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Christopher Reeve, Williams' best friend, describes Williams in his autobiography.

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Christopher Reeve, Williams' best friend, describes Williams in his autobiography.

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Reeves recalls Williams from the Julliard period as a "human dynamo," a man who was perpetually "on."

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Through his leading role in the three Superman films, Christopher Reeve became so closely identified with the superhero that he wasn't just seen as the actor who played Superman, he was Superman. Which is why the tragic riding accident which left him paralysed from the neck down shocked the world.

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Williams in another paternal role, this time playing a doctor who cheers up child patients with his comic performances.

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Patch Adams Official Trailer #1 - Robin Williams Movie (1998) HD

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World's Greatest Dad (2009) Official Trailer #1 - Robin Williams Movie HD

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Williams' friendship with Christopher Reeve

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Williams' friendship with Christopher Reeve

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In the darkest hours after Reeve's paralyzing horse-riding accident, Williams supported Reeve by paying him visits in the hospital and cheering him up performing a Russian proctologist. In his autobiography Reeve says that he laughed for the first time since the accident.

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'Closer than brothers': Robin Williams' extraordinary friendship with Christopher Reeve

One of the most treasured relationships of Robin Williams' life was his enduring friendship with fellow actor Christopher Reeve

The pair met in 1973 as roommates at the Julliard School in New York City

Their careers later took off at the same time in the late 1970s - Williams in Mork And Mindy and Reeve in Superman

After his paralyzing horse-riding accident in 1995, Reeve revealed that his spirits were lifted after his old friend paid him a surprise visit

Williams showed up at his hospital pretending to be an eccentric Russian proctologist who was going to perform a rectal exam on him

'My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay,' wrote Reeve in his autobiography

After Reeve's death in 2004, Williams dedicated his Cecil B. Demille Award at the Golden Globes to him

One of the finest eulogies for Robin Williams was written years before his untimely death by one of his closest friends, fellow actor Christopher Reeve.

In 1995, Superman star Reeve was facing a life or death situation as he prepared to undergo an operation at the University of Virginia Medical Center to reattach his skull to his spine following a devastating horse-riding accident.

With his chances of survival rated just 50/50, Reeve later told Barbara Walters that he 'wanted to die' until his despair was lifted by an unexpected visit from his old friend Williams.

In his 1996 autobiography Still Me, Reeve recalls how Williams showed up at the hospital pretending to be an eccentric Russian proctologist who was going to perform a rectal exam on him.

'I lay on my back, frozen, unable to avoid thinking the darkest thoughts,' wrote Reeve.

'Then, at an especially bleak moment, the door flew open and in hurried a squat fellow with a blue scrub hat and a yellow surgical gown and glasses, speaking in a Russian accent. He announced that he was my proctologist and that he had to examine me immediately.

'My first reaction was that either I was on way too many drugs or I was in fact brain damaged,' wrote Reeve.

'For the first time since the accident, I laughed. My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be okay.'

By then the pair were indeed old friends, having first met more than 20 years before as roommates at the prestigious Julliard School in New York City.

In 1973 the budding actors were the only two students accepted to the advanced program at the school. In several classes they were the only students.

Williams was also the first student that Reeve met at university and he recalls watching Williams 'in awe as he virtually caromed off the walls of the classrooms and hallways.'

Their strong bond lasted way beyond college as their respective careers took off in the late 70s, with Williams enjoying massive television success in Mork and Mindy and Reeve staring in the 1978 blockbuster Superman.

During a Reddit AMA last year, Williams recalled his favorite memories of Reeve.

'Him being such a great friend to me at Juillard, literally feeding me because I don't think I literally had money for food or my student loan hadn't come in yet, and he would share his food with me,' he wrote.

'And then later after the accident, just seeing him beaming and just, seeing what he meant to so many people.'

Reeve's widow Dana once described the pair as being 'closer than brothers' and it was rumored that Williams had helped pay for Reeves' treatment following his accident.

He also became actively involved in Reeve's foundation, The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation.

Reeve died in 2004 after a cardiac arrest.

'The world has lost a tremendous activist and artist, and an inspiration for people worldwide. I have lost a great friend,' said Williams after his friend passed away.

The next year Williams dedicated his Cecil B. Demille Award at the Golden Globes to his old friend.

'Miss you. May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest,' he said.

For his dedication and support as an advocate for the Reeve Foundation, the charity honored him in 2007 at a gala in Los Angeles.

After the announcement of Williams' suicide on Monday, the charity posted a tribute to him on its website.

'While the world knew Robin Williams as an Oscar-winning actor, we knew a different side to the man whose smile was as big as his heart.

'While our hearts ache with the loss of our friend, it is unlikely Robin would want us to mourn his passing with silence, but to celebrate his life through laughter.

'Together, let's remember Robin for the man who made the world laugh.'

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Robin Williams' extraordinary friendship with Christopher Reeve

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One of the most treasured relationships of Robin Williams' life was his enduring friendship with fellow actor Christopher Reeve The pair met in 1973 as roommates at the Julliard School in New York City Their careers later took off at the same time in the late 1970s - Williams in

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Jessica Chastain was one of the students receiving the scholarship

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Jessica Chastain Received Robin Williams Scholarship | TODAY

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Variety about Williams as a moviegoer's greatest dad

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Variety about Williams as a moviegoer's greatest dad

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The article shows how important for the millenials was the father figure Williams embodied throughout his whole career.

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It seems entirely appropriate that my first viewing of " Aladdin" (1992) remains one of my most vivid impressions of Robin Williams onscreen, even if isn't actually Robin Williams onscreen. Or is it? Animation, allowing for all manner of strange transformations and surreal flights of fancy, was in some ways an ideal medium for this endlessly inventive performer, and in this spirited Disney fantasy it granted him a funnyman showcase of inexhaustible cleverness and dexterity. For someone who was only 9 at the time, it also provided an early understanding of what people meant when they talked about "a Robin Williams performance." To see and hear that big blue Genie today - morphing from one form to the next with dizzying speed, tossing off merry quips, goofy accents and fourth-wall-shattering asides - is to behold a rapid-fire comic imagination fully liberated from the dull, colorless parameters of live-action. Here, at last, was a movie that could keep up with this guy.

"He even looks like Robin Williams!" I remember a friend marveling when she saw the first images of the Genie on TV - and indeed he did, the Disney animators having slyly modeled the character's friendly grin and elastic, exaggerated gestures on the actor's own. Williams famously improvised much of his dialogue - an unusual thing for an animated picture, where vocal work is typically subordinate to images and screenplay. But the honchos at Disney must have recognized that it would be foolish to try and contain their star's vaudevillian instincts, any more than a lamp could contain the Genie himself. " Aladdin " is hardly the first or only film in which Williams upstages just about everything and everyone else onscreen, but the sheer force of his big-hearted personality doesn't smother the movie; it completes it. This Genie is more than a hilarious show-off. He's a fount of wisdom, a voice of conscience to rival Jiminy Cricket, and one hell of a sweet guy.

The following year brought along a movie that would prove no less emblematic of who Robin Williams was as a screen performer. I'm speaking, of course, about " Mrs. Doubtfire " (1993), a ruthlessly effective slapstick tearjerker that thoroughly worked me over, to say nothing of thousands of other moviegoers: With the invaluable support of a fat suit, a wig and a cream pie, Williams' Mary-Poppins-meets-Tootsie routine succeeded in making my 10-year-old self laugh and cry on cue as advertised. I don't know if my 31-year-old self would call it a great movie, but it is an indelible one, and for a high-concept comedy vehicle, it cuts unusually close to the bone. For anyone who hears two parental voices raised in anger and can't help but flinch in recognition, the movie has a particularly sharp, lacerating power: The air of familial discord is so persuasively realized that it gives Williams the emotional ballast he needs to pull off one of his most improbable, and improbably successful, characterizations.

It doesn't hurt that Mrs. Doubtfire herself, far from being just a grotesque stunt, instead becomes a warm, lovable creation in her own right, with a delicacy of manner and an elegance of carriage that remind you, for all his antics, what a subtle, even graceful actor Williams could be. But the conviction of the performance goes deeper than that: Even the character's most reckless, elaborate machinations seem to well up from a painfully honest place of love for his family, as if he could only restore domestic order by descending into farcical madness. What sort of lunatic would go to such extreme lengths for his children? Probably no one, hopefully - but for two hours, Williams has a grand time making you think otherwise.

How many times has Robin Williams played a father or father figure onscreen? Without oversimplifying a body of work that has no use for tidy parameters, it's this tendency that has long struck me as one of the defining impulses of his work - the desire to give shape and form to a highly eccentric form of fatherhood, to play a mentor to the young and impressionable, and to draw upon his comic genius as a way to take us deeper into ourselves. It was there the first time I saw Williams onscreen, in "Hook" (1991), where he played a grown-up Peter Pan who desperately needs to reconnect with his children and his own inner child. It was there, too, in "The Birdcage" (1996): As a gay dad trying to maintain an illusion of heterosexual propriety for the sake of his son, Williams underplayed beautifully, leaving the flamboyant antics largely to Nathan Lane while serving as the movie's emotional glue.

The forgettable mainstream comedy "RV" (2006) is unlikely to rank high on anyone's list of favorite Robin Williams movies, but it, too, finds the actor playing a much-put-upon dad ("Save for one out-of-nowhere gangsta-riff monologue, this is one of Williams' least shtick-reliant performances," I wrote in my Variety review). And the perils of fatherhood form the crux of Bobcat Goldthwait's aptly titled "World's Greatest Dad" (2009), a woefully underseen, darkly funny gem that features one of Williams' last and greatest screen turns. In it he plays a loving father to a horribly unlovable son who dies accidentally, via auterotic asphyxiation, a premise that takes the Robin Williams fatherhood complex to audacious new extremes of perversity and profundity.

Williams' paternal roles seem rooted in an essentially therapeutic instinct - the notion that we could, by spending some time in the company of one of his characters, feel loved, understood, and inspired to live better, happier, more fulfilled lives. The role of therapist is quite literally built into a number of Williams' best-remembered characters - from his embodiment of a nerdy, devoted Oliver Sacks type in "Awakenings" to his Oscar-winning turn as a psychiatrist in "Good Will Hunting" - and also one of his worst-remembered, the physician-clown who gave the widely reviled yet hugely successful "Patch Adams" its title. He was considerably more enduring, and endurable, as the English instructor John Keating in "Dead Poets Society," applying a gentle sense of showmanship to his lessons in life and literature. I think it's a meretricious, dishonest movie, but there's nothing dishonest about the performance, which really is stirring enough to warrant its famous valediction of "O captain, my captain."

The critic is trained early on, of course, to disdain the cinema of inspiration and self-improvement, and also to dismiss any actorly weakness for incessant shtick or overt sentimentality. And there's no denying that, as his career progressed and he seemed to lapse into predictable rhythms and cycles of onscreen behavior, Robin Williams became something of a punching bag for reviewers - a too-convenient stand-in for the worst kind of Hollywood button-pushing, veering forever between the twin extremes of over-the-top comedy and lump-in-the-throat emotionalism. It wasn't always a fair accusation, but you could understand the feeling behind it, especially when it became clear that the actor himself was trying to press his talents in a different direction.

So memorable and outsized was Williams' persona that even his later stabs at restraint could sometimes announce themselves a bit too loudly. In some of his late-'90s and post-'90s efforts, you could sense the actor studiously tamping down every twitch, smile and wayward comic impulse in a sometimes honorable, sometimes misguided bid for seriousness, almost as if he were doing penance for having entertained us too heartily in the past. But even here, Williams the guardian persists, sometimes benevolently - see him trying to inspire his fellow prisoners in the Holocaust drama "Jakob the Liar" - and sometimes not. One way to read the devious stalker Seymour Parrish in "One Hour Photo," easily the strongest of his self-consciously "serious" turns, is as the disturbing inversion of all those smiling, pure-hearted father figures. Here is Williams the creepy, asexual loner, quietly monitoring a family from afar, eager to step in and restore order and balance when the real father falls short.

A performance like that is a sign of a career rich and varied enough to mean different things to different people. In looking back on their favorite Robin Williams roles, some will gravitate fondly toward his turn as a genial madman in "The Fisher King," or his manic yet beautifully controlled performance as an army shock jock in "Good Morning, Vietnam." "Mork & Mindy" was before my time, but not my mother's ("Nanu nanu," she murmured with a sad chuckle when she called me yesterday afternoon to talk about Williams' death). I'll remember him as the actor who revealed the funny side of fatherhood, who came most unpredictably to life when he was sharing the screen with children, and who proved that a grown man could be the youngest guy in the room. We really never had a friend like him.

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Robin Williams Remembered: A Moviegoer's Greatest Dad

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It seems entirely appropriate that my first viewing of " Aladdin" (1992) remains one of my most vivid impressions of Robin Williams onscreen, even if isn't actually Robin Williams onscreen. Or is it?

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Father's Day (1997) Official Trailer - Robin Williams, Billy Crystal Movie HD

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Robin Williams chosen the funniest man alive in 1997

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Robin Williams chosen the funniest man alive in 1997

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Just think of this year's Academy Awards show. There, as legions of tweedy Brits lined up to collect their English...

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"Do I perform sometimes in a manic style? Yes. Am I manic all the time? No. Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah.'”

Williiams about his vulnerability.

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Williams last major role.

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Boulevard Official Trailer #1 (2015) - Robin Williams Movie HD

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Wendy Ide's review of "Boulevard" (2014)

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Wendy Ide's review of "Boulevard" (2014)

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"Williams gives a curiously opaque performance in this story of a married 60-year-old confronting his long-closeted homosexuality."

Williams' last feature touching upon a concealment strikingly corresponding to Williams' actual real-life struggling with health.

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Boulevard review - Robin Williams is out-acted in his final feature

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Williams gives a curiously opaque performance in this story of a married 60-year-old confronting his long-closeted homosexuality

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About Williams:
"“The Crazy Ones” is a show meant to encourage him to be Robin Williams to do all the material you know so well, whether you still love it or not. "

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Robin Williams and Michael J. Fox became TV stars about four years apart, Williams with "Mork & Mindy" and Fox with "Family Ties." They made their first big movies about five years apart, Williams with "Popeye," Fox with "Back to the Future." The movie business took much longer to figure out how to harness Williams' unique gifts, but he's worked steadily and topped call sheets for decades. Marty McFly was instantly a perfect film role for Fox, but his run as a successful leading man only ran a few years, up through "Doc Hollywood," before he starred in some flops, went back to TV, then semi-retired due to complications from Parkinson's.

Their careers are not identical, and yet it feels somehow appropriate for these two to be returning full-time to television tomorrow on the same night, at the same time, with a pair of shows - Williams' "The Crazy Ones" (9 p.m., CBS) and Fox's "The Michael J. Fox Show" (9 & 9:30 p.m., NBC) - that seem built with the same guidelines: Step 1. Build star vehicle that lets beloved actor do the thing people love watching them do. Step 2. ________ Step 3. Profit!

"The Michael J. Fox Show" is clearly the better of the two. At this point (I've seen three episodes), it's more likable than funny, but it has a very clear sense of what it wants to do and how it wants to frame its star. Created by Will Gluck and Sam Laybourne, it's sitcom-as-autobiography: Fox plays Mike Henry, beloved former New York TV news reporter who was also forced into early retirement due to Parkinson's (when Fox has done guest appearances on shows like "The Good Wife" the last few years, they go out of their way to explain his twitching via another condition), got to spend a lot of time with his wife (played here by Betsy Brandt, enjoying herself much more than she's gotten to of late as Marie on "Breaking Bad") and kids, then went back to work once the drugs improved and his family got annoyed having him around so much.

It's so meta that the first episode is largely devoted to making the audience comfortable with laughing at the guy with the serious medical condition, while the second episode (also airing tomorrow) features Tracy Pollan as a sexy neighbor Mike develops a crush on, as we're asked to watch Fox's TV wife be annoyed by his focus on his real-life wife, while also being invited to appreciate just how hot the former Ellen Reed still is.

And yet a lot of it works because Fox really is that good - a sitcom Hall of Famer whose Swiss watch timing has miraculously not been impaired by his physical limitations - and that charming. It's just such a pleasure to see him back in his own show, both for what it says about his health and for the greater appeal of his work.

A lot of the material's very broad - especially anything involving Katie Finneran as Mike's flaky sister or Conor Romero as his oldest son, a college dropout who claims to be developing on a new search engine - and at times feels better suited to the old multi-camera rhythms of "Family Ties" or "Spin City" than to a single-cam show that very transparently models itself after "Modern Family," with characters addressing the camera and a heartwarming voiceover to wrap up each show. But there's abundant chemistry between Fox and Brandt, between Fox and Juliette Goglia (Little Girl God from "Joan of Arcadia") as his teenage daughter, and between Fox and Wendell Pierce (Bunk from "The Wire") as his boss at the TV station. The rest will hopefully come in time, but for now I'm just glad to see the man practicing his craft again.

Because Williams has been working much more steadily over a greater period of time, his particular persona doesn't feel as fresh. Over the course of "The Crazy Ones" pilot, in which he plays Chicago ad executive Simon Roberts, Williams busts out all his greatest hits know from the '80s, '90s, and today: Marlon Brando, kung fu, an elderly Eskimo chief. In an early scene, an underling laughs at his voices, leading his frustrated daughter/partner Sydney (Sarah Michelle Gellar) to yell, "Do not encourage him!" "The Crazy Ones" is a show meant to encourage him to be Robin Williams to do all the material you know so well, whether you still love it or not.

But it's also a strange show, wildly off-brand for CBS - a mix of drama and comedy, shot on film with no laughtrack - and created by David E. Kelley, who has certainly written lots of wacky jokes into his serious shows (and whose "Ally McBeal" won an Emmy for comedy series back in the '90s), but who seems a loss for how to integrate the two tones here. There are a few suggestions that Simon is genuinely crazy and has recovered from a previous breakdown, and then others where he's just the furry guy who won't stop doing impressions.

