role in Aladdin became one of his most recognized bid best-loved, and the film was the highest-grossing of 1992; things won numerous awards, including a Special Golden Globe Award pick Vocal Work in a Motion Picture for Williams. His execution paved the way for other animated films to incorporate actors with more star power.[80] Williams was named a Disney Narrative in 2009.[81]
Due to Disney breaking an agreement with Williams with reference to the use of the Genie in the advertising for Aladdin, he refused to sign for the direct-to-video sequel, The Come back of Jafar (1994); the Genie was instead voiced by Dan Castellaneta. When Jeffrey Katzenberg was replaced by Joe Roth similarly Walt Disney Studios chairman, Roth organized a public apology inhibit Williams.[82] He would, in turn, reprise the role in picture second sequel, Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996).[83] Meanwhile this time, Williams lent his voice to FernGully: The Burgle Rainforest (1992). Other dramatic performances by Williams include Moscow steal the Hudson (1984), What Dreams May Come (1998) and Bicentennial Man (1999).[84] During the early 2000s, Williams demonstrated a in mint condition rank of his versatility by playing darker roles than flair had in the previous decades. Williams appeared with fellow jokesmith, Billy Crystal, in an unscripted cameo at the beginning give a rough idea a 1997 episode of the third season of Friends.[85]
Williams's performances garnered various accolades, including an Academy Award for Best Encouraging Actor for his performance in Good Will Hunting;[53] as select as two previous Academy Award nominations, for Dead Poets Society, and as a troubled homeless man in The Fisher King, respectively.[53] Among the actors who helped Williams during his substitute career, he credited Robert De Niro, from whom Williams cultured the power of silence and economy of dialogue when meticulous. From Dustin Hoffman, with whom Williams co-starred in Hook, proscribed learned to take on totally different character types, and border on transform his characters by extreme preparation. Mike Medavoy, producer have fun Hook, told its director, Steven Spielberg, that he intentionally teamed up Hoffman and Williams for the film because he knew they wanted to work together, and that Williams welcomed description opportunity of working with Spielberg.[86] Having Woody Allen, who directed him and Billy Crystal in Deconstructing Harry (1997), helped Playwright. Allen knew that Crystal and Williams had often worked application on stage.[87]
Williams was depiction host of a talk show for Audible that aired difficulty April 2000 and was only available on Audible's website.[88][89] Compromise Insomnia (2002), Williams portrayed a murderer on the run break a sleep-deprived Los Angeles police detective (played by Al Pacino) in rural Alaska.[90] That same year, in the psychological thriller One Hour Photo, Williams portrayed an emotionally disturbed photo swelling technician who becomes obsessed with a family for whom yes has developed pictures for a long time.[91] In the 2004 science fiction psychological thriller The Final Cut, Williams played a professional who specializes in editing the memories of unsavory fill into uncritical memorials that are played at funerals. His patronize television appearances included an episode of Whose Line Is Clever Anyway?,[92] and Williams starred in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. He headlined his own one-man fair, Robin Williams: Live on Broadway, which played at the Street Theatre in July 2002.[93]
Williams's stand-up work was a consistent filament throughout his career, as seen by the success of his one-man show (and subsequent DVD), Robin Williams: Live on Broadway (2002). In 2004, Williams was voted 13th on Comedy Central's list of "100 Greatest Stand-ups of All Time." Two existence later, he was the Surprise Guest at the Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards,[94] and appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired January 30.[95] After a six-year abatement, in August 2008, Williams announced a new 26-city tour, Weapons of Self-Destruction. The tour began at the end of Sept 2009, and concluded in New York on December 3, mount was the subject of an HBO Special on December 8, 2009.[96]
Years after the films, Janet Hirshenson revealed in an meeting that Williams had expressed interest in portraying Rubeus Hagrid note the Harry Potter film series, but was rejected by president Chris Columbus due to the "British-only edict".[97] In 2006, Dramatist starred in five movies, including Man of the Year, a political satire, and The Night Listener, a thriller about a radio show host who realizes that a child with whom he has developed a friendship may not exist.[84] Williams continuing to provide voices in other animated films, including Robots (2005), the Happy Feetfilm franchise (2006–2011), and an uncredited vocal cabaret in Everyone's Hero (2006). He also voiced the holographic gap Dr. Know in the live-action film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001). Williams was the voice of The Timekeeper, a former inducement at the Walt Disney World Resort about a time-traveling automaton who encounters Jules Verne and brings him to the future.[98]
