Robin Williams born in Chicago
Robin McLaurin Williams is born in Chicago, Ill., to former model and actress Laurie McLaurin and Robert Fitzgerald Williams, a senior executive at Ford. He grows up in Chicago, Michigan and California. His half-brother Todd, born in 1938 and nicknamed ‘Toad,’ is his father’s son from his first marriage, while McLaurin Smith-Williams, his mother’s son from her first marriage, is four years older than Robin. The three boys all grow up as only children. While living in Detroit, where his father is posted by Ford, he has a whole floor of the family’s large rented home to himself and creates imaginary friends to fill it. Comedy is his way of connecting with his mother:
I’d think, I’ll make mommy laugh and that will be okay.
He attends boys-only Detroit County Day School, where he uses comedy as a defence against bullying at school in Detroit, but he is otherwise a serious student:
I started telling jokes as a way to stop getting the shit kicked out of me
He later moves to Redwood Senior High School in Larkspur, Calif., where he joins the drama club, and is voted both ‘The funniest’ and ‘Least likely to succeed.’
When I came out to California to go to high school, it was 1969. I went to this gestalt high school, where one of the teachers actually took LSD one day. So you walked in and you hear (whispers), “I’m Lincoln.”
A poem to his mother:
Think young and you’ll never grow old,
The years will pass you by,
Birthdays are for merrymaking,
Present giving and birthday caking,
Age is the state of your mind
As the days of your years unfold,
Don’t live in the past,
Right up to the last
Think young and you’ll never grow old.
Can I Do It Till I Need Glasses?
Williams plays a lawyer and a man with a toothache in this film of short sexually suggestive skits, directed by Robert Levy. Co-starring Roger Behr and Joey Camen. Williams states about this first film:
Gave me the idea that it can be free-form, that you can go in and out of things pretty easily.
Mork and Mindy
Robin Williams stars in ABC’s thirty minute comedy serial Mork and Mindy. Mork is sent from planet Ork to investigate the primitive lifestyle of earthlings. His spaceship egg lands in Boulder, Colorado, and he makes friends with Mindy McConnell (Pam Dawber). Once Mork reveals to Mindy that he is an alien, she agrees to keep it a secret and to help him adjust to life on Earth. Producer Gary Williams:
He was all set to go, I said, “All right, Robin, we have three cameramen … Okay, Robin, ready, action.” And he ran around, he did a very funny thing, he ad-libbed a little, he said the lines, he was all over the place, and I yell, “Cut! Great!” And to Sam, my oldest cameraman, I said, “Did you get that, Sam?” And Sam said, “Never came by here.” I said, “You gotta move the camera, Sam. The man’s a genius.” And Sam said, “If he’s a genius, he could hit that mark right over there and he’ll be on camera.” So we hired a fourth camera, just to follow Robin.”
Wins Golden Globe
0 CommentsWilliams wins a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series – Comedy Or Musical for Mork and Mindy.
(Mork) came from Garry Marshall’s kid who saw Star Wars, and he went to his father and said, “Dad, why can’t they have an alien on ‘Happy Days’?” And Garry was like, “I don’t know, it will be weird.” But I think he did it as kind of a shout out to his son, as a one-off thing, and, I guess, just because it was so strange.
Wins Grammy
0 0 Jamie Jamie2014-08-11 20:18:062014-08-11 20:18:54Wins Grammy
Apartment Life magazine
0 Comments
Williams apartment is featured in a magazine feature about his apartment. There is no mention of the location. The spread shows images of a large decorative sheep in the living room, a chromium deco ashtray table with an electric penguin lighter, and a bedroom with the word “Art” in giant neon letters. Williams and his wife describe the apartment as “Deco Techo”.
Popeye
Williams portrays Popeye in Robert Altman’s musical comedy live-action realization of the American comic strip character Popeye the Sailor Man. Popeye is a spinach-eating sailor in love with Olive Oil (Shelley Duvall) and at odds with Bluto (Paul L. Smith), his perennial nemesis.
Near the end of the movie . . . the studio had pooled all of the money, so all the special effects people left. It was Ed Wood the last weeks of the movie. Shelley Duvall was in a pond, basically, with an octopus with no internal mechanism, having to drape it over her body like a feather boa. I’m in the water, and I’m kind of like sitting there .. . . . . we’re there on Malta, which is a very small island in between Italy and North Africa, and it was some of the worst weather they had had in 60 years. So it was a pretty crazy experience. But! I got to work with Robert Altman and I’ll never forget that.
The World According to Garp
Based on the novel by John Irving, Williams plays T.S. Garp – an only child conceived when his single mother has sex with a brain-damaged soldier in her nursing care, in this drama directed by George Roy Hil. Garp’s life from birth to death is punctuated by events such as: marriage and infidelity, parenting and the loss of a child, social and political activism, fame and death threats. Co-starring, Mary Beth Hurt. Helen Holm, Glenn Close and Jenny Fields.