The pilot episode is unusually short - the version sent to critics was less than 19 minutes, one of which was just outtakes of guest star Kelly Clarkson laughing at Williams' improvisation, when a typical network sitcom can run 21-23 minutes when you remove the ads. It may not seem like a lot of time on paper, but in practice it creates a half-finished feeling to everything. Simon, Sydney and their colleagues work in a giant office that seems much too underpopulated, just as the first episode feels like a rough draft.

Gellar is largely stuck in killjoy mode, and in her one big comic moment comes across as too flop-sweaty by half. The biggest laughs in the pilot come, strangely, from Clarkson (playing herself as a possible jingle singer for one of Simon's campaigns) and James Wolk (Bob Benson from "Mad Men") as office himbo Zach. There's a surprising ease to Wolk's performance, so that when he's riffing with an improv master like Williams, even though the older actor is clearly the one leading the way, Wolk is the one just relaxed enough to sell the jokes. (It's also possible that Williams is a better point guard than he is a scorer these days, though he's not able to do much to set up Gellar.)

If you don't count "Ally" (a short-lived attempt to repurpose old "Ally McBeal" episodes at half the size), this is the first half-hour show Kelley's been involved with since he created "Doogie Howser, M.D." 24 years ago. Kelley seems in a more experimental mode these days: his low-rated TNT medical drama "Monday Mornings" was the most straightforward, non-quirky show he's done in forever, and now he's trying a more overt comedy, but doesn't seem quite sure how to do it - or if he wants to - even with Williams at the center.

Neither show is a classic return to the form that made Williams and Fox into huge stars, but "The Michael J. Fox Show" has a more solid foundation, and a leading man whose schtick has aged much better, in part due to a forced absence. Both shows have a lot of growing to do, but I'm much more interested to see what Fox's show can become than Williams'.

GRADES: "The Michael J. Fox Show" B / "The Crazy Ones" C
Alan Sepinwall may be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

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Review: NBC's 'The Michael J. Fox Show' & CBS' 'The Crazy Ones'

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Robin Williams and Michael J. Fox became TV stars about four years apart, Williams with "Mork & Mindy" and Fox with "Family Ties." They made their first big movies about five years apart, Williams with "Popeye," Fox with "Back to the Future."

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Pam Dawber about how changed Williams was on set

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Pam Dawber about how changed Williams was on set

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“I would come home and say to my husband, ‘Something is wrong. He’s flat. He’s lost the spark. I don’t know what it is.’ ”

— Pam Dawber, Williams' co-star on "Mork & Mindy" and "The Crazy Ones"

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Robin Williams struggled to remember his lines.

This was unusual for the hyperverbal, Oscar-winning actor, and it hit him hard in Vancouver in 2014 during the filming of "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb," the third movie in the successful family franchise.

"He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible," makeup artist Cheri Minns recalled. "I said to his people, 'I'm a makeup artist. I don't have the capacity to deal with what's happening to him.' "

"He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible. I said to his people, 'I'm a makeup artist. I don't have the capacity to deal with what's happening to him.' "
- Cheri Minns, makeup artist

Minns suggested to Robin that he return to stand-up to get out of his rut and reclaim some of his lost confidence. But Robin refused.

"He just cried and said, 'I can't, Cheri. I don't know how anymore. I don't know how to be funny.' "

How could this be the same lovable weirdo who coined the greeting "nanu nanu" as Mork from Ork; the radio DJ who famously brayed, "GOOOOOOD MORNING, VIETNAM!"; the widower therapist who broke our hearts in "Good Will Hunting"?

The reality - though Robin didn't know it - was that he was suffering from a pernicious neurodegenerative disease that was in the process of robbing him of his talents, his brain and his very self.

This heartbreaking interaction is recounted in the biography " Robin " (Henry Holt & Co.) by Dave Itzkoff, out this month, which provides new details about the comic great's final days and the harsh reality of what it's like to lose a once-in-a-generation mind.

Robin McLaurin Williams, born in Chicago on July 21, 1951, had a privileged but lonely childhood, spending hours playing with toy soldiers in his attic. He attended Juilliard, then headed out West to blow up the Los Angeles and San Francisco comedy scenes.

Longtime friend Billy Crystal described seeing Robin kill on stage: "It was electric, and we all just sat there and went, 'Oh, my god, what is this?' It was like trying to catch a comet with a baseball glove."

Robin landed the guest role of Mork from Ork on the hit show "Happy Days" in February 1978. The character was so indelible it led to a spin-off show, "Mork & Mindy," which, by the following spring in 1979, reached 60 million viewers. Robin Williams was now a household name.

Despite rampant drug and alcohol addiction (he famously said cocaine was "God's way of telling you you're making too much money"), Robin easily found big-screen stardom. He earned an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of the verbose Vietnam radio host in 1987's "Good Morning, Vietnam." Other critically acclaimed roles followed, including 1989's "Dead Poets Society," 1991's "The Fisher King," and 1997's "Good Will Hunting," which landed him an Oscar for his portrayal of a caring therapist to Matt Damon's angsty genius.

Robin also piggybacked from one moneymaker to the next as the face of comedy. He voiced the spastic, singing Genie in Disney's 1992 film "Aladdin" and played a cross-dressing nanny in 1993's "Mrs. Doubtfire" and a man trapped in a board game in 1995's "Jumanji."

Robin Williams could evidently do no wrong. But a series of commercial and critical flops followed - from the maudlin (1998's "Patch Adams") to the dark (2002's "Death to Smoochy") to the plain unwatchable (2009's "Old Dogs"). Meanwhile, his long-running issues with drugs and alcohol resurfaced, and after his family staged an intervention, he checked himself into a rehab facility in 2006. In recovery, he met his third wife, Susan Schneider, whom he wed in 2011. (He married first wife, Valerie Velardi, in 1978, and the two had a son, Zachary, now 35. They divorced in 1988, and the next year, he wed his son's nanny, Marsha Garces. The two were married for 19 years and had daughter Zelda, 28, and son Cody, 26.)

He was a "stimulus junkie," whose anxieties came from his work. "The line of work he was in bred anxiety and self-centered concerns. He would always say, 'You're only as good as your last performance,' " Susan says in the book.

The magical 1990s success eluded him as he jumped from one low-budget project to the next until CBS announced his return to the small screen in "The Crazy Ones," which premiered September 2013. He played Simon Roberts, an aging ad-agency founder, who must cede control of his business to his daughter.

But the magic wasn't there.

"Williams seems exhausted," one review read. "So is this show."

That's where the trouble began.

Robin began to complain about an array of symptoms: indigestion, trouble urinating, insomnia, loss of his sense of smell and heartburn. A slight tremor cropped up in his left hand, which was attributed to a shoulder injury.

Susan describes the avalanche of symptoms: "It was like playing whack-a-mole. Which symptom is it this month? I thought, is my husband a hypochondriac? We're chasing it and there's no answers, and by now we'd tried everything."

He dropped weight, his once booming voice became tremulous, and he stooped. Producers and colleagues noticed the change.

Pam Dawber, Robin's co-star from "Mork & Mindy," joined the cast of "The Crazy Ones" to raise ratings. On set, Dawber saw a deeply changed man from the riotous and often inappropriate (she says Robin groped and flashed her on set) man she had worked with decades before.

"I would come home and say to my husband, 'Something is wrong. He's flat. He's lost the spark. I don't know what it is,' " Dawber says in the book.

"I would come home and say to my husband, 'Something is wrong. He's flat. He's lost the spark. I don't know what it is.' "
- Pam Dawber, Williams' co-star on "Mork & Mindy" and "The Crazy Ones"

CBS canceled the show after one season as ratings dropped from a high of 15.5 million to just about 5 million by the finale.

Friends thought Robin was depressed over the cancellation, but other strange behaviors started to emerge that couldn't be so easily explained. He grew paranoid over a belief that people were stealing from him. On the set of "Night at the Museum," he suffered a severe panic attack and was placed on antipsychotic medication.

Billy Crystal described seeing his old friend after a four-month absence, finding him frail, skinny, and, most disconcerting, "uncharacteristically quiet."

When they said their goodbyes after dinner, Robin burst into tears.

"What's the matter?" Crystal asked.

"Oh, I'm just so happy to see you. It's been too long. You know I love you," Robin said.

On May 28, 2014, Robin was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative disorder that impairs motor functioning. Doctors assured him that they had drugs that could control the tremors and that he likely would have another "10 good years."

Robin kept his diagnosis close to the vest, sharing it only with his children, family members and inner circle.

"I never heard him afraid like that before," Crystal said. "This was the boldest comedian I ever met - the boldest artist I ever met. But this was just a scared man."

"I never heard him afraid like that before. This was the boldest comedian I ever met - the boldest artist I ever met. But this was just a scared man."
- Billy Crystal

To Robin, "it was the realization of one of his most deeply felt and lifelong fears," Itzkoff writes. In a 1991 interview with Playboy during the publicity tour for "The Fisher King," Robin discussed that latent fear two decades before it would touch him personally.

"There's that fear - if I felt like I was becoming not just dull but a rock, that I still couldn't spark, still fire off or talk about things, if I'd start to worry or got too afraid to say something . . . If I stop trying, I'd get afraid," Robin said.

Two decades after he spoke those words, Robin was clearly afraid.

Robin went on an apology tour, begging for forgiveness (where none was demanded) from his three children for the way he treated them when he was in the throes of a drug addiction. He asked comedian Dana Carvey to forgive him for stealing bits (an allegation that dogged Robin earlier in his career), though Carvey insisted that he hadn't.

Robin checked himself into a the Dan Anderson Renewal Center, a rehab facility in Minnesota, to be "cloistered on a campus where he could receive close supervision, and where he could meditate, do yoga and focus on further 12-step work that, it was hoped, would help him manage his illness."

But this wasn't enough - this was not a drug addiction, it was a degenerating brain illness. He didn't know it then, but there was little to be done.

Click here for more from the New York Post.

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How Robin Williams was being torn apart and couldn't fight back

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Robin Williams struggled to remember his lines. This was unusual for the hyperverbal, Oscar-winning actor, and it hit him hard in Vancouver in 2014 during the filming of "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb," the third movie in the successful family franchise. "He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day.

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Williams plays a head of advertising agency who works with his daughter as a business partner. The daughter has to babysit him. In 2013, the roles have changed, strikingly reflecting Williams' own life. Who once was taking care of the whole world with his films, is now in the need to be looked after due to his health issues.

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The Crazy Ones CBS - Trailer Robin Williams | New Show Promo

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"Playing dark characters (Insomnia, One Hour Photo) is good for an actor, but also for a person" - WIlliams

Williams was exploring the dark side of human nature which brought him closer to his own dark side. This surprising detour in his career trajectory can be seen as a mirror for Williams' struggle with health, addiction, and private life turmoil.

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"There is another Robin Williams, a lonely recluse hiding inside the extrovert. Williams is able to channel this furtive, secretive persona for roles that are far removed from Mork, Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin's Genie."

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The Final Cut Movie Review & Film Summary (2004) | Roger Ebert

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There is another Robin Williams, a lonely recluse hiding inside the extrovert. Williams is able to channel this furtive, secretive persona for roles that are far removed from Mork, Mrs. Doubtfire and Aladdin's Genie.

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The Final Cut (2004) Official Trailer #1 - Robin Williams Movie HD

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"Williams has the smooth, open face of a true believer, a man convinced of his own case. In this film and "One-Hour Photo," [...] Williams reminds us that he is a considerable dramatic talent [...] his serious films are almost always good ones."

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Insomnia Movie Review & Film Summary (2002) | Roger Ebert

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He looks exhausted when he gets off the plane. Troubles are preying on him. An investigation by internal affairs in Los Angeles may end his police career. And now here he is in--where the hell is this?--Nightmute, Alaska, land of the midnight sun, investigating a brutal murder.

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"Robin Williams plays Sy, another of his open-faced, smiling madmen, like the killer in "Insomnia." He does this so well you don't have the slightest difficulty accepting him in the role."

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One Hour Photo Movie Review & Film Summary (2002) | Roger Ebert

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"One Hour Photo" tells the story of Seymour "Sy" Parrish, who works behind the photo counter of one of those vast suburban retail barns. He has a bland, anonymous face, and a cheerful voice that almost conceals his desperation and loneliness. He takes your film, develops it, and has your photos ready in an hour.

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Good Will Hunting | Official Trailer (HD) Robin Williams, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck | MIRAMAX

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Williams' ability to improvise reaches its zenith in the character of Genie. Williams managed to use over 50 characters, all depicted in the film by the blue creature.

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Aladdin (1992) Voice Recording | Behind the Scenes

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Williams' performance as Estragon in the adaptation of Beckett's play confirmed the actor's ability to amalgamate comedy and drama.

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Robin Williams and Steve Martin in Waiting for Godot

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Clips from the documentary Waiting for Beckett

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Williams was a family-man, not only a good father, but also a good son, with a strong relationship with his mother.

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Superstars and Their Moms 1984 Robin Williams & Laurie Williams

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Jimmy Fallon remembering Williams as a "unique, one of a kind" comedian who was like "Muhammad Ali of comedy."

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Williams' widow in an essay about her husband's health disease

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Williams' widow in an essay about her husband's health disease

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In the essay Susan Schneider poignantly describes the case of her husband suicide and the period before, leading to Williams' death.
Williams was paranoid in the last months of his life.  The developing Lewy body dementia was shattering his mind.

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Williams' debut on Broadway was a big success which confirmed the actor's versatility. Williams was constantly trying to avoid labels.

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Show Clips: "Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo" on Broadway with Robin Williams

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"Once, years ago, Robin and I were walking on the Paramount lot near the set of our show “Mork and Mindy.” It was very late at night and we were talking and walking. Robin loved to stay up late and always had more energy than any person anywhere, in any room. I said to him that night, “Do you think we will ever grow up?” And he said without missing a beat, “I’m afraid if I ever grow up, I won’t be able to make a living.” Play was his passion and what drove him each day."
- Garry Marshall

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Investigation details | Remembering Robin Williams | Social media reaction
Update 8/14 11:27 a.m. Robin Williams was suffering from Parkinson's Disease
Robin Williams' wife Susan Schneider says in a statement that her husband had been suffering from early stage Parkinson's disease.

"Robin's sobriety was intact and he was brave as he struggled with his own battles of depression, anxiety as well as early stages of Parkinson's Disease, which he was not yet ready to share publicly," Schneider said in the statement.

Michael J. Fox, who has the disease and has been a vocal advocate for research, tweeted his own surprise at the revelation late Thursday:
https://twitter.com/realmikefox/status/500038871841644546
Read the full statement below:

"Robin spent so much of his life helping others. Whether he was entertaining millions on stage, film or television, our troops on the frontlines, or comforting a sick child - Robin wanted us to laugh and to feel less afraid.

"Since his passing, all of us who loved Robin have found some solace in the tremendous outpouring of affection and admiration for him from the millions of people whose lives he touched. His greatest legacy, besides his three children, is the joy and happiness he offered to others, particularly to those fighting personal battles.

"Robin's sobriety was intact and he was brave as he struggled with his own battles of depression, anxiety as well as early stages of Parkinson's Disease, which he was not yet ready to share publicly.

"It is our hope in the wake of Robin's tragic passing, that others will find the strength to seek the care and support they need to treat whatever battles they are facing so they may feel less afraid."

Previously: A day after Robin Williams died in an apparent suicide, the legendary comedian and actor's friends, colleagues and countless fans were left only with memories, heartache and questions.

Williams died from an apparent suicide by hanging at his home, the Marin County Sheriff's Department's Assistant Deputy Chief Coroner Keith Boyd said at a Tuesday press conference. He was found suspended with a belt around his neck wedged between the closet door and the door frame, Boyd said. He also had what were described as superficial wounds on the inside of his left wrist, with a pocket knife located nearby with what appeared to be blood on it.

Williams was last seen alive by his wife at approximately 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night, according to Boyd, but it's unknown when he went to bed. His wife left their home at 10:30 a.m., Boyd said. Robin Williams' personal assistant became concerned when he didn't answer the door according to Boyd, and the assistant managed to get into the room and found Williams having hanged himself.

The assistant called 911 at 11:55 a.m. and emergency personnel arrived on scene at 12 p.m., Boyd said, with Williams ruled dead at 12:02 p.m. A forensic investigation of Williams' body was conducted Tuesday morning, but the investigation is ongoing, Boyd said. Toxicology results will take two to six weeks, Boyd said.

"I would like to extend the condolences of the sheriff's office to the Williams family," Boyd said. "Mr. Williams had been seeking treatment for depression."

Boyd wouldn't discuss whether this was Williams' first suicide attempt or if there was a note.

Late-night talk show host Conan O'Brien received the news in the middle of taping Monday's episode. O'Brien, along with guests Will Arnett and Andy Richter, all of whom had worked with Williams in the past, took a moment to reflect:

Williams, known to friends as a sweet, kind soul, had long wrestled with addiction. The Associated Press provides a look back at that darker side:

Like many comedians, Williams often seemed driven by demons. He had a complicated personal life, suffered from depression and was treated for substance abuse, most recently earlier this summer. He did a few lines of cocaine with John Belushi on the last night of that comic's life.

A darkness seeped in during an interview with comedian Marc Maron in 2010, where Williams seemingly dismissed what would be a career highlight for many actors. "People say you're an Academy Award winner," he said. "The Academy Award lasted about a week and then one week later, people went, 'Hey Mork!'"

You can listen to Williams' full interview with Marc Maron below:

Remembering Robin Williams

Many who knew and worked with Williams remembered him as a brilliant improv comedian and a generous friend.

KPCC's Sanden Totten put together this audio tribute to Williams from KPCC callers:
Robin Williams audio tribute
His daughter, Zelda Williams, offered a quote that seemed to capture the loss and the bittersweet memory of the joy he brought to so many through his comedy:

Zelda released a longer statement Tuesday:

"My family has always been private about our time spent together. It was our way of keeping one thing that was ours, with a man we shared with an entire world. But now that's gone, and I feel stripped bare. My last day with him was his birthday, and I will be forever grateful that my brothers and I got to spend that time alone with him, sharing gifts and laughter. He was always warm, even in his darkest moments. While I'll never, ever understand how he could be loved so deeply and not find it in his heart to stay, there's minor comfort in knowing our grief and loss, in some small way, is shared with millions. It doesn't help the pain, but at least it's a burden countless others now know we carry, and so many have offered to help lighten the load. Thank you for that.