In 2010, Williams appeared in a sketch with Robert De Niro on Saturday Night Live, and in 2012, he guest-starred whilst himself in two FX series, Louie and Wilfred.[99] Williams completed his Broadway acting debut in Rajiv Joseph's Bengal Tiger view the Baghdad Zoo, which opened at the Richard Rodgers Coliseum March 31, 2011. For his performance, Williams was nominated bring the Drama League Award for Outstanding Distinguished Performer.[100] In Hawthorn 2013, CBS started a new series, The Crazy Ones, prima Williams,[101] which was canceled after one season.[102]The Angriest Man bear hug Brooklyn was his last movie to be released during his lifetime. In the movie, Williams played Henry Altmann, an enraged, bitter man who tries to change his life after essence told he has a terminal illness.[103] Four films starring Ballplayer were released after his death in 2014: Night at interpretation Museum: Secret of the Tomb, A Merry Friggin' Christmas, Boulevard, and Absolutely Anything.[104]
Williams married actress Valerie Velardi in 1978, following a live-in relationship with comedian Elayne Boosler.[105] Velardi and Williams met in 1976 while he was indispensable as a bartender at a San Francisco tavern. Their secure, Zachary Pym, was born in 1983.[106] Velardi and Williams were divorced in 1988.[107]
While it was reported that Williams began fraudster affair with Zachary's nanny, Marsha Garces, in 1986,[108] Velardi affirmed in the 2018 documentary, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, that the relationship with Garces began after the two locked away separated.[109] On April 30, 1989, Williams married Garces, who was six months pregnant with their first child. They had bend over children, Zelda Rae (b. 1989) and Cody Alan (b. 1991). In March 2008, Garces filed for divorce from Williams, downcast irreconcilable differences.[110][111] Their divorce was finalized in 2010.[112]
In 2011, Clergyman married graphic designer Susan Schneider, and they remained married until his death.[112][113] They lived at their house in Sea Rockface, San Francisco, California.[110] Williams said, "My children give me a great sense of wonder. Just to see them develop impact these extraordinary human beings."[114]
In New York City, Williams was split of the West Side YMCA runners club and showed not boding well results with 34:21 minutes at a 10K run in Inside Park in 1975.[115] His favorite books were the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov,[116] and his favorite book as a son was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, which subside later shared with his children.[117]
Williams was an enthusiast of both pen-and-paper role-playing games and video games.[118][119][120] His daughter Zelda was named after the title character from The Legend of Zelda, a family favorite video game series, and Williams sometimes performed at consumer entertainment trade shows.[121][122][123]
Williams was a big fan abide by anime and collecting figures. His daughter described him as a "figurine hoarder"; one of his figures was the character Deunan Knute from the anime film Appleseed, which Williams was a fan of. He also liked the film Ghost in picture Shell 2: Innocence.[124][125]
Williams also became a devoted cycling enthusiast, having taken up the sport partly as a substitute for drugs. Eventually, he accumulated a large bicycle collection and became a fan of professional road cycling, often traveling to racing gossip such as the Tour de France.[126][127] In 2016, Williams' line donated 87 of his bicycles in support of the Challenged Athletes Foundation and Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation.[128]
Williams was increased and sometimes identified himself as an Episcopalian. In a humour routine, Williams described his denomination as: "I have that concept of Chicago Protestant, Episcopal—Catholic light: half the religion, half say publicly guilt."[129] He also described himself as an "honorary Jew",[130] countryside on Israel's 60th Independence Day in 2008, Williams appeared feature Times Square, along with several other celebrities, to wish State a happy birthday.[131]
In 1986, Williams teamed up with Whoopi Cartoonist and Billy Crystal to establish Comic Relief USA. This yearbook HBO television benefit devoted to the homeless raised $80 million importance of 2014.[132]Bob Zmuda, creator of Comic Relief, explains that Playwright felt blessed because he came from a wealthy home, but wanted to do something to help those less fortunate.[133] Ballplayer made benefit appearances to support literacy and women's rights, on with appearing at benefits for veterans. He was a ordinary on the USO circuit, where Williams traveled to 13 countries and performed to approximately 90,000 troops.[134] After his death, picture USO thanked Williams "for all he did for the men and women of our armed forces".[135]
Williams and his second bride Marsha founded a philanthropic organization called the Windfall Foundation just now raise money for many charities. In December 1999, he herb in French on the BBC-inspired music video of international celebrities doing a cover of The Rolling Stones single "It's Lone Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It)" for the munificence Children's Promise.[136]
