Robin Williams, the versatile actor whose madcap comic style made him one of television and film’s biggest stars, was found dead on Monday after an apparent suicide at his home in Northern California. He was 63.
The comedian’s appeal stretched across generations and genres, from family fare as the voice of Disney’s blue Genie in Aladdin to his portrayal of a fatherly therapist in the 1997 drama Good Will Hunting, for which he earned his sole Oscar.
However, many remembered the master of impressions on Monday for his tender portrayal in Mrs Doubtfire, when he played the part of a British nanny whose identity he assumed as a divorced father to be with his children.
Photo: AFP
Williams had been recently suffering from severe depression, his publicist Mara Buxbaum said in a statement and the actor had repeatedly talked about his past struggles with alcohol.
“This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken,” Williams’ wife, Susan Schneider, said in a statement.
The Marin County Sheriff’s coroner’s division said it suspected Williams committed suicide by asphyxia, but the cause of death is still under investigation and an autopsy was to be conducted yesterday.
Photo: Reuters
The sheriff’s office said it received an emergency call about noon on Monday, saying Williams was unconscious and not breathing at his home near Tiburon, north of San Francisco.
Outside the family home in a neighborhood of low-slung houses with water views, people left flowers and talked about the man who rode his bike around and had a smile and a wave for kids on the street.
“It wasn’t like having a celebrity,” Sonja Conti said. “He was just a normal, nice guy. People left him alone.”
Social media was alight with appreciation for Williams, who introduced his boyish exuberance and outlandish style to audiences as a quirky extraterrestrial in the late 1970s TV comedy Mork & Mindy.
US President Barack Obama called Williams a “one of a kind” actor who could make people laugh and cry in his array of characters.
Williams, most recently in the CBS television comedy The Crazy Ones until it was canceled in May, entered a rehabilitation center this summer.
His representatives at the time said Williams was not using drugs or alcohol, but was there to “fine-tune” his sobriety after a demanding work schedule.
Williams’ death shook Hollywood and colleagues mourned who many called a big-hearted man and one of the most inventive comedians of his time.
“Robin was a lightning storm of comic genius and our laughter was the thunder that sustained him,” said Steven Spielberg, who directed Williams as Peter Pan in the 1991 film, Hook.
Williams, who was born in Chicago in 1951 and grew up in suburban Detroit, earned four Academy Award nominations, the first for Good Morning, Vietnam.
He earned nominations for the 1990 coming-of-age prep school drama Dead Poets Society and 1991’s The Fisher King.
Williams married three times, most recently in 2011 to Schneider. He has three children.
In a 2009, the actor told Reuters that his children often referenced his struggles with alcohol when he would confront them about their own misbehavior.
“They went, ‘And you had a three-year drunken relapse.’ Ah, thank you for bringing that back, my little happy creatures,” Williams said.
Williams will appear in the upcoming films Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb and Merry Friggin’ Christmas. He was also attached to a sequel to 1993 hit Mrs Doubtfire.
In his final Twitter post on July 31, Williams wished his daughter Zelda a happy 25th birthday.
Late on Monday, Zelda posted: “I love you. I miss you. I’ll try to keep looking up.”
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