"To those he touched who are sending kind words, know that one of his favorite things in the world was to make you all laugh. As for those who are sending negativity, know that some small, giggling part of him is sending a flock of pigeons to your house to poop on your car. Right after you've had it washed. After all, he loved to laugh too...

"Dad was, is and always will be one of the kindest, most generous, gentlest souls I've ever known, and while there are few things I know for certain right now, one of them is that not just my world, but the entire world is forever a little darker, less colorful and less full of laughter in his absence. We'll just have to work twice as hard to fill it back up again."

Robin Williams' other children also released statements. From his son Zak:

"Yesterday, I lost my father and a best friend and the world got a little grayer. I will carry his heart with me every day. I would ask those that loved him to remember him by being as gentle, kind, and generous as he would be. Seek to bring joy to the world as he sought."

From his son Cody:

"There are no words strong enough to describe the love and respect I have for my father. The world will never be the same without him. I will miss him and take him with me everywhere I go for the rest of my life, and will look forward, forever, to the moment when I get to see him again."

His ex-wife and mother of his children Marsha Garces Williams also released a statement:

"My heart is split wide open and scattered over the planet with all of you. Please remember the gentle, loving, generous - and yes, brilliant and funny - man that was Robin Williams. My arms are wrapped around our children as we attempt to grapple with celebrating the man we love, while dealing with this immeasurable loss."

Take Two has put together a montage of some of Williams' great performances:

The Laugh Factory, where Williams had performed, changed its marquee to pay tribute to the comedian:

Sarah Michelle Gellar, who acted alongside Williams in the recent series "The Crazy Ones," said she will remember the experience forever. The Wrap shared her emotional statement:

This is without question, the hardest few words I have ever tried to write. My life is a better place because I knew Robin Williams. To my children he was "Uncle Robin," to everyone he worked with, he was the best boss anyone had ever known, and to me he was not just an inspiration but he was the Father I had always dreamed of having. There are not enough adjectives to describe the light he was, to anyone that ever had the pleasure to meet him. I will miss him everyday, but I know the memory of him will live on. And to his family, I thank them for letting us know him and seeing the joy they brought him.

Us Crazy Ones love you.

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Shawn Levy, who directed Williams in "Night at the Museum," had this to say:

I am shattered by the loss of my friend and collaborator Robin Williams. Onscreen and off, this was a formidable, incredible guy--generous in the best way: with his heart and humor, devoted to making others happy. Over his remarkable career, Robin moved us to tears; sometimes from laughter, sometimes from humanity, sometimes both in the same moment, a feat that few performers have equaled. I will miss Robin deeply but I will never stop treasuring the phenomenal, enduring work he gave to us all. Robin Williams was that rarest of things: a true and forever one of a kind.

The film's co-writer, Thomas Lennon, told KPCC in a statement, "I am devastated by the loss of my comedy hero, and I wish I could repay him for all the laughter he's given me."

Comedian David Steinberg:

Robin Williams and I went on stage together for six months last year playing theaters across the country. Besides seeing his brilliant improvisational mind in action every night was the pleasure in just getting to know him and his generosity and spirit.

He looked after Jonathan Winters and put him on his TV shows. He would drive to Santa Barbara weekly to make sure Jonathan was ok.

A comic genius looking after another comic genius. Robin looked after everyone. If only he would have looked after himself.

Garry Marshall, writer on the comedy series that presented one of Williams' earliest and best known roles - "Mork and Mindy" - shared several thoughts:

Once, years ago, Robin and I were walking on the Paramount lot near the set of our show "Mork and Mindy." It was very late at night and we were talking and walking. Robin loved to stay up late and always had more energy than any person anywhere, in any room. I said to him that night, "Do you think we will ever grow up?" And he said without missing a beat, "I'm afraid if I ever grow up, I won't be able to make a living." Play was his passion and what drove him each day.

I will never forget the day I met him and he stood on his head in my office chair and pretended to drink a glass of water using his finger like a straw. The first season of "Mork and Mindy" I knew immediately that a three-camera format would not be enough to capture Robin and his genius talent. So I hired a fourth camera operator and he just followed Robin. Only Robin. Looking back, four cameras weren't enough. I should have hired a fifth camera to follow him too.

Robin was hands-down a comedy genius and one of the most talented performers I have ever worked with in television or film. To lose him so young at the age of 63 is just a tragedy. I will forever be in awe of his timing, his talent and his pure and golden creativity. He could make everybody happy, but himself. He was my friend and it is rare that you ever have a friend that is also a genius.

Tom Shadyac, who directed Williams in "Patch Adams," recalled how much the actor embodied the character in that film:

"I think some of these things are divinely appointed, and the second I read the script - I had just finished the film 'Liar Liar.' I read the script when I was going on a quick vacation, and there was only one person that came to mind - Robin. And if Robin wasn't going to do the movie, I wasn't going to do the movie. He literally is Patch Adams. We toured a San Francisco hospital the first time I met him, when we were still talking about the role. And it was the role. He walked down the hallway, would disappear into rooms. Kids would be laughing. He'd be using instruments, improvisation. He just had such a huge heart and I know - you know, it's hard to talk about, but I know that huge heart also had huge pain. And it's the bipolarity of what we do in the arts. And he was just such a bright light, and that's why I felt it was important to talk to you and share that light today."

Shadyac said in an interview with KPCC's Nick Roman that the secret to letting that light shine through on screen was simple:

"Well, it's very easy with someone like Robin, because you let him know that you love him - literally, you love them, and that he is allowed to be fully himself. It didn't take me but a second to fall in love with Mr. Williams."

Shadyac said his heart broke when he heard the news of the actor's death: "I turned the news on and I just felt the light go out of the world, really. We'll miss him. And I think to honor him, we can just maybe be a little more of that light ourselves."

Not all of the reactions were stated eloquently, with some who appeared to disrespect Williams receiving negative reactions. Fox News's Shepard Smith, while covering Williams' death used the word "coward" to describe what Williams had done, which he later apologized for.

"To the core of my being, I regret it," Smith told Mediaite. "It just came out of my mouth. And I'm so sorry. And to anyone and their families who see that, I am sorry."

Minnesota Republican Party deputy chair Chris Fields received negative reaction for calling sadness over the death of Williams "how very 80's" and then urging voting for a Republican candidate to bring back the '80s Reagan economy, Raw Story reports.

At Williams' star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, many people have gathered to pay respects and leave flowers and other mementos.

"My hero died, so I'm really bummed out, I'm really sad. It's a big loss for the industry," McGhee Monteith told KPCC's Benjamin Brayfield.

Monteith said she was in Los Angeles to become an actor and remembered being inspired by his performance in "Mrs. Doubtfire." She said she thought, "Wow, if I can be a fraction as invested and incredible as this, then that's the life for me."

Angeleno Miguel Lopez said Williams was his favorite comedian and that when he heard the news of his death, he picked up pen and paper and drew him the way he remembered him when he saw him in person for the first time.

Christopher Mulrooney, a veteran of the Iraq War, recalled Williams doing a USO show just days after former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's capture in 2003. After Mulrooney was positioned to guard the stage, a passing moment became a vivid memory:

All the sudden this arm came around me, startled me. I turned around. It was Robin Williams. And I said, "Sorry, Mr. Williams."

He goes, "Oh, note to self, do not startle soldiers on guard duty."

I said, "Well no, I'm a big fan."

He goes, "Well, I'd hate to be on the other side of the barrel if you weren't."

And he said, "Actually, you don't look too big to me, you could actually pass as my son."

And I said, "Well, hey Dad, where's my allowance?"

And then it goes on, then says, "Well, how old are you now son?" At the time I was 24.

He goes, "Well, you have to do 24 years of chores before you can talk to me about allowance."

I said, "Well don't get me started on the child support you would owe."

And he's like, "Whoa, whoa, that would be a lot."

So we joked on about five minutes after our meeting there, and then we went into the chow hall later on. And he came in, I said "Hey, Dad! I saved you a seat."

And all the soldiers looked at me, looked at my name tag, and "Wait, your name's Mulrooney, not Williams."

I said, "Well, haven't you ever heard of stage names?'

So they all believed us for about a half hour in the chow hall that we were father and son.

Mulrooney said that despite the discussion over the way Williams died, people should "remember all the good stuff he's brought, all the humor he's brought to everybody in this world. And he did that for us in a time when we were going to be the most depressed - around the holidays. And he brought us humor and cheer. For that moment, we weren't in Iraq. We were at a stage watching a really cool show with Robin Williams."

Some Williams fans reacted by turning the bench from "Good Will Hunting" into a makeshift tribute.
Good WIll Hunting bench
Rudy Garcia-Tolson, a two-time Paralympic Gold Medalist Swimmer for Team USA, remembers meeting Williams at the Malibu Triathlon when Garcia-Tolson was only 8 years old.

"Not too many people know, but Mr. Robin was actually a really big cyclist," Garcia-Tolson, who's now 25, told Take Two. "He used to actually go out to the Tour de France to watch the race, just because he loved the sport." From Take Two:

It was that passion for riding, Garcia-Tolson said, that helped spark his longtime friendship with the entertainer. They came together during the San Diego triathlon challenge as part of "Team Braveheart." Garcia-Tolson, at 9 years old, swam the 1.2-mile part of the journey. Williams handled the 56-mile bike ride, and Scott Findlay, an Ironman vet, took care of the running.

The National Suicide Prevention hotline is 1-800-273-8255.

Reactions also poured in across Twitter:
This story has been updated.

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Robin Williams: Details of death released as family, fans mourn

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Investigation details | Remembering Robin Williams | Social media reaction Update 8/14 11:27 a.m. Robin Williams was suffering from Parkinson's Disease Robin Williams' wife Susan Schneider says in a statement that her husband had been suffering from early stage Parkinson's disease.

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2012 interview, showing how Williams has changed, not only due to ageing, but predominantly because of his illness.

Williams talking about his beginnings, most influental tv programmes, and advices to starting artists.

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Robin Williams - "Keep Going And Find That Thing You Love"

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"The comedy is so much cheaper than therapy"
Williams considered comedy not only as a way of dealing with his own anxieties, but also with the anxieties of the audience.

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Robin Williams on Carson w/ Jonathan Winters 1991

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1982 - "Robin Williams comes clean"

1988 - "I realized that the reason I did cocaine was so I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody."

Williams had a paradoxical reaction to drugs, they made him calm and alienated. They helped to escape the world he was afraid of.

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"When I was drinking, there was only one time even for a moment where I thought, 'Oh, f--k life'...And then my conscience said, 'Did you honestly just say f--k life?' I went, 'You know you have a pretty good life as it is right now. Have you noticed the two houses?' 'Yes.' 'Have you noticed the girlfriend?' 'Yes.' 'Have you noticed things are pretty good, even though you may not be working right now?' 'Yes.' 'K, let's put the suicide over here on discussable, let's leave that over here in the discussion area, we'll talk about that. First of all, you don't have the balls to do it. I'm not going to say it out loud...So can I put this other here in the what-the-f--k category?'""

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"Williams serving in an inspirational, paternal, or otherwise life-changing capacity would become a running theme from those who crossed paths with him over the years."

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Robin Williams the man and Robin Williams the myth

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Robin Williams the man and Robin Williams the myth

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"There were his self-deprecating stories about booze and drugs, a relapse in 2006 after 20 years of sobriety and an unequivocally dark thread running through much of his comedy and into his film choices. But his suicide on Aug. 11, 2014, is what turned the myth of Williams as America's quintessential funnyman on its head."

"Williams determinedly kept a piece of him walled off from the rest of the world, though some of the clues were hiding in plain sight. It was just that no one wanted to even guess where they might lead."

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Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Almost four years after his death, an unknowable void remains between Robin Williams the man and Robin Williams the myth.

Various projects are attempting to shine some light into that darkness, including Dave Itzkoff's recently published Robin and the new documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, premiering Monday on HBO.

Yet no matter how thorough the dive, and the book especially qualifies as a definitive account, it's not going to change the ongoing surreality of Williams' absence. Then there's the mountain of work he left behind, even the more forgettable stuff, that seemingly shows a man who's tearing into life with both hands, gorging himself silly and coming back for more.

Most casual and close observers of Williams knew that wasn't entirely the case. There were his self-deprecating stories about booze and drugs, a relapse in 2006 after 20 years of sobriety and an unequivocally dark thread running through much of his comedy and into his film choices. But his suicide on Aug. 11, 2014, is what turned the myth of Williams as America's quintessential funnyman on its head.

When the shocking news broke, the quest for clues as to why began. He had talked about depression (or joked about it or danced around it, which was more his style), but had he given any inkling whatsoever that he was losing the will to go on? His survivors included his wife of three years, Susan Schneider, and three grown children, Zak, Zelda and Cody, from his two previous marriages, as well as countless heartbroken friends and loved ones.

It wouldn't become widely known for more than a year that Williams was suffering from Lewy body dementia, a Parkinson's-like disease that attacks motor function and the mind, when he decided to take his own life by hanging himself in his bedroom at his Tiburon, Calif., home.

In fact, the 63-year-old entertainer was first misdiagnosed with Parkinson's several months prior, and that's the first version of events that presented itself in the days after his death.

"It was not depression that killed Robin," Susan told People magazine in November 2015. "Depression was one of let's call it 50 symptoms, and it was a small one." Meanwhile, the symptoms of Lewy body "present themselves like a pinball machine," she continued. "You don't know exactly what you're looking at."

"I've spent this last year trying to find out what killed Robin," Susan said. "To understand what we were fighting, what we were in the trenches fighting and one of the doctors said, 'Robin was very aware that he was losing his mind and there was nothing he could do about it."

That would be a devastating diagnosis for anyone, but compounded with an already fragile emotional state, an addictive personality and a life's work based on mental agility and rapid-fire talk and movement, it became an irreconcilable fate.

It also didn't immediately occur to us to think of Williams' career as having been in decline, a concept that only became clearer posthumously as you looked at the cluster of films he had spent the last 10 years doing.

Aside from a few bright spots such as his World's Greatest Dad, directed by his close friend Bobcat Goldthwait, he churned out mostly forgettable film fare when compared to his most enduring movies-all of which, including Dead Poets Society, Good Morning, Vietnam, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Birdcage, Aladdin and Good Will Hunting, for which he won an Oscar, were made in the 1980s and '90s. He stole enough scenes, whether it was playing Teddy Roosevelt in the Night at the Museum franchise or voicing a penguin in Happy Feet, and "branched out" enough- Law & Order: SVU had a real run turning beloved comedians into serial killers-to never leave the conversation. And his iconic roles were so iconic that they more than pulled their weight for multiple decades.

Plus, there was always the delight of his talk show appearances, mini performances every one of them, when he had one of his movies to promote-and he always had something going on. In addition to regularly showing up for Comic Relief with co-hosts Whoopie Goldberg and Billy Crystal, he had a hit with 2002's Robin Williams: Live on Broadway. His 2008 tour and subsequent HBO special Weapons of Self-Destruction -at the time only a political pun mixed with a perfectly common level of comedy-world self-deprecation-earned him his ninth Emmy nomination. (Williams said he considered naming the tour "Remember the Alimony," financial precariousness due to his two divorces and lavish lifestyle becoming a frequent topic in his later years.)

Adam Bettcher/Getty Images for Starkey Hearing Foundation

Williams' mind "was a museum of a lot of different rooms," Crystal told E! News at the Come Inside My Mind premiere earlier this month. "There was the funny room, there was a hilarity room, there was a quiet room, there was the sad room. There was just the empty room that nothing happened in that, I don't know, we would fill up with laughter, we would fill up with characters, we'd fill up with just talk as friends.

"As we got older, over the years," since starting Comic Relief in 1986, "when we really started to understand each other and how important friendship can be, that mind-he started to let it open up to me, and mine to him. From you mind, that leads to your heart, and that's where we ended up."

"He's a loss across every board," added Bob Saget, referring to Williams' wide-ranging body of work and the generosity that prevented him from turning down any performance if it was for a good cause. "It's incredibly sad he's gone."

One year after Williams' death, it still didn't seem real-not least because a handful of projects, including Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, were released posthumously.But fast forward to now and you're still just as inclined to want to forget that the actor with the perpetually smiling face (which may have been the reason why he made for an extra-creepy creep in thrillers like Insomnia and One Hour Photo), whose movies are still playing on loop up and down the cable guide, is gone.

David M. Russell/CBS

In the last year of his life Williams had returned to a starring role on TV for the first time since Mork and Mindy, playing Sarah Michelle Gellar's advertising-exec dad in the CBS sitcom The Crazy Ones, but the show was canceled in May 2014 after one season. During filming he lived alone in an apartment in Los Angeles.

"I'm kicking myself for not visiting him during that time," his son Zak Williams says in Itzkoff's Robin. "Because I think that was a very lonely period for him. In retrospect, I feel like I should have been there, spending time with him. Because someone who needs support was not getting the support he needed."

When the show was in the works, however, there was at least a lot of outward excitement and hopes for its success, considering its lead actors. "He is a legend," Gellar gushed to E! News in 2013. "Think about it: Greatest stand-up comic of all time, Academy Award winner and nicest man on the planet." "It's like if Gandhi did stand-up," Williams quipped.

When Williams died, Gellar joined the outpouring of former co-stars, friends and fans paying tribute, writing on social media, "My life is a better place because I knew Robin Williams. To my children he was Uncle Robin, to everyone he worked with, he was the best boss anyone had ever known, and to me he was not just an inspiration but he was the father I had always dreamed of having."

Williams serving in an inspirational, paternal, or otherwise life-changing capacity would become a running theme from those who crossed paths with him over the years. Ben Affleckcredited him with no less than jump-starting his entire career by agreeing to be in Good Will Hunting, which in addition to earning Williams a Best Supporting Actor Oscar made Best Original Screenplay winners out of Affleck and .

