Robin Williams - Biography

Last Editor: Magyarbajusz				Robin Williams Biography -   Name : Robin Williams Date of birth : 21 July 1951 Place of birth : Chicago, Illinois, USA Birth name : Robin McLaurin Williams Occupation : Actor Height : 5' 8" (1.73 m)

Robin Williams Trivia -

Moved to San Francisco when he was 16. Studied acting briefly at Julliard under John Houseman. Houseman told him he was wasting his talent at Juilliard and he should strike out on his own and do stand-up comedy. Resides with his family in San Francisco's Seacliff neighborhood. Was set to play Drew Barrymore's father in the film Home Fries (1998) and had the role during production, but pulled out of the part days before his scenes were to be shot. Son, with Williams, Cody. [1992] Daughter, with Williams, Zelda. [1989] Son, with Velardi, Zachary, born. [1983] Ranked #63 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997] Voted funniest man alive by Entertainment Weekly. [1997] When he auditioned for the role of Mork from Ork, he met Garry Marshall who told him to sit down. Robin immediately sat on his head on the chair. Marshall immediately chose him saying that he was the only alien who auditioned. During the making of "Mork & Mindy" (1978), Williams departed from the scripts and ad libbed so many times and so well, that the producers stop trying to make him stick to the script and deliberately left gaps in the later scripts leaving only "Mork can go off here" in those places so Robin could improvise. Was considered for the role of the Riddler in Batman Forever (1995). In 1979, Robin released an album "Reality...What a Concept" on Casablanca Record and Film Works. Was set to appear on an episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987) as the time traveler Prof. Berlinghoff Rasmussen, but a schedule conflict forced him to drop out (the role eventually went to Matt Frewer). He was inspired to seek a Trek role by his friend Whoopi Goldberg, who made several appearances on "Star Trek: The Next Generation" (1987) as the bartender Guinan. Is a fan of the sport of Rugby Union, and in particular New Zealand All Black star Jonah Lomu, who flew to San Francisco and gifted him with a signed All Black jersey. On a recent visit to New Zealand they were reunited on national TV, Williams humbly accepting another All Black jersey, except this time it had Jonah's number 11 on the back. Attended Claremont Men's College, where he played soccer. Listed as one of Entertainment Weekly's 25 Best Actors [1998] He is a fan of the comedy series "Monty Python's Flying Circus" (1969). Studied at Juliard with actor Christopher Reeve. The two remained good friends until Christopher Reeve's death in 2004. Enjoys cycling and occasionally trains with Lance Armstrong. After having won the academy award for Good Will Hunting (1997), he sent Peer Augustinski (who is his standard German dubbing voice) a little Oscar replica with a note: "Thank you for making me famous in Germany". Graduated from Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, north of San Francisco. Other famous alumni from Redwood include Gabrielle Carteris ("Beverly Hills, 90210" (1990)) and Erin Gray (Kate from "Silver Spoons" (1982)), Gabrielle Carteris, Erin Grey and Jason Branson, radio talk show guest/therapist and author. Winner Of The Grammy Award for "Best Spoken Comedy Album" Robin Williams – Live 2002. This was in 2003. Hit #104 on the Billboard Singles Charts in 1980 with "I Yam What I Yam" (Boardwalk 5701) Ranked #7 in Star TV's Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s (2003) Shares birthday with Josh Hartnett. Actor reached a unique milestone in 1996, he had two of his films reach the $100 million mark in the USA exactly the same week, Jumanji (1995) and The Birdcage (1996). Was voted "Least Likely to Succeed" by his fellow graduates at Larkspur. Early in his career he told a reporter that he was born in Scotland. His original press releases do indeed list Scotland as his place of birth. He admits now that he was "under the influence" at the time he said this. He was really born in Chicago He was voted the 50th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly. 1 week after Christopher Reeve's tragic horse riding accident, Robin visited him in the hospital. However, he was dressed from head to toe in scrubs, spoke with a Russian accent, and had a surgical mask on. He was acting as if he was a real doctor did a bunch of wacky antics. After he took off his mask, Reeves stated that, "That was the first time he laughed since the accident!" Helped his long time friend Christopher Reeve pay his medical bills during his final years following the horse riding accident. When 'Blame Canada', a song from South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999), was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award, it was Williams who performed the song at the ceremony, because the actress who sang the song in the film, Mary Kay Bergman, had committed suicide a few months prior to the awards show. He was considered for the role of Joe Miller in Jonathan Demme's Philadelphia. Denzel Washington was cast instead. A democrat, Williams has been outspoken about his opposition to the war in Iraq. However, he has become the most consistent entertainer of U.S. troops since the war has began, leading some to dub him the next Bob Hope. Has been seen in playing paintball at public reservations near his Northern California residence. He was a very overweight child. As a result, nobody would play with him. He started talking in different voices to entertain himself. Dedicated his winning the Cecille B. DeMille award at the 2004 Golden Globes to friend Christopher Reeve. Most of his dialogue in Aladdin (1992) is ad-libbed. Was a guest on Johnny Carson's last episode of the "Tonight Show", along with Bette Midler. Is of Welsh and Scottish heritage. Graduated from Redwood High School in Larkspur, California. He and his Being Human and Robots cast mate, Ewan McGregor, have both shared a role with Alec Guinness. McGregor, of course, played the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels. Williams appeared in Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, as Osric, a part that Guinness had played on stage opposite John Gielgud. Williams also shares that part with another Star Wars actor, Peter Cushing, who played the same role in the same year in the film, opposite Laurence Olivier. Co-owns the Rubicon restaurant in San Francisco with Robert DeNiro and fellow Bay area resident Francis Ford Coppola. Wrote the foreword to Gary Larson's book, "The Far Side: Gallery 4" (1993). After a 20 year break from doing stand up comedy, he came back in 2002 with a show live on Broadway. It won a Grammy for best spoken word album in 2003. Though he is highly regarded for his ability to perform numerous different voices, he only has lent his voice to four animated features: "Ferngully", "Aladdin", "Aladdin and the King of Thieves", and "Robots". However, he did have the occupation of doing voice over work for a cartoon on "Mrs. Doubtfire", played a small role in the TV animated short "A Wish for Wings That Work", and has done narration for different rides and attractions at Disney World.

