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| Birth Name(s) : Robin McLaurim Williams |
Date of Birth: July 21, 1952 |
| Status:
Married
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Partner:
Marsha Garces Williams |
| Profession:
Actor |
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Full Robin Williams Biography
Robin Williams briefly studied political science before switching to theatrical studies at Julliard. An appearance on "Happy Days" (1974) as Mork led to the TV series "Mork & Mindy" (1978). From there his wild improvisational comedy style and impersonations have taken him to stardom on the big screen.
He is loved for his warm humor and personality in films such as "Good Morning Vietnam" (1987), "Dead Poets Society" (1989) and "Good Will Hunting" (1997). |
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Additional Robin Williams Biography
Robin 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".
Every year, two thousand students audition for twenty places in the freshman class at Juilliard. Only two or three are accepted into the Advanced Program. Williams and Christopher Reeve were the only students accepted by John Houseman into the Advanced Program in 1973. 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 naturally, whereas Reeve was more meticulous about it. Williams' 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 remainder of Reeve's life. Williams visited Reeve after the horseback riding accident that paralyzed him from the neck down and cheered him up by arriving as 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 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.
The 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). His first starring roles, Popeye (1980) and The World According to Garp (1982), were both considered flops, but his performance in Good Morning, Vietnam (1987) got Williams nominated for an Academy Award and established a screen identity. Many of his roles have been comedies tinged with pathos, for example, The Birdcage and Mrs. Doubtfire.
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), What Dreams May Come (1998), and Jakob the Liar (1999).
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 sequel to 2005's Batman Begins.
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.
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. On April 30, 1989, he married Marsha Garces. 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.
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 is a self-confessed gamer known to enjoy online video games, recently playing World of Worldcraft, Day of Defeat, Half-Life 2, and the first-person shooter Battlefield 2 as a sniper.
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.
Williams has performed in the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq for three 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.
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.
Dec 1999 sang in French on the BBC-inspired music video of international celebrites doing a cover of the Rolling Stones "It's Only Rock & Roll" for the charity Children's Promise. |
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