"Most people can't point to the moment that changed their life in such a dramatic way, but I can," Affleck told The Guardian in late 2016. "It was the moment that Robin decided to take a flyer on that movie. I'll always feel a huge debt to him although now I'll never get to repay it." What happened to Williams eventually was "one of these incredibly horrible diseases that destroys the mind and that was especially cruel to a guy like Robin who was always so brilliant and quick witted. And on a totally selfish level, he's the reason why I got successful in this business. If Robin hadn't done Good Will Hunting, Matt and I would still be sitting there today talking about how we could update that script."

Gellar again paid tribute to Williams last year on the third anniversary of his death, captioning a photo of them together, "Robin, we keep you with us this through all the gifts you have left, of which there are many. So today, watch one of his movies, listen to his comedy specials or quote your favorite joke. You were a comedy genius, a phenomenal actor and a great friend. We miss you everyday, but today especially."

Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Not that people were under the illusion that Williams was some sort of saint.

His past battles with substance abuse were well-documented, and plenty of people witnessed such behavior when he was coming up as a young comedian in the 1970s and early 1980s. As time went by he rarely slowed down long enough to give his co-stars or crew anything to worry about as far as his mental state was concerned. He was always taking on new projects, always trying to make people laugh, always showing up for others.

Drinking is "trying to fill the hole, and it's fear and you're kind of going, 'What am I doing to my career?'" Williams reminisced on Marc Maron's WTF podcast in 2011. "And you start thinking, 'You know what would be great at this point? Rehab!' But it's the idea of, just, you bottom out."

Instagram

He told People in July 2006 that becoming a father had inspired him to get sober. Williams and first wife Valerie Velardi welcomed Zachary Pym Williams, whom they called Zak, in 1983. He and second wife Marsha Garces, who had been Zak's nanny, welcomed daughter Zelda Rae in 1989 and Cody Alan in 1991.

"I wanted to be awake and aware [for the kids]," Williams said. "I did not want to miss anything that they do or say." Riffing on the bit he added to his act in 1986, he cracked, "You are pretty much on drugs anyway when you have a kid. You are awake. You are covered in s--t. But it's okay, you know?"

Even more poignantly in hindsight, Williams added, "If I had a choice to erase from my life something, I would leave all the memories of my children...even the memories when they misbehave because it is still extraordinary."

He fell off the wagon months later and checked into rehab in Oregon that October.

After his death, those who had experienced the force of life that was Williams in his prime, and even the diminished but still relentlessly on personality that he was in the last year of his life, started trying to make sense of the man they knew, or thought they knew, in relation to the person the actor really was.

Williams determinedly kept a piece of him walled off from the rest of the world, though some of the clues were hiding in plain sight. It was just that no one wanted to even guess where they might lead.

Talking about striking the right balance of honesty and humor onstage, how high to fly the freak flag, Williams said on WTF that his main fear was that his audience would irreversibly become wise to his issues. "As you know, how insecure are we, really? How desperately insecure, that made us do this for a living."

"'Do you love me? Temporarily? Kind of?'" he mimicked a performer's inner voice aching for acceptance.

Thomas Janssen, Pacific Coast News

But Williams said he never considered himself a morbid person, nor was he ever particularly consumed with death, even when he was abusing alcohol. "It's weird," he said. "When I was drinking, there was only one time even for a moment where I thought, 'Oh, f--k life'...And then my conscience said, 'Did you honestly just say f--k life?' I went, 'You know you have a pretty good life as it is right now. Have you noticed the two houses?' 'Yes.' 'Have you noticed the girlfriend?' 'Yes.' 'Have you noticed things are pretty good, even though you may not be working right now?' 'Yes.' 'K, let's put the suicide over here on discussable, let's leave that over here in the discussion area, we'll talk about that. First of all, you don't have the balls to do it. I'm not going to say it out loud...So can I put this other here in the what-the-f--k category?'"

That's what Robin Williams was so brilliant at doing, crafting narratives off the top of his head. Or at polishing off well-worn thoughts that he claimed no longer plagued him.

But overall, he insisted that he was in a good place, that the criticism that used to immobilize him earlier in his career no longer had that effect. "That's the ultimate freedom of letting go, in a weird way," he said.

Eerily, in a 2012 episode of Louie that was shot in black and white, Williams and show up at a desolate funeral for a man they didn't like. They part ways promising to attend each other's funeral, whoever went first.

"He wasn't feeling well, but he didn't let on to me all that was going on," Crystal told Itzkoff, remembering how Williams seemed toward the end of 2013. "As he would say to me, 'I'm a little crispy.' I didn't know what was happening, except he wasn't happy."

"He was sweet and wonderful and loving and sensitive," Williams' Mork & Mindy co-star Pam Dawber told Itzkoff, describing how he was when she guest-starred on The Crazy Ones to support her old friend's new venture. "But I would come home and say to my husband [ NCIS star Mark Harmon], 'Something's wrong. He's flat. He's lost the spark. I don't know what it is.'"

Henry Holt and Co.

Dawber said she sensed he was having health problems but didn't want to intrude.

Even when he was having trouble remembering his lines for Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, which he went back to filming in Vancouver after The Crazy Ones wrapped in February 2014, no one wanted to ask him about it.

"He wasn't in good shape at all," his makeup artist Cheri Minns told Itzkoff. "He was sobbing in my arms at the end of every day. It was horrible. Horrible. But I just didn't know." One night, thinking it would boost his spirits, Minns encouraged Williams to go out and do some stand-up at a local club. Instead, the suggestion made him cry, she said.

"He said, 'I don't know how anymore. I don't know how to be funny,'" she recalled.

Williams had done drama effectively over and over, but he had launched his career by being the funniest guy in the room and it's painful to think of this scene unfolding in real life-as are all the other scenes described in Robin and Come Into My Mind with regard to Williams' last days.

After getting the Parkinson's diagnosis on May 28, 2014, he told a small circle of people, including Crystal.

"I never heard him afraid like that before," Williams' longtime friend said. "This was the boldest comedian I ever met-the boldest artist I ever met. But this was just a scared man."

Because Williams knew that there was an expiration date-unknown, but looming-for the talents that had defined him for his entire life.

"Stand-up is survival," Williams is heard saying in Come Into My Mind. "For me that's jazz, that's what I have to do."

Those closest to him knew he was suffering, physically and mentally, but the end still came as an unexpected, horrifying blow.

"My family has always been private about our time spent together," daughter Zelda said in her first remarks after his death. "It was our way of keeping one thing that was ours, with a man we shared with an entire world. But now that's gone, and I feel stripped bare. My last day with him was his birthday, and I will be forever grateful that my brothers and I got to spend that time alone with him, sharing gifts and laughter."

The now 28-year-old actress has taken a number of breaks from social media since losing her dad, prompted to sign off for awhile when the commentary would get to be too much.

She also shared about her dad, back in 2014, "He was always warm, even in his darkest moments. While I'll never, ever understand how he could be loved so deeply and not find it in his heart to stay, there's minor comfort in knowing our grief and loss, in some small way, is shared with millions. It doesn't help the pain, but at least it's a burden countless others now know we carry."

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The Tragedy of Robin Williams: The Man, the Myth and Why His Death Remains So Hard to Process

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Rick Diamond/Getty Images Almost four years after his death, an unknowable void remains between Robin Williams the man and Robin Williams the myth. Various projects are attempting to shine some light into that darkness, including Dave Itzkoff's recently published Robin and the new documentary Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, premiering Monday on HBO.

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"I never heard him afraid like that before," Williams' longtime friend said. "This was the boldest comedian I ever met—the boldest artist I ever met. But this was just a scared man." - BILLY CRYSTAL

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Michael J. Fox 'Stunned' to Learn Robin Williams Had Parkinson's

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Actor, who went public with his battle with the degenerative disorder nearly 20 years ago, says he believes Williams' support for Fox's foundation predated his diagnosis

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A great example of intertextual mixture. Mork played by Robin Williams meets the "real Robin Williams" who is playing himself

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Williams used social media as a way of self-promotion, uploading pictures from sets and his private life, creating the "illusion of intimacy."

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@therobinwilliams * Instagram photos and videos

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417.7k Followers, 16 Following, 81 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from @therobinwilliams

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Williams's life was based on acting and making people laugh, the dark side of his person was meticulously hidden.

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Williams' lonely childhood as one of the causes of vulnerable personality

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Williams' lonely childhood as one of the causes of vulnerable personality

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Mother addicted to cocaine; the father's hyperrealism and the mother's terminal optimism definitely determined Williams' life and career.

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Since Robin Williams' sad and shocking suicide on August 11, friends, family, fellow stars, and even reporters have offered multiple explanations for the virtually inexplicable:
Why did he do it?
Some of the many possible factors which have been proposed are depression, alcohol, drugs, and Parkinsons Disease. But I see another potential factor which is never mentioned by anyone. A factor which falls between the cracks just as its sufferers do: Childhood Emotional Neglect (CEN).

CEN causes untold numbers of people to question the point of being alive. People with CEN feel empty and alone. But they were trained in childhood to keep their problems and needs out of view. Because they believe that their emotions and needs are a burden, they not only hide them from others; they even hide them from themselves.

CEN folks live in a prison of self-blame, self-doubt and emptiness. Yet they are unable to ask for help. Some can have secret suicidal thoughts throughout their lifetimes. Some act upon those thoughts, leaving family and friends forever baffled and pained.

Unlike medical disease, depression and substance abuse, CEN is not noticeable or diagnosable. It hides from everyone, even from the sufferer himself. People with CEN do not know the source of their pain. They only know their most deeply-held truth: they cannot let it be seen.

Since CEN is so invisible, how can anyone say that it was a factor in Robin's suicide? The truth is, I can only surmise. But I can say that several facts about Robin's childhood, combined with his behaviors as an adult, point to CEN. Here is a list of them:

1. Robin's father was a high-level GM executive and his mother a fashion model. He grew up surrounded by wealth and privilege, but not by attention. His parents were seldom home, and he was raised mostly by the maid, who was also his primary companion.

2. Robin's description of himself as a child: "short, shy, chubby and lonely." He described spending much of his childhood in the family's huge house, playing with toy soldiers, alone.

3. In 2009, Robin told People Magazine that in his childhood home, "the ideal child was seen, not heard." This mantra is a hallmark of the CEN family.

4. During a 2001 episode of Inside the Actor's Studio, Robin gave credit to his mother for helping to develop his humor because as a child, he worked to be funny as a way to get her attention.

5. All who knew Robin agreed that he kept his pain hidden, deep underground. Only those who spent considerable time with him or knew him well got glimpses of his true sadness and hurt. Carefully guarded pain: it's the stamp of CEN.

Many people with CEN never have suicidal thoughts or tendencies. But I have seen CEN powerfully and significantly degrade the quality of life of many admirable, lovable, worthy people.

No matter where we go, no matter what we do, our child selves live within us. We feel that child's joy, we feel that child's pain. We feel as lovable as that child felt.
The father who loves his two beautiful daughters, but who struggles to feel that love. The successful businesswoman who has everything but a feeling that she matters. The much-loved man who never feels that he belongs. The giving young woman who is there to help everyone, but who cannot ask for help. The beloved funnyman who has everything but who cannot let himself be truly seen.
These are the many faces of Childhood Emotional Neglect.

Whether Robin grew up with CEN or not, let us make sure that we learn something from this loss. Let us break the silence that we were taught as children. Let us all stand up and do what Robin, sadly, could not.

Let us pay attention to our own secret pain, and reach out to those whose hidden pain we see. Let us take a chance and talk, and let ourselves be known.

To learn more about CEN, how it contributes to suicidal thoughts, and whether it may be at work in your life, Take The Childhood Emotional Neglect Questionnaire. It's free.

Robin Williams and Childhood Emotional Neglect

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overcome your childhood emotional neglect

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Robin Williams and Childhood Emotional Neglect

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Since Robin Williams' sad and shocking suicide on August 11, friends, family, fellow stars, and even reporters have offered multiple explanations for the virtually inexplicable: Why did he do it? Some of the many possible factors which have been proposed are depression, alcohol, drugs, and Parkinsons Disease.

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The children starring in Mrs. Doubtfire about Williams as their second dad

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Comic genius Robin Williams, who brought joy to millions, was also like a dad to child co-stars in one of his best films.

Tragic Williams took his role as matronly housekeeper Mrs Doubtfire to heart by offering advice to his on-screen children between takes.

The late actor, who had battled alcohol and cocaine, openly talked to them about the dangers of drugs.

And Lisa Jakub, talking as Mrs Doubtfire celebrates its 25th anniversary, took his warnings to heart.

She played his daughter Lydia and is still devastated by his 2014 suicide, aged 63, after he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease.

Lisa, now a 39-year-old writer, recalls him telling her and co-star Matt Lawrence, then 13, to avoid drugs as they would ruin their lives.

Lisa said: "Robin said this to both Matt and I - we took this to heart. He was continually saying 'Don't ever do drugs, they will ruin your life'.

"That was pretty impactful. I never did drugs."

Williams also talked to Lisa about the anxiety and depression which plagued his life.

She said: "I was so appreciative and in awe of him because he was so open and honest and candid with me about his own struggles with substance abuse and depression.

"It truly did inspire me to be more open and honest about those things.

"It meant so much to me at age 14 that this adult really talked to me like I was a peer. I felt less alone, less ashamed and more like I could be more honest about the things that were going on with me."

Lisa also saw another side of the zany Oscar-winning star.

She said: "He had a very quiet, introspective side and was very sweet and almost a little shy. I always loved being able to see that side of him."

In Mrs Doubtfire, Williams plays a bitter divorced actor who disguises himself as a female housekeeper to spend time with his kids. Earlier this month Lisa met some of the comedy's co-stars - Pierce Brosnan, 65, Matt Lawrence, 38, and Mara Wilson, 31 - for a TV interview to mark the anniversary.

She said they all remembered how close they had been on set, like a family. She recalled their favourite scene was when Mrs Doubtfire pelts Pierce's character Stu with fruit.

Laughing, she said: "All of us have such affection for the 'run-by fruiting scene'. The fruit did actually hit him on the head on the second take."

After Williams' death, an examin-ation of his brain tissue suggested he suffered from diffuse Lewy body dementia. His wife Susan Schneider called the disease "the terrorist inside my husband's brain".

She said: "Robin was losing his mind and he was aware of it. He kept saying, 'I just want to reboot my brain'."

Lisa said: "I still have a hard time talking about him and his death because it really is just so heartbreaking to realise he was struggling so much.

"He had a tremendous impact on my life."

Lisa has written two books, You Look Like That Girl and Not Just Me: Anxiety, Depression And Learning To Embrace Your Weird. She quit Hollywood at 22, partly because she was preyed on by men in the industry. She said it was good women feel empowered through the #MeToo movement.

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Robin Williams' Mrs Doubtfire child co-stars say he was like a father to them

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Comic genius Robin Williams, who brought joy to millions, was also like a dad to child co-stars in one of his best films. Tragic Williams took his role as matronly housekeeper Mrs Doubtfire to heart by offering advice to his on-screen children between takes.

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Williams was not faithful to his first wife, yet, as she recalls, she understood that he loved women, and she let him love them.

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Robin Williams ' first wife Valerie Velardi has spoken for the first time about how she had to tolerate his infidelity during their 10-year marrage.

In a new TV documentary about Williams, who died in 2014, she said when he became famous he found the temptation to stray too hard to resist.

Valerie said: "He loved women. Absolutely loved women. And I got it.

"I understood and I wanted him to have that. But I also wanted him to come home."

Williams was a broke, would-be actor when he met Valerie in San Francisco in 1976.

In Robin Williams: Come Inside my Mind, she revealed: "He was bartending. He had a French accent, offered me a drink, chatted me up and was absolutely delightful.

"He asked me for a ride home. He was speaking French and I was teasing him and we had a kiss.

"And I just knew I was going to see him again."

Williams' comedy busking act caught the attention of the creator of hit TV show Happy Days, who, it is revealed in the documentary, cast him as an alien in an episode in February 1978 because his Star Wars fan son wanted one in the show.

Williams was such a hit that by the September he was starring with Pam Dawber in Mork & Mindy, a spin-off created around him.

The role rocketed him to fame and he was soon hanging out with Robert De Niro, Andy Warhol, Richard Pryor and John Belushi in Los Angeles.

In 1983, Valerie gave birth to their son Zak, who features in the documentary, telling how devastated he was by his father's suicide.

He reveals he tried to get over the shock by jumping into the sea in San Francisco Bay, where his father's ashes were scattered.

It was the idea of Bobcat Goldthwait, Robin's best friend.

Zak, 35, said: "In the weeks following my father's passing it was really difficult to feel anything. Everything was raw and it was hard to put everything together.

"Bobcat came and visited. We felt it would be a good idea to jump in the ocean. And it turned out to be a really nice thing to do.

"It was good to jump in and know that my father's presence and spirit was around."

Williams had been misdiagnosed with Parkinson's disease a few months before he died at the age of 63.

His rapid-thinking mind had been ambushed by what an autopsy would identify as a severe case of Lewy body dementia.

Memory loss, extreme anxiety and difficulty reasoning would have been hard to accept for a man whose lightning wit had earned him worldwide fame.

Zak said: "Dad's pathos was to entertain and please. He felt when he wasn't going that, he was not succeeding as a person.

"And that was always hard to see. Because in so many senses he was the most successful person I know. And he didn't always feel that."

His parents split up when Williams began a relationship with his son's nanny, Marsha Garces.

The documentary tells how Williams was brought up in a well-off household in Lake Forest, Ilinois.

His father was an area manager for Ford Motor Cars, but he had a solitary childhood.

He said: "I was kinda lonely. There were no friends around.

"I was an only child, raised by a maid for a long time."

But in fact he was not an only child at all. His family hid a secret that his father Robert had a son, Todd, now 80, from a first marriage, who was being brought up with his ex-wife.

And his mother Laura also had a son, McLaurin, being raised by his maternal grandparents as their own.

McLaurin, now 71, did not meet Robin until he was eight years old. He said: "Growing up by yourself, you could either go nuts or have a very comedic attitude towards it.

"When you're at school and you don't have many friends, that's a way of circumventing. But there's a flip side to that - a depressive side of that kind of personality too. There's a strong element of that in our family."

Robin Williams: Come Inside my Mind, Sky Atlantic, tomorrow, 9pm.

