Robin Williams

A manic prankster and lovable loose cannon, Robin Williams became a star in the 1970s TV series Mork and Mindy. He played Mork from Ork, a sweetly nutty space alien learning about life on Earth. Williams moved quickly into films, often playing wise comic oddballs in heartfelt dramas. He was Oscar-nominated for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Fisher King (1991) before finally winning an Academy Award as the sympathetic psychologist who befriends Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting (1997). In a more comic vein he played a wacky genie in the Disney animated feature Aladdin, the strong-armed title sailor in 1980’s Popeye (with Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl), a cross-dressing dad in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, with Sally Field) and a grown-up Peter Pan in the 1991 Steven Spielberg movie Hook. His other films include Insomnia (2002, with Al Pacino), One Hour Photo (2002), Robots (2005, voice) and David Duchovny’s House of D (2004).

Williams has maintained a stand-up comedy career, and joined Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg as co-host for many Comic Relief benefit shows… Williams is unrelated to folk music stars Robin and Linda Williams… The character of Mork from Ork originated as a guest star on the Ron Howard TV series Happy Days… Some sources list his birth year as 1951 rather than 1952. Who2 accepts 1952 based in part on the 1998 biography Robin Williams by Andy Dougan. —Who2 Biography