Robin Williams: A genuine comic genius and a generous, kind man

In the mid-1990s, Robin Williams visited his friend and Juilliard classmate Christopher Reeve. A popular actor, Reeve had recently become quadriplegic after having been thrown from a horse. Williams, pretending to be a Russian doctor, told Reeve he was there to perform a colonoscopy.

Upon hearing this, Reeve, who had considered suicide, laughed for the first time since the accident. Today, comedian and actor Robin Williams is dead, himself the victim of an apparent suicide at age 63.  

Williams’ decades-long career encompassed manic stand-up comedy, dramatic film roles, and television parts that were often entirely extemporized. Speaking about his early days in comedy, Williams said, “I started to develop a style that was just very ... synaptic, quick-firing.”

Although inimitable, Robin Williams was not without precedent. British actor and comedian Peter Sellers was a particular influence.

“As far as comedic acting goes,” Williams told interviewer Sir Michael Parkinson, “it doesn’t get better than 'Dr. Strangelove'.” (The dark 1964 comedy was a vehicle for Sellers’ extraordinary character acting – he starred in three roles: as a strait-laced RAF officer, a milquetoast president of the United States, and a wheelchair-bound former Nazi whose gloved hand seems to have its own personality.) 

Williams’ brand of rapid-fire free-association was influenced by the great Jonathan Winters, a comedic icon who would often as not appear on "The Tonight Show" in character, gradually revealing his backstory during the interview. Williams idolized Winters to the point of bringing him on as a character in the last season of Williams’ successful television show "Mork & Mindy."

Robin Williams described himself as a quiet child. His first impression was of his grandmother. He attended the Juilliard School in 1973, one of only two students taught by John Houseman in the advanced program that year. Unsurprisingly, Williams was quick to master everything taught in the dialects class.

Upon leaving Juilliard in 1976, Williams found television work almost immediately, being cast as the alien character Mork on the hit series “Happy Days.”  

Even though this kind of addition would seem like the kiss of death (a direct analogue to The Great Gazoo showing up towards the end of "The Flintstones" cartoon in the previous decade) Williams’ lovable and possibly psychotic Mork was so popular he was soon given his own spin-off.  “Mork & Mindy” ran for four seasons, from 1978 to 1982.  

In 1979, Williams further cemented his pop icon status by releasing the stand-up performance album “Reality … What a Concept." Even though the record won a Grammy, it wasn’t exactly cohesive. Still, in high schools across America, kids wearing rainbow suspenders just like those popularized by Mork were memorizing and repeating the naughty, cocaine-and-alcohol-fueled improvisations of a young, and still unfocused, comedian.

Williams would intermittently struggle with addiction – and speak about it with absolute candor – for the rest of his life. He described the drug-related death of his friend John Belushi in 1982 as a wake-up call.

“The grand jury helped too,” Williams added.

Despite his early successes in television and albums, the bulk of Williams’ career highlights would be in film. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his work in “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “The Fisher King” and “Dead Poets Society”; he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in the 1997 movie “Good Will Hunting.”  

By then, Williams was becoming known for his facility at playing serious roles. His movie characters would become increasingly dark, like the disturbed photo developer in “One Hour Photo,’’ a man almost without a personality, obsessing on a family he has never met, or the killer in “Insomnia.” Still, humor is completely absent in only very few of these movies; Williams used his extraordinary comedic ability to shade nuance and pathos into his cinematic characters.  

Williams was the voice of Genie in Disney’s 1992 animated feature “Aladdin,” yet another part that was largely improvised. He told USA Today he considered it his favorite role “just because it was like 32 different voices.”  

It’s hard to take in the death of Robin Williams. With his passing, there is a bright line that must now be drawn in popular culture, one demarking before and after. He was a genuine genius, on an order of magnitude from other, only brilliant, comedians. The first remembrances of him by colleagues are that of a kind and loving man and a true professional — something else remarkable in the entertainment industry.

Williams came along at a time when what could only be intimated in the past – mania, depression, addiction – could be given full voice. He did that in a way that transcended the cheap laughs and led to a greater understanding of how glorious and messy it is to live this life. He was a generous man – generous with his time to friends in difficult circumstances, generous with his extraordinary talent, generous in helping to create the Windfall Foundation, which raises money for various charities.

By the time Winters appeared on "Mork & Mindy" the writing was on the wall. Even the combined efforts of the two greatest improvisational American comedians couldn’t save the show. Winters played Mork and Mindy’s son, Mearth. The age difference between the two actors was explained away by Mearth being born as an adult, and becoming younger as he aged. This seems to be a useful metaphor for Williams too — at least at a time when it is difficult to make sense of things. As his life progressed, Robin Williams showed a face that was ever more kind, and vulnerable, and guileless.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline number is 1-800-273-8255.