ROBIN WILLIAMS
July 21, 1951-
August 11, 2014
Legendary comic and actor Robn Williams is dead at 63, an apparent suicide at his home in Tiburon, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. His publicist reported that he had been suffering from "severe depression." He had also at times battled addiction. He leaves behind three children, two ex-wives, and one current wife, Susan Schneider. He became famous in the TV show "Mork and Mindy" which ran from 1978-82, His over a hundred screen credits include Dead Poets Society, Good Morning, Vietnam, Patch Adams and Bicentennial Man. His many awards include an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting (for which Matt Damon and Ben Affleck received the Oscar for their screenplay) and he received Best Actor nominations three times. He also received numerous Emmy, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Grammy awards. Other well-remembered roles in films include Popeye, The World According to Garp, Moscow on the Hudson, Awakenings, The Fisher King, Mrs. Doubtfire, One Hour Photo, and Death to Smochy. He had been in many small roles and voice roles recently, less high profile since the Nineties. Twitter and other social media yesterday were flooded with references to Williams.
The NY Times obituary mentions that Robin Williams "evolved into the surprisingly nuanced, Academy Award-winning actor, imbuing his performances with wild inventiveness and a kind of manic energy." This inventiveness and wild energy could best be seen in some of his talk show or standup comedy appearances. In a perceptive appreciation that begins with this aspect, the NY Times chief film critic A.O. Scott describes Williams' talent:Scott adds that "But if Mr. Williams was often self-aware, commenting on what he was doing as he was doing it, he was rarely arch or insincere. He could, as an actor, succumb to treacliness sometimes — maybe more than sometimes — but his essential persona as an entertainer combined neediness and generosity, intelligence and kindness, in ways that were charming and often unexpectedly moving as well." Scotts observes that when Williams held back his exuberance it added energy and tension to his more straightforward performances; that he was "an excellent and disciplined character actor" who could play straight man with calm and skill when needed. For me personally the balance of these qualities was best displayed in the passion of the prep-school teacher he plays in Peter Weir's Dead Poets Society, a movie that on second viewing at home a long time ago touched me as intensely as any screen experience I can remember, with its tragic ending, the death, by suicide, by the way, of a sensitive young aspiring actor played by Robert Sean Leondard. This film also included the memorable first appearance of Ethan Hawke, in an intense scene where Williams, as the inspiring teacher, goads Hawke's character into overcoming his reserve. Robin Williams was an inspirer as well as an entertainer: he amused and delighted and touched many hearts.Mr. Williams was one of the most explosively, exhaustingly, prodigiously verbal comedians who ever lived. The only thing faster than his mouth was his mind, which was capable of breathtaking leaps of free-associative absurdity. Janet Maslin, reviewing his standup act in 1979, cataloged a tumble of riffs that ranged from an impression of Jacques Cousteau to “an evangelist at the Disco Temple of Comedy,” to Truman Capote Jr. at “the Kindergarten of the Stars” (whatever that was). “He acts out the Reader’s Digest condensed version of ‘Roots,’ ” Ms. Maslin wrote, “which lasts 15 seconds in its entirety. He improvises a Shakespearean-sounding epic about the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, playing all the parts himself, including Einstein’s ghost.” (That, or something like it, was a role he would reprise more than 20 years later in Steven Spielberg’s “A.I.”)
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