, the prolific Oscar-winning actor and comedian, dies by suicide on August 11, 2014. He was 63.
Williams' prodigious comedic talent first came to national attention on the late-'70s TV show "Mork & Mindy," where he played a curious and childlike extraterrestrial who drank water through his finger, sported rainbow suspenders and introduced alien swear words like "shazboti." Williams' manic comic genius made the show a runaway hit.
On the big screen, Williams, who was born in Chicago in 1951, made his debut in the 1977 low-budget comedy Can I Do it ‘Til I Need Glasses? Then he went on to appear in films such as The World According to Garp (1982), Moscow on the Hudson (1984) and Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), for which he earned his first Academy Award nomination, in the best actor category, for his performance as an Armed Forces Radio disc jockey. Williams also received best actor Oscar nods for his role as an influential English teacher in Dead Poets Society and his role as a delusional homeless man in The Fisher King (1991).
Among the performer’s other credits are Aladdin (1992), in which he voiced the part of the genie, Mrs. Doubtfire, in which he portrayed a British nanny and Good Will Hunting, for which he won an Oscar, in the best supporting actor category, for his role as a therapist. Williams followed these projects with films including One Hour Photo (2002), The Night Listener (2006), the Happy Feet series (2006-11) and the Night at the Museum series (2006-14).
Williams was involved in a number of charitable causes, such as co-hosting telethons, along with Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, for Comic Relief, an organization that helps homeless people. The actor also was a regular on USO tours, entertaining American troops around the world. In his stand-up routines, Williams spoke openly about his experiences with substance abuse and sobriety.
After Williams died, tributes poured in from the Hollywood community and beyond. Then-president Barack Obama said: “[He] was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien—but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit.”
