Robin Williams: The Clown Who Seized the Day

Few have known comedy as well as Robin Williams knew comedy. His frenetic energy, unreserved passion, and youthful demeanour could have inspired a smile in anyone, and we loved him for it.

But behind that eternal smile lay torment, stress and pain. He persevered, continuing to provide his gift to the world, until he could take it no longer.

This is his story.

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Robin McLaurin Williams was born on July 21st, 1951, in Chicago, Illinois. He developed his sense of humour from a very early age in order to entertain his mother.

Perhaps surprisingly, outside of home he was a very shy and quiet child, often bullied because of his weight, but came out of his shell whilst studying drama. He was soon making friends laugh, first at Deer Path Junior High School, then Detroit Country Day School, after his father, an executive for the Ford Motor Company, was transferred. He became not just a strong actor, but a keen soccer player and wrestler, and was eventually named class president.

He spent his last years of high school in California when his father took early retirement, studying at the Redwood High School, where he was voted ‘Most Likely Not to Succeed’ and ‘Funniest’ in his graduating class.

For all the funny business, Williams never really intended to become an actor. Instead, he took up political science at Claremont Men’s College. There, he became so obsessed with theatre performance that he dropped out to study acting at the College of Marin. His parent’s agreed to let him pursue his passion, provided he also learn a backup trade: welding.

It was at the College of Marin that Williams’ teachers first noted his potential for greatness. While rehearsing for a performance of Oliver!, his ability to improvise left the rest of the cast in hysterics. Professor James Dunn called his wife when the rehearsal was complete, and told her Williams “was going to be something special”.

1973, and Williams received a full scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School. Only 20 students were accepted that year, with two being placed in the advanced program: Williams, and Christopher Reeve. Other classmates included Mandy Patinkin and William Hurt. “I’d never seen so much energy contained in one person,” Reeves said on his introduction to Williams. “He was like an untied balloon that 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 be a major understatement.”

Williams was the kind of performer Juilliard had never experienced before, and the teaching staff had difficulty working out how to handle him. He went into dialect class with the world’s leading voice coach, Edith Skinner, and blew her away with his ensemble of accents. Some were quick to dismiss him as only suitable for stand-up comedy, but Williams proved them wrong in his dramatic performance in Tennessee Williams’ The Night of the Iguana.

Two years after entering the school, director John Houseman encouraged Williams to leave. “There is nothing left for us to teach you.”

He immediately entered the stand-up comedy circuit, performing in the San Francisco Bay Area. His presence helped lead the comedy renaissance of a city that had become known for drugs, hippies, and sex. He witnessed the effects of the former closeup. “I saw the best brains of my time turned to mud,” he half-joked, paraphrasing the opening of Allen Ginsberg’s Howl.

In 1977 he moved to LA, and was spotted by TV producer George Schlatter, who invited him to appear on the revival of Laugh-In, a sketch comedy show. Though the show wouldn’t last long, it laid the groundwork for Williams’ career in television.

Meanwhile, Williams was struggling with his own drug addiction, using cocaine to alleviate the stress of being on stage.

“It’s a brutal field, man. (Comedians) burn out. It takes its toll. Plus, the lifestyle—partying, drinking, drugs. If you’re on the road, it’s even more brutal. You gotta come back down to mellow your ass out, and then performing takes you back up…Sometimes they snap. The pressure kicks in. You become obsessed and then you lose that focus that you need,” he told Gerald Nachman in 2003. Williams would struggle with addiction for the rest of his life.

Williams’ first big break in television came at the hands of Happy Days producer Garry Marshall. Four seasons into the show, and Marshall’s son had shown no interest in watching it. He wanted to understand why.

“He said, ‘I only like space,” Marshall recalled to New York Magazine. “I told him, ‘I don’t do space’. 

‘Well, you could do it.”

And so the alien Mork was born. Marshall called for his sister Ronny – who was also his casting director – to contact some big guest stars for the role, but Ronny persuaded him to meet with Williams, who their other sibling Penny had recommended.

Williams did the audition standing on his head. “He was a whole different, fresh view of a guy doing an outer-space alien.”

His performance on the show was so well received that a hit spinoff was formed, Mork & Mindy. It ran for four years, and made Williams a household name thanks to his boundless energy and improv skills. Within weeks, it had garnered a weekly audience of 60 million.

His first foray into film was not so successful, with Popeye becoming a commercial flop. However, seven years later, he would be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor due to his performance as shock-jock Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam. The film had laughs and heart aplenty, and Williams was allowed to play the part without a script. He received two more Academy Award nominations for his roles in Dead Poets Society and The Fisher King, eventually winning Best Supporting Actor for Good Will Hunting.

In the early 2000s, he would play even more against type as a killer in Christopher Nolan’s Insomnia, and in psychological thriller One Hour Photo, proving his diverse range. Other iconic roles included Genie in Disney’s Aladdin, the titular Mrs Doubtfire, and Dr Hunter Adams in Patch Adams, which was a major box office success even after being critically panned.

When not on stage nor screen, Williams was an active philanthropist. He founded Comic Relief USA in 1986 with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, an annual HBO benefit donated to the homeless. As of 2014, it had raised $80 million USD. Coming from a wealthy family, Williams knew how fortunate he was, and was constantly striving to do what he could to help the less fortunate. He supported literacy and women’s rights campaigns, and constantly toured the USO circuit to entertain American troops stationed overseas.

On August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide. It would be revealed that he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease, severe depression, and dementia.

“He was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit,” President Obama said as news of Williams’ death spread across the world.

Makeshift memorials were set along the Hollywood Walk of Fame and iconic locations that appeared in his films, and Broadway theatres across New York dimmed their lights for a minute in honour of his contributions.

Apple created a memorial webpage to Williams – Remembering Robin Williams. He is only one of five people to have received this dedication.

Williams remains a steadfast icon of not not just comedy, but in every role he donated his talent, his strength, and his passion to. The sheer breadth of his ability, and perfectly unique presence, will not soon be forgotten by those who got to experience it.

Here’s to you, Mr Williams.