Robin Williams, an Academy Award-winning actor and comedian who imbued his performances with wild inventiveness and a kind of manic energy, died on Monday at his home in Marin County, Calif. He was 63.<\/p>\n
The county sheriff\u2019s office said in a statement that it \u201csuspects the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia.\u201d A further investigation was under way.<\/p>\n
The statement said that the office received a 9-1-1 call at 11:55 a.m. saying that a man had been found \u201cunconscious and not breathing inside his residence.\u201d Emergency personnel sent to the scene identified him as Mr. Williams and pronounced him dead at 12:02 p.m.<\/p>\n
Mr. William\u2019s publicist, Mara Buxbaum, said in a statement that Mr. Williams \u201chas been battling severe depression.\u201d
\nHis wife, Susan Schneider, said in a statement, \u201cThis morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings.\u201d She added: \u201cAs he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin\u2019s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.\u201d<\/p>\n
Robin Williams performs an excerpt from Rajiv Joseph’s new Broadway play, “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo.”
\nVideo Credit By Erik Piepenburg and Mekado Murphy on Publish Date March 31, 2011.<\/p>\n
Mr. Williams, who was raised in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and in Marin County, attended the Juilliard School in New York before breaking through as a hyperverbal comedian and a star of the 1978 ABC sitcom \u201cMork & Mindy,\u201d playing a giddy alien unaccustomed to life on this planet.<\/p>\n
He went on to earn Academy Award nominations for his roles in films like \u201cGood Morning, Vietnam,\u201d in which he played a loquacious radio D.J.; \u201cDead Poets Society,\u201d playing a mentor to students in need of inspiration; and \u201cThe Fisher King,\u201d as a homeless man whose life has been struck by tragedy. He won an Oscar in 1998 for \u201cGood Will Hunting,\u201d playing a therapist who works with a troubled prodigy played by Matt Damon.<\/p>\n
Sad. Very sad.He made me laugh and I especially hate to lose people who make me laugh.Good Morning Vietnam was special for me and I assume…<\/p>\n
I saw him perform once live: the first New Yorker Festival when he was “interviewed”. It gradually transformed into a standup session where…<\/p>\n
Beginning with roles in the 1977 sex farce \u201cCan I Do It \u2018Till I Need Glasses\u201d and \u201cThe Richard Pryor Show,\u201d a variety series hosted by one of his comedy mentors, Mr. Williams rapidly ascended the entertainment industry\u2019s ladder.<\/p>\n
Hired to play an eccentric alien in an episode of \u201cHappy Days,\u201d Mr. Williams caught the attention of the show\u2019s creator, Garry Marshall, who cast him to reprise his career-making role of Mork from Ork in \u201cMork & Mindy.\u201d Mr. Williams soon graduated into movie roles that include the title characters in \u201cPopeye,\u201d Robert Altman\u2019s 1980 live-action musical about that spinach-chomping cartoon sailor; and \u201cThe World According to Garp,\u201d the director George Roy Hill\u2019s 1982 adaptation of the John Irving novel.<\/p>\n
He also continued to appear in raucous standup comedy specials like \u201cRobin Williams: An Evening at the Met,\u201d which showcased his garrulous performance style and his indefatigable ability to free-associate without the apparent benefit of prepared material. Alongside his friends and fellow actors Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg, Mr. Williams appeared in an annual series of telethons for Comic Relief, a charity organization that helps homeless people and others in need.<\/p>\n
Mr. Williams\u2019s acting career reached a new height in 1987 with his performance in Barry Levinson\u2019s film \u201cGood Morning, Vietnam,\u201d in which he played a nonconformist Armed Forces Radio host working in Saigon in the 1960s. It earned Mr. Williams his first Oscar nomination. He earned another two years later for \u201cDead Poets Society,\u201d directed by Peter Weir and released in 1989, in which he played an unconventional English teacher at a 1950s boarding school who inspires his students to tear up their textbooks and seize the day. (Or, as Mr. Williams\u2019s character famously put it in the original Latin, \u201cCarpe diem.\u201d)