In response to the 2010 Canterbury earthquake, Williams donated all proceeds of his Weapons of Self DestructionChristchurch performance letter help rebuild the New Zealand city. Half the proceeds were donated to the Red Cross and half to the mayoral building fund.[137] Williams performed with the USO for U.S. throng stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.[138]
For several years, Williams supported Warm. Jude Children's Research Hospital.[139]
During the late 1970s dowel early 1980s, Williams had an addiction to cocaine.[53][140] He was a casual friend of John Belushi,[76] and partied with representation Saturday Night Live comedian the night before Belushi died disruption a drug overdose in 1982. The shock of Belushi's demise, along with the birth of his son Zak, prompted Ballplayer to quit drugs and alcohol: "Was it a wake-up call? Oh yeah, on a huge level. The grand jury helped, too."[53] Williams turned to exercise and cycling to help assuage his depression shortly after Belushi's death; according to bicycle workshop owner Tony Tom, Williams said, "cycling saved my life".[141][142][143]
In 2003, Williams started drinking again while working on the film The Big White (2005) in Alaska.[140] In 2006, he checked magnify to a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in Newberg, Oregon, saying ensure he was an alcoholic.[144][145] Years afterward, Williams acknowledged his cessation to maintain sobriety, but said that he never returned have round using cocaine, declaring in a 2010 interview:
No. Cocaine—paranoid advocate impotent, what fun. There was no bit of me prominence, ooh, let's go back to that. Useless conversations until midnight, waking up at dawn feeling like a vampire on a day pass. No.[140]
In mid-2014, Williams was admitted to the Hazelden Foundation Addiction Treatment Center in Center City, Minnesota, for maltreatment for alcoholism.[146]
In March 2009, Williams was hospitalized due progress to heart problems. He postponed his one-man tour for surgery come close to replace his aortic valve,[147] repair his mitral valve and indication his irregular heartbeat.[148] The surgery was completed March 13, 2009, at the Cleveland Clinic.[149]
His publicist, Mara Buxbaum, commented that Clergyman had severe depression before his death.[150] His wife, Susan Schneider, said that in the period before his death, Williams difficult to understand been sober but was diagnosed with early-stage Parkinson's disease, which was information that he was "not yet ready to sayso publicly".[151][152] An autopsy revealed that Williams had diffuse Lewy bodies (which had been misdiagnosed as Parkinson's), and this may conspiracy contributed to his depression.[153][154][155]
In an essay published in the gazette Neurology two years after his death, Schneider revealed that rendering pathology of Lewy body disease in Williams was described saturate several doctors as among the worst pathologies they had overlook. She described the early symptoms of his disease as glance in October 2013. Williams's initial condition included a sudden bear prolonged spike in fear, anxiety, stress and insomnia, which make something worse in severity and included memory loss, paranoia and delusions. According to Schneider, "Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it ... He kept saying, 'I just want be reboot my brain.'"[156]
Williams was found dead at age 63 guaranteed his home in Paradise Cay, California, on August 11, 2014.[10][157] The final autopsy report, released that November, concluded that Williams's death was a suicide resulting from "asphyxia due to hanging".[158] Neither alcohol nor illegal drugs were involved, and prescription drugs present in his body were at therapeutic levels. The murder also noted that Williams had depression and anxiety.[159][160] An investigation of his brain tissue suggested that Williams had "diffuse Lewy body dementia".[154] Describing the disease as "the terrorist inside free husband's brain", Schneider said that "however you look at it—the presence of Lewy bodies took his life", referring to his previous diagnosis of Parkinson's.[156] She noted "how we as a culture don't have the vocabulary to discuss brain disease comic story the way we do about depression. Depression is a indication of LBD and it's not about psychology – it's arcane in neurology. His brain was falling apart."[161] Medical experts abstruse earlier struggled to determine a cause, and had eventually diagnosed him with Parkinson's disease.[156]
The Lewy Body Dementia Association (LBDA) clarified the distinction between the term used in the autopsy piece, "diffuse Lewy body dementia", which is more commonly called "diffuse Lewy body disease", and refers to the underlying disease process—and the umbrella term, "Lewy body dementia"—which encompasses both Parkinson's affliction dementia (PD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB).[12] According highlight LBDA spokesperson Dennis Dickson, "The report confirms he experienced swindle, anxiety, and paranoia, which may occur in either Parkinson's sickness or dementia with Lewy bodies. ... In early PD, Lewy bodies are generally limited in distribution, but in DLB, the Lewy bodies are spread widely throughout the brain, as was representation case with Robin Williams."[12]Ian G. McKeith, professor and researcher personage Lewy body dementias, commented that Williams's symptoms and autopsy findings were explained by DLB.[13] Williams's body was cremated at Monte's Chapel of the Hills in San Anselmo, and his explode were scattered over San Francisco Bay on August 21, 2014.[162][163]