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Robin Williams' first wife says she 'wanted' him to have other women in his life

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Robin Williams ' first wife Valerie Velardi has spoken for the first time about how she had to tolerate his infidelity during their 10-year marrage. In a new TV documentary about Williams, who died in 2014, she said when he became famous he found the temptation to stray too hard to resist.

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The article touches upon the off screen persona of Robin Williams, focusing on his role of devoted dad, a figure which transcended the real life and established Williams as a type of protective and good-hearted.

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(CNN) -- Who was Robin Williams?

In the wake of his death from an apparent suicide, that question looms large as fans and friends try to grasp how someone who brought so much happiness to the world could leave it under a cloud of such despair.

It's the dichotomy of fame in that while a celebrity can be so well-known there are parts of their lives and selves they never share with the public.

And while only his loved ones truly knew the private aspects of the Oscar-winning actor whose performances could elicit tears as easily as they could giggles, Williams did allow us to see how multifaceted he could be.

These are just some of them:
The devoted dad
The last image Williams left for the world on his Instagram was a poignant one: a black and white image of the actor holding his then toddler daughter with the caption "#tbt and Happy Birthday to Ms. Zelda Rae Williams! Quarter of a century old today but always my baby girl. Happy Birthday @zeldawilliams Love you!" He posted a similar image earlier in honor of his son Zachary's birthday.

He often spoke lovingly of being father to the pair and another son, Cody. "My children give me a great sense of wonder," Williams said. "Just to see them develop into these extraordinary human beings."
The prankster
Sure he was funny on-screen, but Williams also liked to pull a leg or two in real life. He told fans during a 2013 Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session that he once walked into a San Francisco sex shop in full Mrs. Doubtfire make-up and tried to buy a sex toy.

"And the guy was about to sell it to me until he realized it was me -- Robin Williams -- not an older Scottish woman coming in to look for a very large [sex toy] and a jar of lube," Williams said. "He just laughed and said "what are you doing here" and I left."
The husband
The actor was married three times. His union with Valerie Velardi from 1978 to 1988 produced his son Zachary. Williams was married to Marsha Garces from 1989 to 2010, with whom he had Zelda and Cody. In 2011, he married graphic designer Susan Schneider.

The breakups were costly for Williams, he told Parade magazine.

"Divorce is expensive. I used to joke they were going to call it 'all the money,' but they changed it to 'alimony.' It's ripping your heart out through your wallet. Are things good with my exes? Yes. But do I need that lifestyle? No."
The friend
There was a good reason Williams has been so deeply mourned by his show business colleagues. He showed himself to be incredibly loyal to friends such as Jay Leno and the late Christopher Reeve, who came to love Williams before he was famous.

After Williams' death, Leno said, "I saw him on stage that very first time he auditioned at the Improv in Los Angeles, and we have been friends ever since. It's a very sad day."
Gilbert Gottfried: Robin Williams' generous heart
It was while students at Juilliard in New York City that Williams and Reeve -- who would find fame in the role as Superman in the '70s and '80s -- cemented a bond. In fact, after Reeve was paralyzed in a riding accident, he credited Williams with making him laugh again.

Reeve was about to undergo a serious operation when Williams showed up dressed in surgical scrubs and speaking in a Russian accent, saying he needed to do a rectal exam. "For the first time since the accident, I laughed," Reeve said. "My old friend had helped me know that somehow I was going to be OK."
The mentee
While so many younger actors looked to Williams for inspiration, he was a a huge fan of the late comedian Jonathan Winters, whom Williams discovered as a child while watching Jack Paar on "The Tonight Show" with his father. Years later, an adult Williams would share the "Tonight Show" stage with Winters and cast Winters to play his son on his hit show "Mork & Mindy." When Winters died in 2013, Williams wrote a moving appreciation of his mentor for The New York Times.

"No audience was too small for Jonathan," Williams wrote. "I once saw him do a hissing cat for a lone beagle."
The edgy actor
His skills as a zany funny man were legendary, but Williams could also deliver riveting dramatic performances.

2002 was especially a break-out year for him as he played a killer in the film "Insomnia" and a stalker photo technician in "One Hour Photo." Williams not only changed his look for the latter to play Seymour "Sy" Parrish but he said in an interview that to prepare, he "watched some interviews with serial killers -- 'Psychotics Through the Ages.' It's a collectible tape from Time-Life Books. But basically, it was using the material and extrapolating from there."

It's a role that still astonishes.

"Williams' finely calibrated performance was utterly free of the tics and affectations that are so tempting to someone who has come to count on and crave the audience's love," Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday writes. "Rather than seek his fans' approval with the actorly equivalent of ingratiating winks, Williams was willing to completely inhabit a character who was somehow terrifying, pathetic, creepy and vulnerable all at once."
The philanthropist
As one of the co-hosts for Comic Relief's debut in 1986, he helped raise both funding for and awareness about the homeless. But that was just one of the many charities to which Williams gave his time and resources.
Robin Williams' legacy: A big heart for charity
"Robin came from a family with money -- he was brought up with a silver spoon in his mouth, and I think he felt so blessed that he wanted to do something for people who weren't brought up like that," Comic Relief founder Bob Zmuda told The Los Angeles Times.
The sports enthusiast
Williams involvement with sports went beyond that time he dressed up a as Denver Broncos' cheerleader for an episode of "Mork & Mindy."
Robin Williams: His passion for cycling
Die-hard fans remember his hilarious stand-up routine about the origins of golf, and he would often end up on the cam at various sporting events. The actor was a close personal friend of then-professional cyclist Lance Armstrong, who he would join in training.
The sci-fi geek
Perhaps it was playing an alien that did it.

It turns out that Williams was a bit of a sci-fi geek who when asked his favorite book said, "Oh my God, Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy. It's one of the greatest books of all time, and the greatest character is The Mule."

As shocking as his death has been, Williams was open about his issues with substance abuse and stints in rehab. He blamed his relapse into drinking for helping to end his second marriage.

"You know, I was shameful, and you do stuff that causes disgust, and that's hard to recover from," Williams told The Guardian in 2010. "You can say, 'I forgive you' and all that stuff, but it's not the same as recovering from it. It's not coming back."
Robin Williams and the dark side of comedy
Even then it seemed that Williams was trying to find his way. Asked whether he was happier in his life, he responded "I think so. And not afraid to be unhappy. That's OK too. And then you can be like, all is good. And that is the thing, that is the gift."
Complete coverage of Robin Williams Videos: The world according to Robin Williams 7 Robin Williams movies that made your childhood
CNN's Todd Leopold contributed to this story.

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Robin Williams: The man beyond the screen

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(CNN) -- Who was Robin Williams? In the wake of his death from an apparent suicide, that question looms large as fans and friends try to grasp how someone who brought so much happiness to the world could leave it under a cloud of such despair.

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In the stand-up called "Weapons of Self Destruction," Williams is touching upon his personal problems.

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Robin Williams weapons of self destruction

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In one of his shows Williams said that Australians are "English rednecks." The joke provoked anger in Australia and created a domino effect for the prime minister of Australia attacked the state of Alabama.

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During an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, he said it was an "unusual country", adding: "If Darwin had landed in Australia, he'd have gone, 'I'm wrong - I don't know what I was thinking'."

Williams, 58, went on to joke about Australian rules football, which he likened to "rugby with a thong".

The comments prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to respond on a Sydney radio show.

"I think Robin Williams should go and spend a little time in Alabama before he frames comments about people being particularly redneck," he said.

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Robin Williams claims Australians are 'English rednecks'

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During an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman, he said it was an "unusual country", adding: "If Darwin had landed in Australia, he'd have gone, 'I'm wrong - I don't know what I was thinking'." Williams, 58, went on to joke about Australian rules football, which he likened to "rugby with a thong".

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This kind of exposure proves how thin is the line between Robin Williams, the star and Robin Williams, a real person.

Talking about how he felt when he started to be extremely popular due to "Mork & Mindy"

"It is surreal because all of a sudden you go from no one knowing you to everyone knowing you."

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Williams jokes about his problems with alcohol;
comedy as a natural high;

Even when talking about his family, Williams always joke, always mix seriousness with humour.

"What role do you consider most representational of your own personality?"

"Different things. This one (Keating in Dead Poets Society) represents more of my own philosophy. Good Morning, Vietnam represents more of my persona just effective that the two sides; of performing and non-performing. And an HBO represents <the darker side, the psyche that comes out>. Those three are what represents me."

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Robin Williams Interview on Donahue in 1989

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William gives another of his entertaining interviews. In the promotional appearance in David Letterman's show, Williams performs plenty of voices and characters, proving that his public life is defined by being constantly "on."

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Robins Williams on LATE NIGHT with DAVID LETTERMAN. Dead Poets Society. 1989

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About Williams' generosity which has been revealed after his death

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Conan Remembers Robin Williams, The Best Talk Show Guest In The World

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1988 - about how Mork & Mindy paved the way for his further career.

Cocaine: "For me, it was like a sedative, a way of pulling back from people and from a world that I was afraid of."

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Robin Williams: The Rolling Stone Interview

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In a 1988 cover story, Robin Williams discusses 'Good Morning, Vietnam' and his battles with cocaine and alcohol.

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Williams opening about his alcohol addiction; his road from comedy workshop (1976), comedy clubs and improvs to the hills and drugs; relapse in Alaska, recovery, family that drove him to stop; comedy stage as a relief from being a "celebrity."
Relationship with his parents that defined who he was; the "second chances" like the heart surgery - "they open you up, break the armor." About one moment when he said "fuck life," a moment that he put in the "what the fuck" category. Also, about living as a "non-celebrity" kind of star, outside the fuss and bustle - "I don't need it"

This kind of confessional interviews allows the star to invite the audience to his/her privacy. Although not an exhibitionist, Williams possibly felt obliged to explain some details determining his public persona.

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WTF with Marc Maron - Robin Williams Interview

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"The encounter with Koko was just one of many efforts Williams made over the years on behalf of wildlife. In 2011, the actor appeared with other celebrities in a TakePart video to call attention to the annual slaughter of dolphins at the cove in Taiji, Japan, where the few survivors are sold to zoos and water parks."

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Koko the Gorilla with Robin Williams.mp4

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CNN material on Williams' health and addiction problems leading to his eventual suicide

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Robin Williams On Depression In His Own Words   14082014

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Williams constantly made fun of his own deficiencies or idiosyncrasies. Here, he jokes about the abundance of hair on his body.

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Robin Williams on The Graham Norton Show - BBC Two

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Increase in suicides the months after the
death of Robin Williams in the US

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Increase in suicides the months after the
death of Robin Williams in the US

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Almost every interview with Robin Williams turned out to be the comedian's another show

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Almost every interview with Robin Williams turned out to be the comedian's another show

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One of the comments under the video:  "He was the personification of happiness."

People saw Williams as the funniest and the happiest man in the world.

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Robin Williams - Parkinson interview [2002]

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"Listen, I'm an alcoholic and all I ever needed was one bar."

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Robin Williams Helps Matt Damon with His Monologue

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Jimmy Kimmel Live - Robin Williams Helps Matt Damon with His Monologue SUBSCRIBE to get the latest #KIMMEL: http://bit.ly/JKLSubscribe Watch the latest Mean Tweets: http://bit.ly/MeanTweets8 Connect with Jimmy Kimmel Live Online: Visit the Jimmy Kimmel Live WEBSITE: http://bit.ly/JKLWebsite Like Jimmy Kimmel Live on FACEBOOK: http://bit.ly/JKLFacebook Follow Jimmy Kimmel Live on TWITTER: http://bit.ly/JKLTwitter Follow Jimmy Kimmel Live on INSTAGRAM: http://bit.ly/JKLInstagram About Jimmy Kimmel Live: Jimmy Kimmel serves as host and executive producer of Emmy nominated "Jimmy Kimmel Live," ABC's late-night talk show.

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Williams underwent a rehab in 2006 after a relapse which initiated his further depression and health problems.

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Williams talking in details about his drugs and alcohol addictions and how the heart surgery he underwent in 2009 helped him to feel alive again.

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Robin Williams: 'I was shameful, did stuff that caused disgust - that's hard to recover from'

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His new film, World's Greatest Dad, is a glorious return to form. But a mournful Robin Williams would rather talk about his battle with drugs and alcohol - and recovering from heart surgery

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Steven Spielberg recalls the traumatic time during the shooting of Schindler's List. Williams helped him to get trough this tough and depressing period by cheering him up in phone conversations. Spielberg describes Williams as the kindest person ever.

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Making the 1993 drama Schindler's List was traumatic for Steven Spielberg-but the director could always count on Robin Williams to make him laugh. At a 25th anniversary screening and panel about the film at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Oscar winner warmly reminisced about the late comedian, whom Spielberg befriended during the making of Hook, released two years before the Holocaust epic. Williams, Spielberg said, was keenly aware of the toll Schindler's was about to take on his friend-so he made it a habit to regularly call Spielberg and cheer him up during the brutal shoot in Poland.

"Robin knew what I was going through," Spielberg said. The comedian would call him once a week, always at the same time. "He would do 15 minutes of stand-up on the phone. I would laugh hysterically . . . he'd always hang up on you on the loudest, best laugh you'd give him. Drops the mic, that's it."

Stories about Williams's phone calls have long been part of the lore of Schindler's List, which was represented at the Tribeca panel by Spielberg, Sir Ben Kingsley, Liam Neeson, Embeth Davidtz, and Caroline Goodall, and moderated by Janet Maslin of The New York Times.

Back in 2014, Williams himself confirmed rumors of the calls while answering a fan question during a Reddit A.M.A.

"I think I only called him once, maybe twice," Williams said. "I called him when I was representing People for the Valdheimers Association. A society devoted to helping raise money to help older Germans who had forgotten everything before 1945. I remember him laughing and going 'thank you.'"

Williams wasn't the only one helping Spielberg get through the making of Schindler's, though. During the panel, Spielberg noted that the cast and crew also "watched a lot of Saturday Night Live" to wind down after grueling days on set. At the time, Spielberg also had to make time to approve finishing touches on Jurassic Park, a film he shot earlier in the year. But watching footage of giant dinosaurs didn't provide the same relief or distraction as a stand-up set from Williams. Spielberg actually came to resent the film-in the moment, anyway, when compared to the dramatic work he was currently doing.

Schindler's List, a devastating retelling of the Holocaust and the heroic life of Oskar Schindler, was so realistic that it had a strong psychological impact on the filmmaker, as well as its cast. While shooting the scene where the female characters are marched into what turns out to be an actual shower-though they believe it will be a gas chamber-two actresses had breakdowns, and couldn't resume filming for days afterward, Spielberg recalled. The director also cited the horrifying health-action scene, in which the characters had to strip naked and be judged by Nazi doctors, as "probably the most traumatic day of my entire career."

"There was trauma everywhere," Spielberg said. "And we captured the trauma. You can't fake that."

There was also trauma behind the scenes, the director said. Spielberg remembered seeing fresh swastikas painted on building walls along the cast and crew's route to work, and an older Polish woman who happened to live nearby telling Ralph Fiennes, who was dressed in his character's Nazi uniform, that she missed the days when the actual Nazi soldiers were "protecting" the community. The cast also recalled the night when an anti-Semitic German businessman went up to actor Michael Schneider at a bar and asked him if he was Jewish.

"Michael, in shock, said yes," Kingsley remembered. The man then "mimed a noose around his neck . . . and pulled it tight. And I stood up."

"You did more than stand up," Spielberg said, noting that Kingsley actually "took him right to the ground."

In stark contrast to that swirling cruelty, Neeson, who played the title role, recalled the times he and Kingsley would wait up for some of their Jewish cast members after particularly arduous days, doling out hugs and free drinks. "Those were lovely evenings," he said.

After its release, Schindler's List would go on to win seven Oscars, including best picture and best director. Spielberg later set up the U.S.C. Shoah Foundation, a nonprofit that has recorded thousands of stories of Holocaust survivors. At the screening, the filmmaker actually sat down to watch his film with an audience for the first time in years, and said he came away feeling immense pride at his achievement. Goodall, who marveled at the film's beauty all these years later, perhaps said it best: "Every scene was a tiny masterpiece."

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How Robin Williams Helped Steven Spielberg Get Through Schindler's List

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Making the 1993 drama Schindler's List was traumatic for Steven Spielberg-but the director could always count on Robin Williams to make him laugh. At a 25th anniversary screening and panel about the film at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Oscar winner warmly reminisced about the late comedian, whom Spielberg befriended during the making of Hook, released two years before the Holocaust epic.

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Walt Whitman's poem has become the main factor establishing Williams' character as a compass for the young boys. Yet, Williams's role was also a compass for many real people. After his death, a myriads of them were saying goodbye with these words.

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Robin Williams impressioning Marlon Brando

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Robin Williams impressioning Marlon Brando

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Robin Williams Talks About Marlon Brando

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He was a comic genius who had only one speed - full throttle. From the moment he burst into our lives as an alien on Happy Days, he amazed us with a range of talent that left us breathless. Yet, behind the manic shtick of Robin Williams was a man who was deeply plagued by depression. He had other demons, such as alcohol and cocaine. Still he kept us entertained to the very end, which made it all the more unfathomable to his legion of fans and admirers when he took his life, at the age of 63.

Robin McLaurin Williams came into the world on July 21st, 1951. Born at St. Luke's Hospital in Chicago, Illinois he was the only child of Laurie and Robert Williams. The family was wealthy, with Robert being a senior executive at the Ford Motor Company. Laurie was a former model and part-time actress.

Much of Robin's formative years were spent alone in the huge mansion that was his home. In order to cope with his loneliness he created characters and conversations in his head. He was an overweight child, which led to bullying at school. The sixth grade, he later recalled, was the most difficult year of his life. Many days he went home crying, after constant name calling and physical harassment. Each day was a torment for him, with the only friends the ones he created in his imagination. The hardship of these early years brought on a deep seated state of depression that Robin was to grapple with for the rest of his life.

Robin began to use comedy as a defense mechanism. It started with his mother. Laurie had a very sharp wit and would often use humor, laced with sarcasm, to communicate with her son. In order to connect with her, Robin had to make his mother laugh. It wasn't good enough to be Robin; he had to be funny Robin.