I started off just improvising like crazy. And [director] George Roy Hill made a face like a weasel in a wind tunnel and I then I went, ‘Not good?’ And he went [breathes deep and whispers], ‘Just say the words.’
Zachary Pym Williams born
Williams’s first child Zachary Pym Williams is born. Zachary is the only child he shares with first wife Valerie Velardi. On spending time with Zachary, who is nicknamed Zach or Zak:
In the morning I often watch TV with Zach. They show those wonderful old Warner Brothers cartoons. To hear a child laugh like that—to see him watch Wile E. Coyote! My God, it’s something incredible! Sometimes while the cartoons are showing, I do wacky voices—you know, the way I do in my act. Sometimes he likes that, but sometimes he says, “Daddy, don’t use that voice. Just be Daddy.” And that’s what I want to do. Just be Daddy.
The Survivors
Williams portrays Donald Quinelle, an executive who is fired from his job in Michael Ritchie’s comedy. He goes to a diner and meets Sonny Paluso (Walter Matthau) who owns a gas station that was blown up. The two of them witness a robbery and the hit man threatens to kill them. Quinelle becomes obsessed with guns as a way to protect himself from the mob and enrolls in a survivalist training school in the mountains of Vermont. Co-starring Jerry Reed, James Wainwright, and Annie McEnroe. Ritchie:
Walter [Matthau] becomes straight man to Robin, and then Robin is straight man to him. That doesn’t happen in great comedy teams, where they form a pattern; Dean Martin is always in a certain relationship with Jerry Lewis, or Abbott is with Costello. Instead, with Walter and Danny or Walter and Robin, you have this balance constantly shifting.
Moscow on the Hudson
0 CommentsWilliams stars in this comedy-drama directed byPaul Mazursky as Russian saxophone player Vladimir Ivanoff. Vladimir defects to the United States in Blomingdale’s when his circus is on tour in New York City. Maria Conchita Alonso plays Vladimir’s Italian-born girlfriend in New York.
I think it’s my best all around film so far. I worked harder on it than I ever worked on a film. I would prepare for every scene the night before, so that when I came in to do it, I came in ready. I kept very careful track of the whole line of the story, because it was very important to show the daily changes that come over Vladimir when he comes from Russia to America.
Golden Globe nomination
0 CommentsWilliams is a nominee for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical for Moscow on the Hudson. Williams plays a Russian musician who is trying to adjust to American life.
The hardest was playing the saxophone, because I had never played an instrument before.
The Best of Times
0 CommentsIn this comedy directed by Roger Spottiswoode, Williams plays Jack Dundee, a bank vice-president who dropped an important football pass 13 years prior. He has never gotten over this and decides to have a rematch with the rival team only to find out that his father-in-law is rooting for the rivals. Co-starring Kurt Russell, Pamela Reed, and Holly Pallance.
It was glimpse of living life over again, fix mistakes, and make it better.
Club Paradise
0 CommentsDirected by Harold Ramis, in this comedy Williams plays Jack Moniker who retires and moves to a Caribbean island named St. Nicholas and makes friends with an owner of a run down resort. To avoid the resort being taken due to non-payment of taxes, the two of them renovate and reopen the resort to entice people to stay. Costars Peter O’Toole, Rick Moranis, and Twiggy. Referring to the scenes in the movie with Twiggy, he states:
There was no real sexual implication that much in this movie.
Seize the Day
0 CommentsIn this drama directed by Fielder Cook, Williams plays a salesman who lost his girlfriend, his job, and some of his sanity, who moves to New York to start his life over again. Co-starring Richard B. Shull and David Bickford. On working on the film during hurricane Gloria:
All of the city has shut down with the hurricane. Us? We work for Wing and a Prayer Productions.
Wins Grammy
0 0 Jamie Jamie2014-08-15 12:22:212014-08-15 12:22:21Wins Grammy
On the Ledge
In this comedy directed by Peter Ferrera, Williams costars as himself in a movie that is completely improvised with no written scripts that allowed the actors to make up the skits as they went along. Co-starring Jonathan Winters, Susan Anton, Milton Berle, and Phyllis Diller.
It was fun to work on. We would drive out, use all the film and keep on going.
Wins Emmy
Williams wins an Emmy Award for Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for Carol, Carl, Whoopi, and Robin.
Good Morning, America
In this drama based on a true story, directed by Barry Levinson and co-starring Forest Whitaker, Williams plays US Army DJ Adrian Cronauer. Cronauer is deployed to serve as a morning radio show host, and gains fame with the comic relief his monologues offer to the American troops. Producer Mark Johnson:
Robin would get up in the morning and say, “We have to do yesterday’s work all over again. I’ll pay for it.” I’d say, “What are you talking about! It worked great.”