Robin Williams Detailed Biography -

Robin Williams first captured the attention of the world as Mork from Ork on the hit series Mork & Mindy. Born in Chicago and raised in Michigan and California, he trained at New York's Julliard School under John Houseman. An Academy Award-winning actor and a multiple Grammy-winning performer unparalleled in the scope of his imagination, Williams continues to enhance his repertoire of indelible characters with several upcoming projects. In addition to ROBOTS, Williams co-stars in the Lions Gate release House of D, directed by David Duchovny. In the drama, Williams portrays a mentally challenged 40 year-old friend of a delivery boy. Most recently, Williams completed principal photography on Mark Mylod's The Big White, a black comedy co-starring Holly Hunter, Woody Harrelson and Giovanni Ribisi. In 1997, Williams received Academy and Screen Actors Guild awards for his performance as Sean Maguire, the therapist who counsels Matt Damon's title character, a math genius, in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting. The Academy previously nominated Williams for best actor in The Fisher King, Dead Poets Society, and Good Morning Vietnam. Williams garnered a special honor from the National Board of Review for his performance opposite Robert De Niro in Awakenings. Williams' filmography includes a number of blockbusters. In 1993, he starred in Chris Columbus' Mrs. Doubtfire. For Mike Nichols, Williams portrayed Armand Goldman, in The Birdcage, for which the cast won a SAG ensemble award. In 1996, The Birdcage and Jumanji reached the $100 million mark in the United States in exactly the same week. Williams assumed the dual roles of Peter Pan/Peter Banning in Steven Spielberg's Hook and played a medical student who treats patients with humor in Patch Adams. Other blockbusters included the aforementioned Good Will Hunting, Dead Poet's Society and Good Morning,Vietnam; plus Flubber and Aladdin. Williams collaborated with two accomplished young directors: Christopher Nolan and Mark Romanek. For Nolan, Williams starred in Insomnia opposite Al Pacino as reclusive novelist Walter Finch, the primary suspect in the murder of a teenage girl in a small Alaskan town in Insomnia. In Romanek's One Hour Photo, Williams played a photo lab employee who becomes obsessed with a young suburban family. Recently, Williams starred as a cutter (a person with the power to edit individuals' recorded histories) in Omar Naim's sci-fi thriller 'The Final Cut," co-starring Mira Sorvino and James Caviezel. Williams' early motion picture credits include Paul Mazursky's Moscow on the Hudson, in which he played a Russian musician who decides to defect, and The World According to Garp, George Roy Hill's adaptation of John Irving's acclaimed best-selling novel about a writer and his feminist mother. He made his cinematic debut as the title character in Robert Altman's Popeye. Williams, who began his career as a stand-up comedian, is well known for monologues in which he makes free associative leaps punctuated by one-liners about subjects as varied as politics, history, religion, ethnic strife and sex. Using only his voice, Williams created one of the most vivid characters in recent memory - Aladdin's Blue Genie of the Lamp (which redefined how animations are voiced). For audio versions of his one-man shows and the children's record Pecos Bill, Williams won five Grammy Awards. His stage credits include a landmark production of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, directed by Mike Nichols, co-starring Steve Martin, and, most recently, a short run in San Francisco of The Exonerated. Offstage, Williams takes great joy in supporting causes too numerous to identify, covering the spectrum from health care and human rights, to education, environmental protection, and the arts. He toured the Middle East twice in as many years to help raise morale among the troops, and he is perhaps best known philanthropically for his affiliation with Comic Relief.