By the time he was 16, the family had relocated to Tiburon, California where Robin attended Redwood High School. It was the late sixties, and the straight laced Robin found himself in the middle of a counterculture that revolved around drugs and sex. He was able to loosen up and, after dabbling with marijuana, found himself fitting in for the first time.

It was at Redwood High that Robin stumbled upon the drama department. He had already perfected his comedic veneer, quickly establishing a reputation as the class clown. He fell in love with the idea of improv performance, his comedic personality slowly emerging through drama classes.

At the same time, Robin got involved in wrestling and soccer, proving to be an accomplished athlete. Yet, by the time he graduated college in 1969, he was voted by his classmates as the 'least likely to succeed.' Not surprisingly he was also voted 'funniest student.'

After graduation, Robin attended Claremont Men's College, his sights set on a career in political science. Before long, however, he was spending more time in the college theater than in lecture rooms. He won the coveted role of Fagin in the College's production of Oliver, turning in a stellar performance that made it clear that he was destined for the limelight.

Leaving behind his diplomatic ambitions, Robin enrolled in a community college theater program. During classes he would often improvise, leaving his classmates and teachers in fits of laughter. After three years of honing his craft, he was offered the opportunity of a lifetime - a full scholarship to the Juilliard School of Performing Arts in New York City. Williams was one of only two students accepted into the 1973 advance program at Juilliard. The other was future superman actor, Christopher Reeve.

Reeve, who would become a close friend, recalled his first impressions upon meeting Williams:

He wore tie-dyed shirts with tracksuit bottoms and talked a mile a minute. I'd never seen so much energy contained in one person. 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 class and hallways. To say that he was 'on' would be a major understatement.

"I'd never seen so much energy contained in one person. He was like an untied balloon that had been inflated and immediately released." Christopher Reeves on meeting Robin Williams

At Juilliard, Robin astounded his teachers and fellow students alike. He was able to take on the persona of characters with ease, trading out one accent or dialect for another like he was born to do it.

However, Robin was frustrated at Juilliard. He just didn't fit in. After two years, his teachers told him that there was nothing more that they could teach him. One of his instructors considered Robin to be a genius who was not being properly served by the school's conservative and classical training style.

He left Juilliard in 1976, ready to launch himself on the world. His first stop was the stand up circuit on the West Coast.

Robin Williams, the Comic

Robin's first break into the realms of comedy came at a club in the San Francisco Bay Area. His first gig was at the Holy City Zoo, where he also spent time tending bar. These early sets were frenetic, bordering on psychotic. No-one had ever seen anything quite like Robin Williams. He played a collection of edgy characters including Reverend Oral Satisfaction. His early stand-up was influenced by the likes of Lenny Bruce, Peter Sellers and Jonathan Winters. His manic edge, quick fire ad-lib routines and off-the -wall physical comedy proved a hit and he soon established a loyal following.

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time." Robin Williams

Robin loved the immediate feedback that came from stand-up, and it was something that he would continue to do right through his career. Despite the apparent ease of his performances, he actually found stand-up very stressful. Underneath the cloak of his act, he was an intensely shy man. He once said that he started using drugs and alcohol as a crutch to combat his stage nerves.

In 1977, Williams moved to Los Angeles where he began performing at the Comedy Club. It was here that he was discovered by TV producer George Schlatter who offered him a spot on a revival of the old 60's show Laugh In. The show didn't survive, but for Williams it established a foothold into a career in television. He became a semi-regular cast member on The Richard Pryor Show, while also continuing to perform stand-up.

It was an appearance on The Richard Pryor Show that brought Williams to the attention of Gary Marshall, the producer of the hit sit-com Happy Days. After five seasons, the scriptwriters were seriously running out of ideas (though they hadn't yet 'jumped the shark'). They decided to do an episode taking off the 1960's sci-fi comedy My Favorite Martian. The episode was called My Favorite Orkan and called for the casting of an actor to play an alien from the land of Ork. Marshall though that Williams might be the man for the job.

In what has gone down as possibly the most brilliant audition in TV history, Robin entered the room and immediately sat in the chair on his head. He proceeded to do his lines, and then broke into an inspired ad-lib.

Marshal cast him on the spot, later commenting that Williams was the only alien who turned up for the part.

The episode of Happy Days was originally shot as a dream sequence on the part of Richie Cunningham. However, the character played by Williams, Mork from Ork, was such a hit with the TV watching audience after an initial broadcast, that the ending was re-filmed so that Mork was a real character.

Much of Robin's work on the Happy Days episode was improvised and augmented with physical comedy. He spoke in a high, nasally voice, set off buy his signature greeting 'nanoo-nanoo.'

Audiences couldn't get enough of the zany alien and demanded more. This led to the creation of the spin-off series Mork & Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982. The show catapulted Williams to super stardom literally overnight. After just two weeks on the air, it had zoomed to the top 10 of the Nielsen ratings. The producers of the show kept the script loose enough to give Robin plenty of room to do as he pleased - and the results were unpredictable, over-the-top and hilarious. While the critics weren't overly enthused with the show, they were falling over themselves to lavish praise upon its star.

Watch the Video Biography of Robin Williams

Super Star

Mork & Mindy quickly became a pop culture phenomenon. A generation of kids took to wearing Mork's trademark rainbow suspenders and greeting their friends with the words 'nanoo-nanoo.'

Robin went from relative obscurity to instant fame in the space of a couple of months. It was something that he wasn't ready for. He began indulging in the excesses that come with fame - drugs, alcohol and women. Just as he acted in the fast lane, so to did he live his live in the very fastest of lanes. He quickly slipped into the habit of partying into the early hours, crawling home at 5 in the morning and then having to be on the set by 10.

There is no doubt that Robin was blessed with more physical energy than most. Inevitably, however, that energy began to burn out. He would sometimes fall asleep on the set, or just sit dormant in 'off' mode.

"Do I perform sometimes in a manic style? Yes. Am I manic all the time? No. Do I get sad? Oh yeah. Does it hit me hard? Oh yeah." Robin Williams

One night, after performing a late night set at a comedy club, Robin met up with fellow comic John Belushi. They ended up at the Chateau Marmont, where Williams shared some of Belushi's cocaine and then left.

The next day, on the set of Mork & Mindy, co-star Pam Dawber broke the news to Williams that Belushi had died of a drug overdose. Robin was devastated. The news shocked him into making changes in his lifestyle.

The death of Belushi tarnished the image of Hollywood's fast living brat pack. Robin was called to testify before a grand jury, an experience which, along with the shock of Belushi's death and the birth of his first child, Zak, allowed him to break free from the stranglehold of drugs and alcohol. It was at this time that he discovered cycling, a form of exercise which he credits for saving his life.

After four years, Mork & Mindy had lost its midas touch. Producers tried whatever they could to resurrect the initial appeal but nothing seemed to work. They decided to make Mork less naive, allowing Williams to work in more of his nightclub act material.

Interestingly, the Mork character also found its way into his stand up routines, though not by Robin's design. Audience members at his late night shows would yell out, 'Do Mork,' to which Robin would frustratingly respond, 'Mork's not here. I'm a different guy!'

By the middle of 1982, the character that had propelled Williams to superstar status was beginning to feel like a millstone around his neck. So, it came as somewhat of a relief to him when Mork & Mindy was cancelled after four seasons.

Family Man

In 1976, Robin met Valerie Velardi while working as a bartender in San Francisco, shortly after leaving Juilliard. She was a dancer, having studied at Juilliard herself. They began a relationship and, after two years, were married on June 4th, 1978. Valerie endured her husband's cocaine addiction and wild partying lifestyle for a number of years. It was with the birth of their son, Zachary, on April 11th, 1983 that he finally managed to shake off his addiction. However, he was unable to control his wandering eye. He ended up having an affair with a cocktail waitress by the name of Michelle Tish Carter.

In 1986, Miss Carter sued Williams for $6.4 million, claiming that he had knowingly infected her with herpes simplex virus. He settled out of court, only for his wife to sue for divorce a few months later.

"Ah, yes, divorce ... from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet." Robin Williams

On April 30th, 1989, less than a year after the divorce from Valerie being finalized, Williams married Marcia Grimes, the former nanny to his son, Zach. They had actually been carrying on an affair during the last two years of his previous marriage. At the time of the wedding, Marcia was pregnant with Robin's child, a daughter who they named Zelda Rae. Two years later, they had a second child, Cody Alan. The marriage endured for 19 years, with Marcia finally leaving, unable to handle Robin's relapse into addiction.

Williams married for the third and final time in 2011. Susan Schneider was a graphic designer at the time. He met her while recovering from a heart operation in 2009. They were still together at the time of Robin's death in 2014.

Robin's fame on the small screen inevitably aroused the interest of movie makers. His first starring role came in 1980's Popeye. The movie was a financial and critical flop and it looked like Williams' film career was over before he'd even gotten out of the gate. But then, in 1982's The World According to Garp, he was able to show more of his dramatic acting talents. The film was well received , with critic Roger Ebert calling Robin's performance 'unconventional and absorbing.'

Following a couple of smaller roles he got his big screen break in 1987's Good Morning Vietnam. The role of Adrian Cronauer, a real life Armed Forces DJ stationed in Saigon during the war, was tailor made for Williams' manic style. In fact, nearly everything that he did on screen was improvised. The performance was good enough to earn him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.

Over the next decade, Williams appeared in an impressive number of films, displaying a huge range and appeal across the generations. He shone as both a dramatic and a comic actor, with his first and only Oscar coming for Best Supporting Actor playing a psychologist in 1997's Good Will Hunting. He had previously received two nominations, for 1988's Dead Poet's Society and 1991's The Fisher King.

Perhaps Williams' most versatile role was one in which he was never actually on screen. His role as the genie in the 1992 Disney animated musical Aladdin showcased his amazing vocal range. The role had been specifically written for him, although he improvised much of the dialogue, just as he had done in Good Morning Vietnam.

"Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it." Robin Williams

Williams played what would prove to be his most beloved character in 1993's Mrs Doubtfire, in which he portrayed a recently divorced actor who takes on the persona of an elderly Scottish housemaid to get closer to his children. He spent four hours every day putting on his makeup to play the part. The movie was a great success and a sequel was in the works at the time of Williams' death in 2014.

His darkest role came in 2002's One Hour Photo. Williams played a lonely photo technician who becomes obsessed with a family whose photos he has developed for years. He received rave reviews from such esteemed critics as Leonard Maltin and Roger Ebert.

Robin's last appearance on the big screen was in 2014's Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb, in which he reprised his role as President Theodore Roosevelt. In the 2015 animated film Absolutely Anything he provided the voice of Dennis the Dog. It closed out a 38 year career that encompassed 74 movies.

Philanthropist

In 1996, together with fellow celebrities Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, Robin founded Comic Relief, USA. The charity helped the homeless, with $80 million being raised as of last year. Together with his second wife, he also created the Windfall Foundation to help donate money to a variety of causes, including St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

On May 27th, 1995 Robin's close friend Christopher Reeve was thrown from a horse and paralysed. Robin dropped everything and rushed to his bedside. He turned up in full costume as a crazed Russian doctor, giving Reeve the first laugh since his tragic accident. Robin would go on to to donate huge sums to research into spinal cord injury. When Reeves died in 2004, Robin was devastated.

Williams was also passionate about supporting the military. He traveled and performed at so many bases around the globe that he was known as the modern day Bob Hope. During his career, he entertained over a hundred thousand troops in thirteen countries

Addict

Williams managed to quit alcohol and cocaine in the early 1980's. However, in 2003 he lapsed back into alcohol abuse while working on the movie The Big White on location in Alaska. For the next three years he denied that he had a problem. Finally, he was confronted by family and friends, who convinced him to check himself into a substance-abuse rehabilitation center in Newberg, Oregon. There he admitted that he was an alcoholic.

After sixty days in rehab, rather than returning to his family, Robin began living with a sober companion, who was charged with ensuring that he didn't relapse. Shortly after that his second wife, Marcia left him.

A depressed Robin did what he always did when life got too tough - he threw himself into his work, going on tour to do stand up. But in the middle of the tour it was discovered that he needed heart surgery. The operation went well, but it required quiet rest time to recuperate. This forced time of inactivity allowed the demons in his head to have free reign.

"Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs." Robin Williams

William's addictive personality led to marathon cycling and video gaming sessions. Cycling was a healthy obsession for him, but, for a man who had struggled with depression his whole life, being alone in a room with a computer was very dangerous. He soon began drinking again. This time he didn't care who knew.

In May of 2014, William's new TV show, The Crazy Ones, was cancelled after just one season. In July, he was back in rehab. Around that time he also learned that he had Parkinson's Disease. After his death it was discovered what had been diagnosed as Parkinson's was actually Lewy body dementia.

After his death, Robin's wife Susan revealed that Robin had been been having severe and prolonged episodes of fear and anxiety, insomnia, constipation, stress and hand tremors for over a year. She said that he would constantly tell her, 'I just want to reboot my brain.'

"I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy." Robin Williams

On August 11th, 2014, Robin Williams committed suicide by hanging himself with a belt. He died from asphyxiation. His wife, Susan, stated that he was killed by the 'terrorist inside my husband's brain.'

Within hours of the tragic news of his passing, thousands of fans were posting images of themselves standing on their desks with the caption, ' O' Captain, my captain,' in reference to Robin's character in 'Dead Poet's Society.'

It was a fitting tribute.

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Robin Williams Biography: His Life was a Dark Comedy

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He was a comic genius who had only one speed - full throttle. From the moment he burst into our lives as an alien on Happy Days, he amazed us with a range of talent that left us breathless. Yet, behind the manic shtick of Robin Williams was a man who was deeply plagued by depression.

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Williams was also known for his extraordinary style, consistent to his public personality.

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The death of the multi-talented Hollywood star Robin Williams has shocked legions of fans because of the breadth of his career: his work spanned five decades and a variety of genres.

President Obama said: "Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between."

Through it all, there was something about Robin Williams that reminded you of the ultimate yet slightly embarrassing father. He always sought to steal the show; always sought to impress your friends; always sought to win you over.

Yet, if anything, it was Williams' bizarre style that made you think of your dad: the flamboyant suits, that Nehru collar at the Oscars in 1998, the American-take-on-the-Mandela shirt and the custom-made shoes. His Mrs Doubtfire attire - perhaps his most famous - worked because, well, you would not have been surprised if he wore it on the red carpet.

He even joked last year in a tweet that he could pull of a dress better than Kim Kardashian:

Yet unlike your own dad, Williams' outfits always worked. Why? Because the character he was most alike from all his films was Peter Pan in Hook: a boy who never really grew up. Any shirt, any suit, and any colour for any occasion.

That was his style motto. And like with so many of his roles, it just worked.

It made you smile.
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Robin Williams' dress sense was as fantastically scene-stealing as his

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The death of the multi-talented Hollywood star Robin Williams has shocked legions of fans because of the breadth of his career: his work spanned five decades and a variety of genres. President Obama said: "Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between."

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Williams as a "founder" of a "dad-style"

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Williams as a "founder" of a "dad-style"

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Williams' paternal quality was also manifested by the actor's style, identified as "dad-style."

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In celebration of the late, great Robin Williams, join me in this investigation. I have found photographic proof that leads me to believe Robin Williams is the father of what we now commonly refer to as "Dad Style." While scrolling through the Internet, I was thrilled to discover photo evidence of a very fashionable Mr. Williams. From chunky sneakers to BAPE button-ups, it's all truly giving me Instagram Hypebeast vibes.

Am I saying Robin Williams would've waited in a Supreme line? Absolutely not, but he might've worn a signature box-logo tee or five-panel cap from time-to-time. Swipe through these photos and decide for yourself! Regardless, we'll always remember Robin Williams as a man who was way ahead of his time.

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Was Comedic Genius Robin Williams the Founding Father of Dad Style? An Investigation

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In celebration of the late, great Robin Williams, join me in this investigation. I have found photographic proof that leads me to believe Robin Williams is the father of what we now commonly refer to as "Dad Style."

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The real health issue that led to the suicide

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The real health issue that led to the suicide

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"Depression was one of let's call it 50 symptoms, and it was a small one."

"Robin was very aware that he was losing his mind and there was nothing he could do about it."

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How Lewy Body Dementia Led to Robin Williams' Death

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Actor did not commit suicide from depression

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"Lewy body dementia killed Robin, it's what's took his life."

Was he losing his mind?

"Yes, absolutely, and he was aware of it."

Williams many times talked about what was his biggest worry: to lose his mind and stop being funny. His whole life and career were based on humor and wit, and the idea of losing the "spark" was overwhelming.

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Robin Williams' Widow Discusses Husband's Tragic Death

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Hawke tells the story from the set of "Dead Poets Society" where Williams was the main attraction. He constantly teased the whole crew, and the ambitious Hawke was mad at him. Yet, after the shooting, Williams contacted Hawke with his agent and they sealed the deal. It was Williams who paved Hawke's way to his career.

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Robin Williams Helped Ethan Hawke Get His First Agent  - CONAN on TBS

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“He just cried and said, ‘I can’t, Cheri. I don’t know how anymore. I don’t know how to be funny.’ ”

Williams' deteriorating mental health was manifesting itself during the shooting of the third part of "Night at the Museum." He would forget his lines and perform dully and unconvincingly. The dementia was taking away his main weapon - humor

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According to Itzkoff's biography, Williams was given anti-psychotic medication after had a panic attack while working on the film.

"I put myself in his place. Think of it this way: The speed at which the comedy came is the speed at which the terrors came," his friend and fellow comedian Billy Crystal said.

"And all that they described that can happen with this psychosis, if that's the right word - the hallucinations, the images, the terror - coming at the speed his comedy came at, maybe even faster, I can't imagine living like that."

The comedian's widow, Susan Schneider Williams, has said her husband fought to hold back the effects of the disease. "People with LBD who are highly intelligent may appear to be okay for longer initially, but then, it is as though the dam suddenly breaks and they cannot hold it back anymore," she wrote, in a 2016 article for the medical journal Neurology, called The Terrorist Inside My Husband's Head.

"In Robin's case, on top of being a genius, he was a Julliard-trained actor. I will never know the true depth of his suffering, nor just how hard he was fighting. But from where I stood, I saw the bravest man in the world playing the hardest role of his life.

