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Veteran film and television comedic actor Robin Williams was found dead in his home in Tiburon, Calif. on Monday. He was 63.The cause of death is believed to be suicide via asphyxiation, according to the Tiburon coroner’s office.
According to his publicist, who confirmed the news, the actor had been battling depression of late and recently entered 12-step rehab for drug abuse.
His wife Susan Schneider said in a statement: “I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin’s family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.”
The Marin County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from Williams’ residence on Monday at 11:55 a.m. reporting the actor had been found unconscious and was not breathing. The paramedics arrived shortly thereafter at 12 p.m. and pronounced him dead at 12:02 p.m.
Williams was last seen alive by his wife at 10 p.m. on Sunday.
An autopsy is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 12, at the Marin County Coroner’s Office.
Williams is best known for both comedic and dramatic roles in movies including “Good Will Hunting,” for which he won a best supporting actor Oscar in 1997. In addition, he won several Emmys and Golden Globes.
His showbiz career was bookended by TV roles: his breakout role on the ABC sitcom “Mork & Mindy” in 1978 and his return to TV last season on CBS’ “The Crazy Ones” opposite Sarah Michelle Gellar
His most recent film was “The Angriest Man in Brooklyn.”
Born in Chicago to a former model and an auto-industry executive, Robin McLaurin Williams attended high school and community college in Marin Country before graduating from the Juilliard School in 1973. His career exploded in the late 1970s on the strength of both his stand-up comedy act and “Happy Days” spin-off “Mork & Mindy,” which channeled his antic stream-of-consciousness style into the role of an alien on Earth.
His first film roles were as the star of “Popeye,” the title character in John Irving adaptation “The World According to Garp” and a Russian on the loose in Manhattan in Paul Mazursky’s “Moscow on the Hudson.”
But he took his career to the next level with a bevy of lead parts in critically acclaimed movies beginning in the late 1980s, including “Good Morning, Vietnam,” “Dead Poets Society” and “The Fisher King,” all of which garnered him Oscar nominations. But it wasn’t until his performance in “Hunting,” from a screenplay by Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, that he earned his only win, for supporting actor, in 1998.
For all his success as a comedy star, Williams’ performance as a nurturing psychotherapist in “Good Will Hunting” proved he had a flair for dramatic roles as well. Williams also scored in another dramatic role as a man of medicine, playing neuroscientist Oliver Sacks in the 1990 movie “Awakenings.” (In a film with a very different tone, he also played a doctor — one who’ll do anything to cheer up his patients — in hit comedy “Patch Adams.”) Francis Ford Coppola’s “Jack” posed an interesting challenge for the actor as he was essentially playing a boy trapped in a man’s body.
But Williams will be remembered best for the parts that exhibited his improvisational comedy, which he delivered with near manic intensity. His genius for over-the-top characters was displayed in the early 1990s everywhere from the cross-dressing nanny in “Mrs. Doubtfire” to animated roles like the genie in “Aladdin.” There was also the hilarity of “La Cage Aux Folles” remake “The Birdcage.”
During the ’90s he also starred in board game fantasy “Jumanji,” played an adult Peter opposite Dustin Hoffman in Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” and showed a wistfully romantic side in 1998’s “What Dreams May Come.”
More recently, he played a secretly twisted murderer in Alaska-set thriller “Insomnia” alongside Al Pacino, and he played Theodore Roosevelt in the very successful Ben Stiller comedy “Night at the Museum.” The “Happy Feet” animated penguin comedy allowed him to let loose his delightfully manic side, while 2009’s “World’s Greatest Dad” was far more interesting than the title would suggest.
He is survived by his wife and three children.
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Original article from Variety.
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