“Robin Williams” Shocking Death of the Greatest Comedian in World Cinema|

 

“Robin Williams”

 

Shocking Death of the Greatest

 Comedian in World Cinema

 

On July 21, 1951, at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois, Robin McLaurin Williams was born. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, held a prominent position in the Lincoln-Mercury Division of Ford. His great-grandfather, Anselm J. McLaurin, was a Mississippi senator and governor. His mother, Laurie McLaurin, was a former model from Jackson, Mississippi. Robert, Williams' paternal half-brother, and McLaurin, his maternal half-brother, were Williams' older half-brothers. Williams was brought up in his father's Episcopal religion even though his mother was a Christian Science practitioner. During a televised appearance on Inside the Actors Studio in 2001, Williams recognized his mother as a significant early influence on his humor, and he attempted to make her laugh to get attention.

 

Williams attended Deer Path Junior High School for middle school and Gorton Elementary School in Lake Forest for elementary school. He describes himself as a shy kid who struggled with it until he joined the theatrical club in his high school. His close acquaintances recall him as being incredibly humorous. When Williams was 12 years old and his father was relocated to Detroit, this occurred in late 1963. He attended the exclusive Detroit Country Day School while growing up on the family's 20-acre suburban Bloomfield Hills, Michigan property. He excelled in school, joining the wrestling team and winning the position of class president.

 

Williams' mother and father both worked, thus the family's maid reared him in part and served as his primary playmate. His father took early retirement when he was 16 and the family moved to Tiburon, California. After their transfer, Williams enrolled in Redwood High School in nearby Larkspur. At his graduation in 1969, his classmates selected him as "Most Likely Not to Succeed" and "Funniest." After graduating from high school, Williams enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California, to study political science, but he left to pursue acting. Williams studied theater for three years at the Institution of Marin, a community college in Kentfield, California.

James Dunn, a theater professor at the College of Marin, claims that when the young actor was chosen to play Fagin in the musical Oliver! the breadth of his potential became clear. Williams frequently improvised during his time in the drama program, sending the cast into convulsions of laughter. After one late rehearsal, Dunn told his wife that Williams "was going to be something great."

Williams enrolled in the Juilliard School in New York City on a full scholarship in 1973. He was one of the 20 freshmen accepted, and John Houseman only accepted him and Christopher Reeve that year into the school's Advanced Program.

William Hurt and Mandy Patinkin were also classmates. Williams and Franklyn Seales shared a room at Juilliard, claims biographer Jean Dorsinville. Reeve remembers meeting Williams for the first time as a freshman at Juilliard: "He spoke quickly and wore tie-dyed shirts and tracksuit bottoms. I'd never seen a person with such enthusiasm. He had been inflated and then let loose, making him like an untethered balloon. He caromed off the walls of the classrooms and corridors while I watched in astonishment. He was definitely "on," and that is an understatement."

 

Edith Skinner, whom Reeve referred to as "one of the world's leading voice and speech teachers," instructed Williams and Reeve in a dialects course. According to Reeve, Skinner was baffled by Williams' ability to perform in a number of accents. Michael Kahn was their main acting instructor, and he was "equally mystified by this human dynamo." Williams was known to be funny, but Kahn dismissed his antics as little more than stand-up comedy. With a well-received portrayal as an elderly man in Tennessee Williams' Night of the Iguana, Williams later put his critics to rest. Reeve declared: "He was just the elderly man. I was impressed by his work and grateful that fate had connected us." Right up to Reeve's passing in 2004, they stayed close. According to Williams' son Zak, they were like "brothers from another mother" in their relationship.

 

Williams spent the summers of 1974, 1975, and 1976 busboy at The Trident in Sausalito, California. He left Juilliard in 1976 during his junior year at the advice of Houseman, who claimed that Juilliard had little more to impart to him. Williams was described as a "genius" by another of his Juilliard instructors, Gerald Freedman, who also claimed that the school's conservative and classical teaching method did not suit him. As a result, no one was shocked when Williams quit. Due to his improvisational abilities and the wide range of characters he created on the spot and played on film, in both tragedies and comedies, he is considered one of the greatest comedians of all time.

 

Williams started doing stand-up comedy in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the middle of the 1970s, and he became well-known for playing the alien Mork in the ABC sitcom Mork & Mindy (1978–1982). The World According to Garp, Moscow on the Hudson, Good Morning, Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, The Fisher King, Patch Adams, One Hour Photo, and World's Greatest Dad were among the critically acclaimed and financially lucrative movies that appeared in after his breakout performance in Popeye in 1980.

Hook from 1991 to 1992, Aladdin from 1992 to 1993, Mrs. Doubtfire from 1993 to 1995, Jumanji from 1995 to 1995, The Birdcage from 1996 to 1996, Good Will Hunting from 1997 to 1997, and the Night at the Museum trilogy from 2006 to 2014. He was nominated for four Oscars, including Best Supporting Actor for the movie Good Will Hunting. In addition, he received five Grammy Awards, six Golden Globe Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Primetime Emmys.

Williams married Valerie Velardi in June 1978 after having a live-in relationship with the comedian Elayne Boosler. Williams and Velardi first crossed paths in 1976 while he was a bartender in a San Francisco pub. Their son, Zachary Pym "Zak" Williams, was born in 1983. Velardi and Williams got divorced in 1988.

Despite the fact that it was commonly believed that Williams started an affair with Zachary's nanny Marsha Garces in 1986, Velardi claimed in the 2018 film Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind that the two had already divorced when the relationship started. On April 30, 1989, Williams married Garces while she was six months pregnant with their child. Their two children were Zelda Rae Williams and Cody Alan Williams. In March 2008, Garces and Williams filed for divorce, citing their irreconcilable differences. Their divorce was legally finalized in 2010.

In St. Helena, California, on October 22, 2011, Williams wed graphic designer Susan Schneider, who would become his third wife. In Sea Cliff in San Francisco, California, the couple resided. Williams claims that "My amazement is sparked by my kids. simply to see them develop into such great individuals."

Williams' body was found on August 11, 2014, inside his Paradise Cay, California, residence. The world was in disbelief when it was revealed that Williams had died from "asphyxia related to hanging" in his suicide. In the months preceding his death, he had had memory loss, sadness, anxiety, insomnia, and paranoia. His autopsy revealed that he had Lewy body dementia, a fatal condition that had been misdiagnosed as Parkinson's disease.

Williams' ashes were scattered over San Francisco Bay on August 21, 2014, after his remains were cremated at Monte's Chapel of the Hills in San Anselmo.

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