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'He was sobbing in my arms every day': Robin Williams's on-set suffering revealed in new biography

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According to Itzkoff's biography, Williams was given anti-psychotic medication after had a panic attack while working on the film. "I put myself in his place. Think of it this way: The speed at which the comedy came is the speed at which the terrors came," his friend and fellow comedian Billy Crystal said.

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Williams talking about how "being labeled" is tightiening the freedom.

"To try to keep moving... so it can't get labeled... that's for me very important, to duck..."

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An interview with Robin Williams on DEAD POETS SOCIETY (1989)

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"You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it."

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1981

"I believe the cocaine is God's way of saying 'you're making too much money'"

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"He spared us the hard part and gave us the joy, what an extraordinary gift that was."

Williams was not an exhibitionist and fame seeker. His dark side was kept hidden from the public eye. That's why most of the news about his health have been revealed after his death.

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James Lipton - Remembering Robin Williams - MSNBC

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Comic Relief team (Williams, Goldberg, Crystal) have raised over 70 million dollars for homeless people in America.

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In remembering Robin Williams, friends and family members have hailed the depth of his commitment to supporting a range of charitable causes. In many instances, he donated his time and money without fanfare or recognition.

But the cause that Williams, who died Monday at 63, was most associated with in the public eye was Comic Relief and the series of telethons that he co-hosted with Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg on HBO in the 1980s and '90s.

The org, founded in 1985 by comedian Bob Zmuda, focuses on efforts to ease the crisis of homelessness, with an emphasis on health care services. To date, Comic Relief has raised more than $70 million in the U.S.

Zmuda got the idea for Comic Relief by watching the 1985 "Live Aid" concert that raised money for famine relief efforts in Africa. He took the concept of staging a comedy version to his former comedy partner, Chris Albrecht, who had just joined HBO as VP of original programming (and is now chairman-CEO of Starz).

Zmuda knew the telethon would need heavyhitter hosts to draw other talent. Albrecht had worked with Williams, Crystal and Goldberg during his previous tenure as an agent at ICM. It wasn't long before the trio was on board and helping to recruit a who's who of comedy stars for the inaugural three-hour "Comic Relief" telecast on March 29, 1986.

Zmuda also knew Williams from their days in the trenches of Los Angeles' comedy clubs in the late 1970s. Williams was eager to help out with Comic Relief in part because he had come from a privileged background and felt an obligation to do what he could to help others.

"Robin was a silver-spoon guy," Zmuda told Variety. "He came from a well-to-do family and he always felt it was important to give back."

Comic Relief "couldn't have happened without the three of them," Albrecht told Variety. "It was about putting together the publicity machine not just for the show but for the issue. Robin was certainly dedicated and passionate about making sure that the (homelessness) issue got platformed with as much visiblity as possible."

Albrecht recalled the nervousness among the hosts and producers in the opening moments of the first telecast, staged at the Universal Amphitheater in Los Angeles.

"They went out on stage and did their opening monologue and the phones started ringing. We were standing there going 'Oh my god, people are actually calling and donating money.' We were almost beside ourselves with giddiness," he said.

Zmuda recalled that the "Comic Relief" director learned an important lesson within the first few minutes of the telecast. "Always keep a camera on Robin, because he's the one who's going to be bouncing around all the time and you never know what he's going to do," he said.

In addition to co-hosting eight editions of the telethon between 1986 and 1998 (plus a 2006 event to raise money for Hurricane Katrina relief), Williams, Crystal and Goldberg made many visits to homeless shelters and service orgs around the country. It wasn't all about photo ops, Zmuda assured.

"They would rehearse the hell out of that show for weeks beforehand," he said. "And they'd go to homeless project sites and interface with people. This guy had a big, big heart."

Albrecht echoed Zmuda's admiration for Williams' dedication to the cause.

"It played a big part in their lives and (Comic Relief) was a big part of helping the public understand the really harsh realities around the issue of health care for the homeless," Albrecht said.

Here is a video of Williams' set from "Comic Relief VI" in 1994.

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Comic Relief Campaign Was More Than Photo Op for Robin Williams

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In remembering Robin Williams, friends and family members have hailed the depth of his commitment to supporting a range of charitable causes. In many instances, he donated his time and money without fanfare or recognition.

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Williams' post-addiction shows were often dominated by the comedian joking about his drug problems. Williams was a humble man who was able to make fun of himself.

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Comic Relief USA was a non-profit charity organisation raising funds to help homeless people in America. Along with Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal, Williams was performing stand-up and other kinds of comedy.

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Comic Relief 5 opening with Robin, Billy and Whoopi (1992)

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Robin Williams advertises (he made only two commercials) a video game which inspired him to name his daughter after the princess Zelda. Williams opens a door to his private life in which the role of father is the most important for him.

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"My life is a better place because I knew Robin Williams. To my children he was Uncle Robin, to everyone he worked with, he was the best boss anyone had ever known, and to me he was not just an inspiration but he was the father I had always dreamed of having."

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Sarah Michelle Gellar Pays Tribute to Robin Williams With Sweet Selfie on 3rd Anniversary of His Death

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He played her father on the CBS comedy The Crazy Ones, which aired for one season until April 2014, about four months before he died

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Williams' charitable activity was kept secret throughout his whole career, proving that the actor was not seeking attention regarding his kindness

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Robin Williams gave an incredible donation of $50,000 to a food bank charity years before his death.

The Aladdin star - who tragically took his own life in 2014 - gave the West Seattle Food Bank his fee for a stand-up set at the Showbox nightclub in 2004.

According to charity's executive director Fran Yeatts, she recalled that not only did the actor give the money to the charity he did so without it being reported by the press.

Speaking with USA Today she said: "I was just astounded. Robin Williams is the type of person who really understands there are a lot of people who are really, really struggling."

And it wasn't only the proceeds from one event, but two more fundraising concerts for the charity followed in 2007 and 2008 which in total raised the sum of $50,000.

It has been a year since Williams, 63, died in August 2014 after a long battle with depression, and he is still remembered for his selfless and generous attitude.

West Seattle Food Bank volunteer Mike Cervino spoke about how the loss of the Mrs Doutbfire star is still felt so strongly, saying: "One because he was a great comedian. Two, because he donated here, and three because people really rely on that here."

Tributes rolled in for the much-loved star on the anniversary of his passing.

His sitcom co-star Sarah Michelle Gellar took to her Instagram on the eve of the one year anniversary to remember her co-star, sharing a touching passage.

She wrote: "To laugh often and much; to win the respect of the intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty; to find the beauty in others; to leave the world a bit better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; to know that one life has breathed easier because you lived here. This is to have succeeded."

She added: "You succeeded RW."

Williams' emotional performance in Boulevard is set to be one of the most heartbreaking movie experiences of the year.

The film will be his final dramatic big screen appearance following his tragic suicide last summer aged 63, and it's sure to hit home with his legions of fans and admirers.

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Robin Williams' secret charity giving revealed by food bank boss

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Robin Williams gave an incredible donation of $50,000 to a food bank charity years before his death. The Aladdin star - who tragically took his own life in 2014 - gave the West Seattle Food Bank his fee for a stand-up set at the Showbox nightclub in 2004.

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The article describes the charitable activity of Williams who took part in over 50 charities and causes.

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On screen, Robin Williams was a whirlwind of energy. Off screen, Williams channeled that energy into charitable work.

The late actor offered his time, money and celebrity name to over 50 charities and causes, according to Look to the Stars, a website that compiles the charitable works of celebrities.

One of his most visible efforts was fund-raising for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Williams began appearing in commercials and public service announcements for the hospital in 2004.

St. Jude said Williams never charged a fee for his participation in any events or activities.

"Whenever he had an opportunity to meet patients and families he would do it. When you have a person of Robin's caliber, it helps sick kids forget about their diseases for a while." said Kelly Schulz, vice president of communications at St. Jude.

Related: How the super-rich donate and spend

The same year, Williams joined the board of the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, which raises money for spinal cord injury research. Williams served on the board for four years.

Williams and Christopher Reeve, the actor and director, were roommates when they were students at the Juilliard performing arts school in New York.

"Robin would do two or three dinners or events for us each year," said Peter Wilderotter, CEO of the foundation.

"Many celebs have requirements about cars and who they will talk to, but Robin was the opposite. He showed up on his own and he stayed at our events and talked to everyone," said Wilderotter.

While he would not discuss amounts, Wilderotter said that Williams was also very generous in his financial support of the foundation. "These weren't token gifts," he said.

Wilderotter added that Williams lent his name to the organization because of his special relationship with Reeve. Fund-raising letters using Williams' name, "always had a better response than the usual fund-raising letters," he said.

Williams was also a big supporter of the United Service Organizations, or USO, which provides support and morale-boosting performances to U.S. troops and their families.

The USO said that throughout his 12 years of involvement with the organization, Williams created special moments for nearly 90,000 servicemen and servicewomen in 13 countries.

"Williams traveled around the world to lift the spirits of our troops and their families. He will always be a part of our USO family and will be sorely missed," the organization said in a statement.

CNNMoney (New York) First published August 12, 2014: 1:09 PM ET

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Robin Williams' charity work stands as a testament to a philosophy of "giving back."

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The late actor offered his time, money and celebrity name to over 50 charities and causes, according to Look to the Stars, a website that compiles the charitable works of celebrities. One of his most visible efforts was fund-raising for the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

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About how decent Williams was. A friend for strangers, a supporter for troops. Williams cheered up and motivated the American soldiers during their missions in Afganistan and Baghdad

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There's a story going around today on Reddit about Robin Williams, the comedian and actor who was found dead Aug. 11 at the age of 63. It goes like this: a guy is with his family in San Francisco. The man's father has lost both his parents in a really horrific way, and was obviously having a rough time on the night of the memorial service. It was about 2:30 a.m., and the family - mourning and in dress clothes and probably just dragging - went to a doughnut shop, because the man's father wanted a doughnut, and who says no on a night like that.

Anyway, Robin Williams just happened to be in the shop too, the story goes. He's eating and drinking coffee and - when this family needed it - Robin Williams was kind to them, right there, in a doughnut shop at 2:30 in the morning. He made the man's parents smile on a dark day, and that is what the Redditor remembered most.

"I couldn't tell you what they laughed about, but I remember seeing my parents laugh and smile for the first time in weeks. My dad remembered that so fondly. He always said it was exactly what he had needed in that time, and that he appreciated the way Robin Williams went about it," wrote the Redditor. "It wasn't that he was a celebrity, he was just being a nice guy who saw a bunch of sad folks and realised he could probably make a difference. And he did."

Look, I've got no idea if this really happened. Usual disclaimers about the Internet apply. But I hope it did, because this week, as people remember Robin Williams as a comedian - as funny, brilliant and a true original - they shouldn't forget that he was apparently a pretty decent human, too.

You hear stories like this all the time, of course. Of small acts of kindness - coaches who understand, celebrities who will absolutely make your night, and stars who treat real people like they are, well, real people.

Here's what you'll hear about Williams today, besides all that stuff about his talent and humor and "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Hook" and tweets from the Academy: You'll hear that Williams participated in Comic Relief, which raised money for the homeless. He was involved with the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. He was kind to Questlove. If our Redditor is to be believed, he was kind to anonymous strangers, too.

Here's another Redditor with a Williams story, this one involving a slumber party at a zoo, a story from the comedian and a smile when someone needed it. ("He laughed when I called him Mr. Williams, and read us "The Emperor's New Clothes," the Redditor wrote. "He was so nice and I'll always be grateful to him.")

Then there was the awkward dinner at an Italian restaurant, which Williams saved by ... acting like Robin Williams, basically. Wrote the Redditor: "When everyone went back to their seats I walked up to Robin Williams, thanked him for defusing the situation, and did the usual 'I love your work, It's amazing to meet you' spiel and then he began to ask ME questions about my life, how I am, my age, what I wanted to do and was very friendly and caring." (It's worth noting that these last two stories were shared many months ago, before tributes starting pouring in Monday evening.)

Some of those strangers were members of the military, too. Williams regularly visited Iraq and Afghanistan to thank troops for their service. Our coworkers on the Checkpoint blog have more on this, which we'd encourage you to read, if only for the recap and video of his performance at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait, in 2007.

"The entire Department of Defense community mourns the loss of Robin Williams," Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said in a statement. "Robin was a gifted actor and comedian, but he was also a true friend and supporter of our troops."

There will be a lot of stories and clips of Williams going around in the next few days. Here is my favorite: It's Robin Williams, waking up a space shuttle crew in 1988. Look at those two women, completely losing it in their sensible, late-'80s NASA wear. This was a "return to flight" mission, a couple years after the Challenger explosion.

I'm probably reading too much into it, but I'd like to think that in this moment, Robin Williams wasn't just a celebrity - Good Morning Vietnam'ing the space program. I'd like to think he was just being a nice guy, who found himself working with this bunch of regular (super smart) folks, and he tried to make a difference in their day. Watch those NASA employees again. He probably did.
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Robin Williams remembered not just for his movies and his humor, but for his acts of kindness, too

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There's a story going around today on Reddit about Robin Williams, the comedian and actor who was found dead Aug. 11 at the age of 63. It goes like this: a guy is with his family in San Francisco.

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There is a scholarship founded by Robin Williams in Julliard, allowing young actors to pave their way to professional career

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The late actor supported several philanthropic efforts, once donating the full proceeds from a tour in New Zealand to relief efforts after a major earthquake shook the region
This story first appeared in the Aug. 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.
Throughout Robin Williams' career, charity was closely tied to his work.

The Comic Relief co-host embarked on USO tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and was a contributor to organizations from amfAR to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Through his Windfall Foundation, co-founded with his second wife, Marsha, the man who played real-life doctors Patch Adams and Oliver Sacks raised money for Doctors Without Borders, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Make-A-Wish Foundation (he once chartered a plane to spend the day with a patient).

Like any good stand-up, he was spontaneous: In 2010 he donated full proceeds from his Weapons of Self-Destruction tour in New Zealand to relief efforts after a major earthquake shook the region. Williams also supported the Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation, established by his Juilliard roommate. (Williams later created a full scholarship at Juilliard; Jessica Chastain was a recipient.)

In his memoir Still Me, Reeve credited his friend for saving him during a dark bout of depression after his 1995 accident. Williams entered his hospital room disguised as a Russian proctologist, snapping Reeve out of his funk: "If I can laugh, I can live."
To read more tributes to Williams, click here.

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From Comic Relief to Scholarships, Robin Williams' Charity Was Closely Tied to His Work

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This story first appeared in the Aug. 22 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. Throughout Robin Williams' career, charity was closely tied to his work. The Comic Relief co-host embarked on USO tours to Iraq and Afghanistan and was a contributor to organizations from amfAR to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

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The base of Williams' charitable activity

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The base of Williams' charitable activity

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Look to the Stars is a website accumulating the charitable activity of celebrities. According to the website, Williams took part in over 50 charities.

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Profile of Robin Williams's support for charities including UNICEF, Amnesty International, and Andre Agassi Foundation for Education. We have 91 articles about Robin Williams's philanthropy.

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Many people remember Williams' kindness and selflesness.

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He laughed, he cried, he made us laugh and cry, and he gave.

Robin Williams gave us Mrs. Doubtfire, Mork and Patch Adams, dramatic turns and manic comedy, an outpouring of comedic and dramatic talent that has left millions around the globe feeling bereft now that he is gone.

But he also gave generously of his time, energy, talent and treasure to help charities local, national and international.

Williams is probably most known, in the philanthropic realm, for those mood-altering United Service Organizations tours for our troops overseas, serving on the board of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, which continues the work of his longtime friend, the late actor Christopher Reeve, his "Comic Relief" fund-raising efforts on behalf of the homeless with fellow comedians Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, and his work on behalf of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

He and his former wife Marsha started their own Windfall Foundation to channel contributions to various charities.

Among the many causes he supported were the American Foundation for AIDS Research, Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders (which is currently a key player in fighting the Ebola epidemic in West Africa), Heifer International, Livestrong (the foundation formerly connected to disgraced bicycle racer Lance Armstrong), Prince's Rainforest Project, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial and UNICEF.

He also appeared at Neil Young's Bridge School benefit concerts.

Dr. Tom Peters, president and CEO of the Marin Community Foundation, the largest philanthropic organization in the county that Williams called home, recalls "how enormously generous he was, most of the time with no billing," particularly in terms of donating his time to help others.

At a fund-raising event for a Marin youth group five or six years ago, Peters remembers, Williams didn't just show up, do a quick routine on stage and make his exit.

Instead, he sat with a group of youngsters, many who'd been in and out of juvenile hall, and spent the entire evening with them, talking to the kids and "cracking them up," Peters told me. When Williams went up onstage and did his thing, he'd already formed a connection with the kids, creating what Peters says was "a magical moment."

And Williams' generosity came despite his publicized financial reverses in recent years, after going through two expensive divorces.

Look To The Stars, a web site that covers and celebrates "the world of celebrity giving," lists nearly 30 charities that Williams supported.

The world-famous actor and comic died yesterday in his Tiburon home, apparently of suicide.

The loss was palpable on social media and in personal encounters yesterday, and it seems that everyone who encountered Williams in person has a story about the connection, including people in the city and in Marin County.

"When I was on the board of the Magic Theatre, he was the special guest of one of my colleagues," recalls Dale Carlson, a longtime media and government relations consultant in San Francisco. "He made a point of thanking her for inviting him as it was his first (recent) public gathering -- and nothing said 'welcome back from rehab quite like a cocktail party.'"

"I can't count the number of times I'd see him in the neighborhood and around town," Carlson added. "It's a terrible loss."

The late star was also a big supporter of 142 Throckmorton Theatre in downtown Mill Valley, a nonprofit where he made regular appearances and did annual fundraisers, but also dropped in unannounced at Tuesday night performances by other local comics, says Julian Kaelon, the theater's director of marketing.

"He would drop by, hang out with the comedians and sometimes try out new material," Julian Kaelon, the theater's marketing director, told me. "He'd come in whenever he felt like it."

