Aladdin, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting
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It can be hard to digest for many people when someone that’s been a part of your life for so long tragically passed away. This usually doesn’t include celebrities, but in 2014 many had felt an emptiness after the death of legendary comedian and actor Robin Williams. For a lot of us, Williams was part of our childhood that made us laugh, cry and think with his roles and performances. Though he’s no longer with us, Williams still left some very fond memories for his many fans that will be cherished for generations to come.
Williams was born on July 21, 1951 in Chicago, and spent the early part of his life in the area before making his way to Detroit and eventually to California during his teenage years. Williams was a standout student not only because he excelled in the classroom, but had the type of personality that everyone gravitated toward. This allowed him to get into college, but he dropped out because he wanted to be an actor and made his way to the prestigious Juilliard School.
“I (was) led to comedy as a survival mechanism, especially when I left high school and went back to San Francisco and couldn’t find acting work and saw this thing and it said, ‘comedy workshop,’” Williams said. “And I went, ‘Hmmm.’ It’s like syntax repair, interesting…So I went to this workshop in the basement of a Lutheran church, and it was stand-up comedy, so you don’t get to improvise with others, but I started off doing, ostensibly, it was just like improvising but solo. And then I started to realize, ‘Oh.’ (I started) building an act from there.”
Williams quickly moved up the ranks in the stand-up comedy world, becoming one of the most well known names in the business during the 1970s. Like many famous comics, Williams also found himself receiving offers to make his way into acting. In 1977, he had appeared on shows for the first time and introduced his character Mork on the hit series “Happy Days”.
The show about an alien and his female Earthling friend Mindy became a hit that ran for more than 90 episodes, and set up Williams for a fine film career. Williams played the title character in the 1980 film “Popeye” to mark his true debut and didn’t look back from there. Williams starred in many more 1980s movies that became classics such as “Good Morning, Vietnam”, “Dead Poets Society” and “The World According to Garp”.
Two of those films earned Williams Oscar nominations, as well as the early 1990s film “The Fisher King”. Other memorable 1990s films for Williams included the box office smash hits “Jumanji”, “Mrs. Doubtfire” and “Aladdin”.
“Aladdin” is perhaps Williams’ most famous movie, and the character was a natural fit for Williams. “The ‘Aladdin’ thing, that’s not work,” Williams said. “That’s just fun. Three days in the recording studio going mad, then the animators do all the work. Not a bad way to cash a large check, my friend.”
By the end of the decade, Williams had finally become an Oscar winner in his fourth nomination, winning for Best Supporting Actor in “Good Will Hunting”. In the years that would follow for Williams, he added many more blockbusters in both live action and animation. The biggest successes included “Night at the Museum”, “Patch Adams” and “Happy Feet” to name a few. Overall, films with Williams earned more than $3.2 billion at the box office.
The world lost a legend on August 11, 2014 when the news came out that Williams had passed away at the age of 63. While in his home in Paradise Cay, California, Williams had taken his own life via hanging and multiple wounds on his body, without any illicit drugs or alcohol in his system. People were stunned, naturally, as Williams had always seemed very upbeat and ready to make others laugh at a moment’s notice.
Williams was found to be suffering from a disease known as Lewy body dementia, which can make life very difficult for those that have it. This includes having symptoms of depression and pain, which became too much for Williams to bear. The response to his death was millions being left in mourning from his family members, his former co-workers and his fans around the world that loved him.
Reporter Dave Itzkoff talked about those final days for Williams, who wasn’t able to remember his lines while filming because of his disease. “And that tore him up,” Itzkoff said. “That’s when he expressed to (his makeup artist) that feeling of, you know, ‘I can’t be funny anymore.’ And that was, I think, devastating to both of them.”
Williams had touched on the subject of depression himself before passing away, too. When talking about comedians, “Oh, they have a dark side,” he said. “I mean, because they’re looking at that. In the process of looking for comedy, you have to be deeply honest. And in doing that, you’ll find out here’s another side. You’ll be looking under the rock occasionally for the laughter. So they have a depressed side. But is it always the sad clown thing? No. But I find comics to be pretty honest people in terms of looking at stuff from both sides, or all sides.”
“Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn’t turn out very well - you go, ‘Why did you do that?’” Williams added. “But in the end, I can’t regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.”
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