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Remembering Sean Maguire: A Look Back At Robin Williams Career In Hollywood

Comedic genius Robin Williams influenced the entire planet. On Comic Relief, he raised awareness about homelessness with his brand of humor. There was something remarkable about how he could transform a tragic topic into a humorous teaching moment. While most actors come and go without leaving a lasting impression on society, a select few manage to travel beyond the realm of entertainment and become cultural icons. The late Robin Williams starred in numerous highest grossing films and had won the hearts of moviegoers everywhere with his amusing and endearing roles, is just one of many actors to reach this fame.

RELATED: 15 Surprising Facts About Robin Williams' Life And Death

Chicago, Illinois, is where actor and comedian Robin McLaurin Williams entered the world on July 21, 1951. Williams went to Claremont Men's College and College of Marin before enrolling in New York City's Juilliard School. He later studied and became known as one of America's funniest performers. He met fellow actor Christopher Reeve then, and the two became close friends and roommates. Williams later tried his hand at stand-up comedy in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, where he found great success with his routine.

He started his fruitful career as a stand-up comedian in San Francisco although he did not make it to the list of the richest stand up comedian in the world, his career stand up comedy career led him somewhere, where he learned the art of improvisation and used the cutting-edge new method to his stage act. He went on to have a very successful career. Williams was inspired to take the next step by the response he received from the crowds, and he moved to Los Angeles to try his skills in larger clubs and Showbiz improv groups. The audiences adored his new and lively demeanor while he was performing onstage.

In San Francisco, he started out tending bar at the Holy City Zoo comedy club before doing his debut performance there. After relocating to Los Angeles, Williams resumed his stand-up career at venues like The Comedy Store. In 1977, TV producer George Schlatter saw him perform there and immediately cast him in a new season of Laugh-In. His first TV appearance was on that show, which aired toward the end of 1977. Williams' hard work paid off, as he was soon cast in the part that would launch his career as an actor to the next level.

In 1978, ABC became aware of Robin Williams' performance and was so blown away by it that they moved up the production of a new sitcom in which he would play an extraterrestrial. Even though the premise of Mork & Mindy was met with initial skepticism from the media, the show went on to become an enormous smash and served as the springboard for Robin Williams' phenomenally successful career which had a lot of great moments.

Williams's exceptional comedic talents and ability to take on serious material were shown in a series of successful film roles he played throughout the years. In 1982's The World According to Garp, he portrayed the title character, and in 1986's Moscow on the Hudson, he portrayed a Russian musician who defected to America. Later, Williams portrayed the brash radio host Adrian Cronauer in Good Morning, Vietnam(1987) and the unconventional educator John Keating in Dead Poets Society (1989). He was nominated for an Oscar for his lead performance in both films. Williams also voiced several characters in animated films, but the Genie in Aladdin (1992) was a role that was tailor-made for him.

The filmmakers admitted they had gambled by creating the part. Williams recorded about 30 hours of improvised dialogue. He impersonated dozens of famous people, including the Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger, Ed Sullivan, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Groucho Marx, Rodney Dangerfield, William F. Buckley Jr., Peter Lorre, and Arsenio Hall. Williams earned a Special Golden Globe for Vocal Work in a Motion Picture for his portrayal of Genie, which became one of his most famous and beloved roles, and Aladdin was the highest-grossing picture of 1992. His performance set the path for later animated films to employ actors with more star power.

Williams had several personal difficulties at the same time that his career was taking off. During his time on the comedy Mork & Mindy set, he began abusing drugs and alcohol, a habit he would continue to battle for the next twenty years. Williams persisted in his acting career despite experiencing several setbacks of his own. He co-starred with Robert De Niro and Julie Kavner in the successful Penny Marshall film Awakenings (1990). He was nominated for an Oscar for his portrayal of homeless man Parry in the 1991 uplifting drama The Fisher King. The films Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Jumanji (1995), and Flubber (1997) all featured Williams in leading roles.

The death of the 63-year-old comedian was announced on August 11, 2014, when his body was discovered in his California home. A statement from his publicist announcing that Robin Williams passed away this morning. They said that recently, Williams been suffering from a serious case of depression just like other celebrities who suffers from it. The loss came out of the blue and is heartbreaking. Fans were still interested in Williams' life and death years after his passing. After the publication of Dave Itzkoff's Robin in May 2018, it quickly became a best-seller. Then, two months later, HBO presented a character study of the comedian, Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind, based on stand-up excerpts and interviews with his friends and family.

READ NEXT: Behind The Comedian: 25 Surprising Details About Robin Williams’ Life

Sources: Washington Post, Huffington Post, The Guardian

 

 



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