Lucy Mercer, the theater's founder, director and artistic leader, was a close friend of Williams, and isn't doing interviews. But in an emailed statement, she spoke movingly of the loss of "this amazing, hugely talented, and enormously kind soul," calling him an incredible friend, supporter and member of the local community.

"He spent many Tuesday evenings backstage and onstage, encouraging the younger generation of comics to believe in the craft and find their unique voice," Mercer said.

His friend Lucy Mercer made what she calls "a simple request" for those who want to honor Williams' memory, she said in her statement Tuesday.

"Honor his appreciation of humor by laughing every day. "

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Remembering Robin Williams through his philanthropy - San Francisco Business Times

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The world and the Bay Area are mourning the loss of a great comic and actor, but the philanthropic and artistic worlds are also mourning the loss of a noted philanthropist, USO stalwart and supporter of the next generations of comic voices.

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Robin Williams' charity work has been revealed after his death; it was extremely profound and carefully hidden from sight - Williams' generosity was the purest.

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Hawke talking about "a tremendous pain" visible in Williams underneath the facade of a comedian.

"He was a light for the world."

Hawke acknowledges that Williams was a gift for humanity, one of the most beloved actors on the Earth.

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"I watched Mork & Mindy as a little boy so he felt like a family member."

Hawke's memory was not merely his own. It is the whole generation, raised on Williams' genius performances, that treated him as a family member.

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Ethan Hawke Remembers Robin Williams and Dead Poets Society

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Williams' most well-known scene from "Dead Poets Society"

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Williams' most well-known scene from "Dead Poets Society"

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The scene epitomizes Williams' role as a father figure for the boys. In real life, Williams was also considered as a paternal persona, a member of millions of families around the world.

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robin williams dead poets society - YouTube

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Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

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"What do you worry about?"
"I think it's just the idea of losing your mind."

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Williams about using his image to sell merchandise

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Williams about using his image to sell merchandise

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Williams didn't want to sell the film with his name; the actor wanted the film to be speaking for itself, without a help of his big name.

"I'm doing it basically because I want to be part of this animation tradition. I want something for my children. One deal is, I just don't want to sell anything—as in Burger King, as in toys, as in stuff." - Williams

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Williams was paid 75.000$ for the voiceover, which is the lowest wage for a dubbing actor. Williams decided that in gratitude for his success with Touchstone Pictures' Good Morning, Vietnam, Robin Williams voiced the Genie for SAG scale pay—$75,000—instead of his asking fee of $8 million.

Williams showed a great loyalty towards the studio, confirming the public opinion about his generosity and kindness.

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Walt Disney Pictures / YouTube

In 1992, Disney's animated feature "Aladdin" raked in a whopping $504 million worldwide.

Part of the film's success was due to Robin Williams' beloved genie character, whom the late actor voiced and improvised so well that Disney decided to make Genie a pivotal role.

Williams ended up recording about 30 hours of written and improvised dialogue for "Aladdin" because, according to a 1993 interview with New York Magazine, he "wanted to leave something wonderful behind for his kids."

So Williams took a hefty pay cut and agreed to be paid $75,000 for his work on the Disney film instead of his usual fee of about $8 million - but there was a catch. Williams did not want his voice used to merchandise products.

"I don't want to sell stuff," Williams later told New York magazine. "It's the one thing I don't do."

"We had a deal," the actor later said on the "Today Show." "The one thing I said was I will do the voice. I'm doing it basically because I want to be part of this animation tradition. I want something for my children. One deal is, I just don't want to sell anything - as in Burger King, as in toys, as in stuff."

Williams said Disney execs signed off on the deal, "Then all of a sudden, they release an advertisement - one part was the movie, the second part was where they used the movie to sell stuff. Not only did they use my voice, they took a character I did and overdubbed it to sell stuff. That was the one thing I said: 'I don't do that.' That was the one thing where they crossed the line."

Disney initially defended using Williams' voice, saying, "He agreed to the deal, and then when the movie turned out to be a big hit, he didn't like the deal he had made."

But the studio quickly changed its tune and sent the actor an apology in the form of a Pablo Picasso painting estimated at the time to be worth $1 million, according to artnet.

The painting was a self-portrait of the artist as Vincent van Gogh, which apparently really "clashed" with the Williams' wilder home decor.

Williams' friend and fellow actor Eric Idle even suggested Williams go on TV and burn the Picasso live as a form of protest.

Williams told New York mag that his previous " Mork & Mindy" merchandising was different because, "the image is theirs. But the voice, that's me; I gave them myself. When it happened, I said, 'You know I don't do that.' And they [Disney] apologized; they said it was done by other people.

"You realize now when you work for Disney why the mouse has only four fingers - because he can't pick up a check," he joked to the magazine.

Ultimately, Disney and Williams made up, later making a third "Aladdin" sequel (he sat the second one out), 1996's "Jack," and "Bicentennial Man" in 1999.

When Williams died this August, Disney sent a final peace offering:

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Robin Williams Once Got So Upset With Disney That The Company Sent Him A $1 Million Picasso Peace Offering

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In 1992, Disney's animated feature "Aladdin" raked in a whopping $504 million worldwide. Part of the film's success was due to Robin Williams' beloved genie character, whom the late actor voiced and improvised so well that Disney decided to make Genie a pivotal role.

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About Williams' modesty.

So Williams struck an unusual deal with Disney, who agreed not to market Aladdin as a Robin Williams movie. He didn’t want his name used in advertising or promotion, going so far as to dictate that the Genie character couldn’t take up more than 25 percent of the movie poster. Generally, actors want to draw as much attention to their work as humanly possible, particularly if they’re an incorrigible ham like the late, lamented Williams was, so this was notable.

Of course, it became one of the most talked about vocal performances of all time, and the neat little gig he’d squeezed into his schedule ended up changing the way American animated films were made and marketed forever.

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Robin Williams was an extraordinarily busy man in the early 1990s. In December of 1991 he starred in the blockbuster Hook and followed it up with 1992's heavily hyped, mega-budgeted Toys. These films were largely sold on Williams' name, and he was worried that his vocal turn as a mischievous but gold-hearted genie in Aladdin, for which he was paid the union minimum of $75,000, would overshadow the movies for which he was being compensated handsomely.

So Williams struck an unusual deal with Disney, who agreed not to market Aladdin as a Robin Williams movie. He didn't want his name used in advertising or promotion, going so far as to dictate that the Genie character couldn't take up more than 25 percent of the movie poster. Generally, actors want to draw as much attention to their work as humanly possible, particularly if they're an incorrigible ham like the late, lamented Williams was, so this was notable.

It seems a little ridiculous today to worry that Aladdin might possibly overshadow his more central turn in Toys, since the formerwent on to become the top-grossing film of 1992 while the latter was an enormous bomb, but Williams didn't want people to focus on his performance in Aladdin. Of course, it became one of the most talked about vocal performances of all time, and the neat little gig he'd squeezed into his schedule ended up changing the way American animated films were made and marketed forever.

(Photo by Walt Disney Pictures courtesy Everett Collection)

Williams' presence dominates the film to such an extent that it feels like a starring vehicle.

It's not too much of a stretch to say that the history of American animation can roughly be divided into pre- Aladdin and post- Aladdin eras. Though the film rode the wave of late 1980s/early 1990s Disney hits like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and The Beast, it also represented a brash new beginning. After Aladdin, animated movies became increasingly star-driven. It's doubtful anyone but the most dedicated fan would be able to tell you who voiced the title characters in Pinocchio or Cinderella, but in the age of Shrek and Kung Fu Panda, studios now frequently advertise animated films on the basis of the movie stars providing the lead voices.

Williams is so synonymous with Aladdin that, re-watching the film, I was shocked to discover that the big blue scene-stealer Williams gave life to doesn't make his first appearance in his popular form until 35 minutes have elapsed. Even after his introduction, there are still long stretches where he's offscreen. Yet Williams' presence dominates the film to such an extent that it feels like a starring vehicle for the beloved comedian and Academy Award winning actor, even though, when it comes to screen time, it's undeniably a supporting role.

Genie injects an exhilarating rush of adrenaline and excitement whenever he appears onscreen, but Williams' wildly entertaining presence also helps distract from a take on Arab culture and gender that is, shall we say, problematic at best. The film's opening song, "Arabian Nights," originally contained the lyric,

"Oh, I come from a land,
From a faraway place,
Where the caravan camels roam.
Where they cut off your ear
If they don't like your face.
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home."

Arab-American rights groups understandably complained about the song and film's grim depiction of Arab culture, so the latter half of the stanza was rewritten:

"Where it's flat and immense,
And the heat is intense.
It's barbaric, but hey, it's home."

It speaks to how tone-deaf and oblivious Disney was that even the amended, revised, less racist version of the lyrics still depicts the Arab world as "barbaric." The film then sets about illustrating the point, introducing its title character (voiced by Scott Weinger) as a self-described "street rat," a small-time thief perpetually one step ahead of the dark-skinned, big-nosed, racist Arab stereotypes who litter the film.

(Photo by Walt Disney Pictures courtesy Everett Collection)

The animators have a blast realizing Williams' goofy flights of comedic fancy.

In sharp contrast to the sword-wielding brutes that pursue him relentlessly, Aladdin looks like Tom Cruise with a serious tan, while his love interest, Princess Jasmine, is ridiculously over-sexualized, even by Disney standards. The primary goal of the character's animators seems to have been to show as much midriff and cleavage as possible in every scene. When Jafar absconds with her late in the film, she's outfitted in a harem girl costume that calls to mind Princess Leia's slave girl costume from The Return of the Jedi, which likewise ignited the nascent sexual imaginations of multiple generations of kids who probably shouldn't have been watching in the first place.

The film takes its sweet time introducing the big blue guy, but when he finally appears onscreen, Aladdin becomes another movie altogether - looser, goofier, and more manic. When I was a film critic and Robin Williams was still alive, I generally bristled when a movie became little more than a rickety showcase for his improvisation.

I liked Williams best when he was restrained and dramatic, but playing a force of nature like Genie perfectly suits his more-is-more sensibility. His persona informs the performance to such an extent that he seems to be playing himself, the ad-libbing maniac and wildcard comic genius, as much as he's playing the character. Few actors could claim to be as lively and ebullient as he was, and here the animators have a blast realizing his goofy flights of comedic fancy.

It doesn't make sense for a genie from a different era to launch into Rodney Dangerfield and Jack Nicholson impersonations, for example, but Robin Williams was known for rapidly cycling through a stable of well-known characters, some of them specific people and some of them broad archetypes. He even manages to smuggle a subtle genie-human gay marriage joke into the G-rated Disney movie (incidentally, it probably should have been PG-13, what with all its scary and sexual imagery) when he says to his human charge, "Oh, Al. I' m gettin' kinda fond of you, kid. Not that I wanna pick out curtains or anything."

It speaks to Williams' gifts as an actor, and how thoroughly he made the role his own. He packs an awful lot of sincerity, kindness, and pathos into the line "I'm gettin' kinda fond of you," and he does so in a relative vacuum, as the comparatively bland Weinger doesn't give him a whole lot to work with. Yet the relationship between Aladdin and Genie is tender and sweet and memorable all the same, and that's entirely because of the soul and substance Williams brings to the role.

Like many of the star-driven, smartass, meta-textual animated comedies that would follow, Aladdin is overflowing with in-jokes and references to other fairy tale and cartoon characters, many of them from Disney's overflowing catalog. Late in the film, for example, Genie wears a Goofy hat - as in the Disney character Goofy's hat, not just a goofy-looking hat, although, to be fair, it's plenty goofy-looking as well - and an outfit that was apparently a winking tribute to a short film Williams had made for a Disney studio tour in the late 1980s.

(Photo by Walt Disney courtesy Everett Collection)

Genie may not be onscreen all that much, but Aladdin unmistakably belongs to Williams.

But the film also represents a throwback to the impish, spry comedy of 1930s- and '40s-era Looney Tunes and Disney's own distant past, in large part because Williams exists both inside and outside of the frame. He's at once the nitro-fueled engine driving the plot and the comedy, as well as the emotions, but he's also a sassy, almost Bugs Bunny-like outsider heckling the action from an ironic distance. Genie may not be onscreen all that much, but Aladdin unmistakably belongs to Williams.

The only real competition he has for the audience's attention comes, appropriately enough, from another motormouthed comedian famous for not having much of a filter: Gilbert Gottfried as Iago, the pet parrot of villain Jafar. If anything, Gottfried cuts an even more American and more contemporary figure than Williams does, even if he's playing, you know, a scheming parrot.

Aladdin flags whenever Iago or Genie are offscreen, because, as is generally the case with Disney movies, the leads are bland and generic. Gottfried and Williams lent this star-crossed fairy tale romance a subversive, wisecracking, unmistakably contemporary sensibility that eventually came to characterize many, if not most, animated comedies.

That wasn't inherently a positive development. Too many animated comedies have used celebrity-intensive casts, wall-to-wall pop-culture references, and regular violations of the fourth wall as a cheap, lazy crutch. Aladdin remains a delight as long as you ignore everything that doesn't have to do with Genie or Williams, but the movies that followed in its wake have generally been abysmal, glib and gimmicky, pandering and facile.

Considering the enormous commercial success of the live-action Beauty and The Beast and the public's enduring fascination with Aladdin, it should come as no surprise that the film is being remade as a live-action blockbuster by Guy Ritchie. As of last month, Will Smith is reportedly in talks to play Genie, although Kevin Hart may be in contention as well. Those are some very big, very pointy shoes to fill, obviously. Not only is Genie sacred to millennials and Gen Xers, but whoever lands the role will have to compete with what could very well have been the single most influential, acclaimed voice performance in cinematic history.

Nathan Rabin if a freelance writer, columnist, the first head writer of The A.V. Club and the author of four books, most recently Weird Al: The Book (with "Weird Al" Yankovic) and You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me.

Follow Nathan on Twitter: @NathanRabin

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How Robin Williams' Genie in Disney's Aladdin Changed Animated Comedy Forever

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Robin Williams was an extraordinarily busy man in the early 1990s. In December of 1991 he starred in the blockbuster Hook and followed it up with 1992's heavily hyped, mega-budgeted Toys.

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Apple commercial with a voiceover of Robin Williams from "Dead Poets Society"

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Apple commercial with a voiceover of Robin Williams from "Dead Poets Society"

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Williams' motivational speech is used as a catalyst between the product and the customer. His role of the teacher in the film is one of his most recognizable and inspirational. Apple used this to promote iPad.

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Robin Williams Apple iPad Air Commercial

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Maslin's review of "The Birdcage" (1996)

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Maslin's review of "The Birdcage" (1996)

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""The Birdcage" might seem an odd occasion to find Mr. Williams playing things straight, but this is one of his most cohesive and least antic performances. It's also a mischievously funny one: he does a fine job of integrating gag lines with semi-serious acting, all the while modeling a delirious, silky wardrobe with the emphasis on nightmare prints."

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Meanwhile, Armand gives Albert the obligatory lessons in he-manly behavior. And Albert, who minces extravagantly, is even taught how to walk like John Wayne. (Where the French film accepted the Wayne stride as a masculine ideal, this new version finds it interestingly peculiar.) Mr. Nichols puts his film through these paces with dependable comic agility, and rises to the requisite frantic pitch when the two families meet for dinner. Regrettably, Armand and Albert's wildly campy houseboy (Hank Azaria) has set out the pornographic china. "Why, it looks like young men playing leapfrog!" sweetly exclaims Mrs. Keeley. "Is it Greek?"

"The Birdcage" augments such mock-naughty gags with topical references to abortion, gays in the military (Alexander the Great is mentioned) and some sneaky jabs at Senator Keeley's anti-Semitism. It even presents gay characters who think Bob Dole is cute. But it still has little footing in the real world. The gay nightclub setting is watered down with shots of a heterosexual audience, and Armand and Albert seem even less like actual lovers than their French predecessors did. The subplot involving the biological mother (played by Christine Baranski) who abandoned Val has gone from farfetched to vaguely appalling. When the farce isn't fizzing, these characters look several shades more dimwitted than they did before.

"The Birdcage" might seem an odd occasion to find Mr. Williams playing things straight, but this is one of his most cohesive and least antic performances. It's also a mischievously funny one: he does a fine job of integrating gag lines with semi-serious acting, all the while modeling a delirious, silky wardrobe with the emphasis on nightmare prints. Mr. Lane, in the campier role, gives a solid but broad performance without the coy gentility that made Michel Serrault funnier in French. But he has nice legs and looks good in pearls.

"The Birdcage" is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes mild profanity and sexual references.

THE BIRDCAGE

Produced and directed by Mike Nichols; written by Elaine May, based on the stage play "La Cage aux Folles" by Jean Poiret, and the screenplay by Francis Veber, Edouard Molinaro, Marcello Danon and Mr. Poiret; director of photography, Emmanuel Lubezki; edited by Arthur Schmidt; music by Jonathan Tunick; production designer, Bo Welch; released by United Artists. Running time: 117 minutes. This film is rated R.

WITH: Robin Williams (Armand), Gene Hackman (Senator Keeley), Nathan Lane (Albert), Dianne Wiest (Louise Keeley), Christine Baranski (Katharine), Dan Futterman (Val) and Calista Flockhart (Barbara).

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FILM REVIEW;'La Cage aux Folles,' but in South Beach

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Meanwhile, Armand gives Albert the obligatory lessons in he-manly behavior. And Albert, who minces extravagantly, is even taught how to walk like John Wayne. (Where the French film accepted the Wayne stride as a masculine ideal, this new version finds it interestingly peculiar.)

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"Robin Williams is the best surprise; in a role that seems written as a license for flamboyance, he's more restrained than in anything he's done since "Awakenings" (1990)."

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The Birdcage Movie Review & Film Summary (1996) | Roger Ebert

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Hollywood has had a little cottage industry in recent years, turning out American retreads of French films. Now comes the remake of the most seductive target, the comedy "La Cage aux Folles" (1978), which is about a gay man whose son wants him to play it straight for a few days.

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The Birdcage (1996) Trailer | Mike Nichols

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Williams' performance as "Robin Williams-style Robin Williams"

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Read the Empire review of Jumanji. Find out everything you need to know about the film from the world's biggest movie destination.