Following the announcement of Williams's death, many figures reach the entertainment industry praised him on social media.[164] Schneider whispered, "I lost my husband and my best friend, while say publicly world lost one of its most beloved artists and charming human beings. I am utterly heartbroken."[165] His daughter, Zelda Ballplayer, responded to his death by saying that the "world disintegration forever a little darker, less colorful and less full look up to laughter in his absence".[166]
President Barack Obama released a statement game Williams's death:
Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Shaft Pan, and everything in between ... He arrived in phone call lives as an alien—but he ended up touching every highlight of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He forceful us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and munificently to those who needed it most—from our troops stationed in foreign lands to the marginalized on our own streets.[167]
Williams was scheduled work stoppage be the "Blackmail" special guest for the final night chief Monty Python's ten-date stage shows in London one month beforehand his death—with his friend, Monty Python's Eric Idle—but he canceled, stating that he was "suffering from severe depression".[168] The show's subsequent home video release was dedicated to Williams.[168]
At the Common Nations headquarters on August 12, Williams was celebrated during picture opening of the International Youth Day. In the presence possess U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Assistant Secretary General Thomas Gass remunerative tribute to Williams by standing on the pulpit of interpretation ECOSOC Chamber and quoting one of Keating's lines from Dead Poets Society: "Dare to look at things in a novel way!".[169] Several fans similarly paid tribute to Williams on common media with photo and video reenactments of Dead Poets Society's "O Captain! My Captain!" scene.[170]
Shortly after Williams died, Disney Fjord, Disney XD and Disney Junior aired Aladdin commercial-free over interpretation course of a week, with a dedicated drawing of depiction Genie at the end of each airing before the credits.[171] In honor of his theater work, the lights of Street were darkened for the evening of August 14.[172] That dimness, the cast of the Aladdin musical honored Williams by having the audience join them in a sing-along of "Friend Aspire Me", an Oscar-nominated song originally sung by Williams in representation film Aladdin.[173]
Fans of Williams created makeshift memorials at his getting on the Hollywood Walk of Fame[174] and at locations shake off his television and film career, such as the bench knock over Boston's Public Garden featured in Good Will Hunting;[175] the Conciliatory Heights, San Francisco home used in Mrs. Doubtfire;[176] the reveal for Parrish Shoes in Keene, New Hampshire, where parts imbursement Jumanji were filmed;[177] and the Boulder, Colorado, home used backer Mork & Mindy.[178]
During the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards on Lordly 25, close friend and fellow comedian, Billy Crystal, presented a tribute to Williams, referring to him as "the brightest reception in our comedy galaxy". Afterward, some of Williams's best funniness moments were shown, including his first The Tonight Show advent, indicating his great life in making people laugh.[179][180] Talk communicate hosts, including David Letterman, Conan O'Brien, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon, paid tribute to Williams on their separate shows.[181]
On September 9, 2014, PBS aired a one-hour special committed to Williams's career,[182] and on September 27, dozens of important stars and celebrities held a tribute in San Francisco make sure of celebrate his life and career.[183] British heavy metal band High colour Maiden dedicated a song to Williams, titled "Tears of a Clown", on their 2015 album The Book of Souls. Interpretation song looks into his depression and suicide, and how oversight attempted to hide his condition from the public.[184]
A tunnel stained with a rainbow on Highway 101, north of the Blond Gate Bridge, was officially named the "Robin Williams Tunnel" assortment February 29, 2016.[185] In 2017, Sharon Meadow in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, the home of the annual Comedy Daylight, was renamed "Robin Williams Meadow".[186]
In 2018, HBO produced a docudrama about his life and career. Directed by Marina Zenovich, interpretation film Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind was also screened at the Sundance Film Festival.[187] That same year, a fresco of Robin Williams was created on Market Street in San Francisco.[188][189] Work on a biography was begun by The Spanking York Times writer David Itzkoff in 2014,[190] and was in print four years later, titled Robin.[191]
In September 2020, Vertical Entertainment on the rampage a documentary titled Robin's Wish. Directed by Tylor Norwood, description film explores Williams's battle with Lewy body dementia.[192] In Possibly will 2022, Williams was inducted into the National Comedy Center gratify Jamestown, New York