Robin Williams Trivia

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Birth name: Robin McLaurin Williams 

Date of birth: 21 July 1951 

Place of birth: Chicago, Illinois, USA 

Nickname: Rob

Height: 5′ 7″ (1.70 m) 

Spouse: Marsha Garces Williams (30 April 1989 – present) 2 children, Valerie Velardi (4 June 1978 – 1988) (divorced) 1 child.

• Moved to San Francisco when he was 16.
• Studied acting briefly at Julliard under John Houseman. Houseman told him he was wasting his talent at Juilliard and he should strike out on his own and do stand-up comedy.
• Resides with his family in San Francisco’s Seacliff neighborhood.
• Was set to play Drew Barrymore’s father in the film Home Fries (1998) and had the role during production, but pulled out of the part days before his scenes were to be shot.
• Son, with Williams, Cody. [1992]
• Daughter, with Williams, Zelda. [1989]
• He named his daughter Zelda because his son is a devoted fan of the Legend of Zelda video game series. 
• Son, with Velardi, Zachary, born. [1983]
• Ranked #63 in Empire (UK) magazine’s “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list. [October 1997]
• Voted funniest man alive by Entertainment Weekly. [1997]
• When he auditioned for the role of Mork from Ork, he met Garry Marshall who told him to sit down. Robin immediately sat on his head on the chair. Marshall immediately chose him saying that he was the only alien who auditioned.
• During the making of “Mork & Mindy” (1978), Williams departed from the scripts and ad libbed so many times and so well, that the producers stop trying to make him stick to the script and deliberately left gaps in the later scripts leaving only “Mork can go off here” in those places so Robin could improvise.
• Was considered for the role of the Riddler in Batman Forever (1995).
• In 1979, Robin released an album “Reality…What a Concept” on Casablanca Record and Film Works.
• Was set to appear on an episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987) as the time traveler Prof. Berlinghoff Rasmussen, but a schedule conflict forced him to drop out (the role eventually went to Matt Frewer). He was inspired to seek a Trek role by his friend Whoopi Goldberg, who made several appearances on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” (1987) as the bartender Guinan.
• Is a fan of the sport of Rugby Union, and in particular New Zealand All Black star Jonah Lomu, who flew to San Francisco and gifted him with a signed All Black jersey. On a recent visit to New Zealand they were reunited on national TV, Williams humbly accepting another All Black jersey, except this time it had Jonah’s number 11 on the back.
• Attended Claremont Men’s College, where he played soccer.
• Listed as one of Entertainment Weekly’s 25 Best Actors [1998]
• He is a fan of the comedy series “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” (1969).
• Studied at Juliard with actor Christopher Reeve. The two remained good friends until Christopher Reeve’s death in 2004.
• Enjoys cycling and occasionally trains with Lance Armstrong.
• After having won the academy award for Good Will Hunting (1997), he sent Peer Augustinski (who is his standard German dubbing voice) a little Oscar replica with a note: “Thank you for making me famous in Germany”.
• Robin Williams has performed in the USO for U.S. troops stationed in Iraq for 3 years. Just days after the start of the Iraq War, Williams performed for American troops stationed in Afghanistan. 
• He is a Democrat, life-long Episcopalian, and San Francisco resident (he owns a large house in the upper-class Seacliff neighborhood). 
• After some encouragement from his friend Whoopi Goldberg, he was set to make a guest appearance in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, A Matter of Time, but had to pull out due to a scheduling conflict; Matt Frewer took his place as time-traveling con man, Professor Berlingoff Rasmussen. 
• During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Williams had a serious addiction to cocaine; he has since kicked the habit. A quote attributed to him states, “Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you are making too much money.” 
• Graduated from Redwood High School in Larkspur, California, north of San Francisco. Other famous alumni from Redwood include Gabrielle Carteris (“Beverly Hills, 90210″ (1990)) and Erin Gray (Kate from “Silver Spoons” (1982)), Gabrielle Carteris, Erin Grey and Jason Branson, radio talk show guest/therapist and author.
• Winner Of The Grammy Award for “Best Spoken Comedy Album” Robin Williams – Live 2002. This was in 2003.
• Hit #104 on the Billboard Singles Charts in 1980 with “I Yam What I Yam” (Boardwalk 5701)
• Ranked #7 in Star TV’s Top 10 Box Office Stars of the 1990s (2003)
• Shares birthday with Josh Hartnett.
• Actor reached a unique milestone in 1996, he had two of his films reach the $100 million mark in the USA exactly the same week, Jumanji (1995) and The Birdcage (1996).
• Was voted “Least Likely to Succeed” by his fellow graduates at Larkspur.
• Early in his career he told a reporter that he was born in Scotland. His original press releases do indeed list Scotland as his place of birth. He admits now that he was “under the influence” at the time he said this. He was really born in Chicago.
• He was voted the 50th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.
• 1 week after Christopher Reeve’s tragic horse riding accident, Robin visited him in the hospital. However, he was dressed from head to toe in scrubs, spoke with a Russian accent, and had a surgical mask on. He was acting as if he was a real doctor did a bunch of wacky antics. After he took off his mask, Reeves stated that, “That was the first time he laughed since the accident!”
• Helped his long time friend Christopher Reeve pay his medical bills during his final years following the horse riding accident.
• When ‘Blame Canada’, a song from South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut (1999), was nominated for a Best Song Academy Award, it was Williams who performed the song at the ceremony, because the actress who sang the song in the film, Mary Kay Bergman, had committed suicide a few months prior to the awards show.
• He was considered for the role of Joe Miller in Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia. Denzel Washington was cast instead.
• A democrat, Williams has been outspoken about his opposition to the war in Iraq. However, he has become the most consistent entertainer of U.S. troops since the war has began, leading some to dub him the next Bob Hope.
• Has been seen in playing paintball at public reservations near his Northern California residence.
• He was a very overweight child. As a result, nobody would play with him. He started talking in different voices to entertain himself.Dedicated his winning the Cecille B. DeMille award at the 2004 Golden Globes to friend Christopher Reeve.
• Most of his dialogue in Aladdin (1992) is ad-libbed.
• Was a guest on Johnny Carson’s last episode of the “Tonight Show”, along with Bette Midler.
• Is of Welsh and Scottish heritage.
• Graduated from Redwood High School in Larkspur, California.
• He and his Being Human and Robots cast mate, Ewan McGregor, have both shared a role with Alec Guinness. McGregor, of course, played the young Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Star Wars prequels. Williams appeared in Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet, as Osric, a part that Guinness had played on stage opposite John Gielgud. Williams also shares that part with another Star Wars actor, Peter Cushing, who played the same role in the same year in the film, opposite Laurence Olivier.
• Co-owns the Rubicon restaurant in San Francisco with Robert De Niro and fellow Bay area resident Francis Ford Coppola.
• Wrote the foreword to Gary Larson’s book, “The Far Side: Gallery 4″ (1993).
• After a 20 year break from doing stand up comedy, he came back in 2002 with a show live on Broadway. It won a Grammy for best spoken word album in 2003.
• Though he is highly regarded for his ability to perform numerous different voices, he only has lent his voice to five animated features: FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996) (V), Robots (2005), and Happy Feet (2006). However, he did have the occupation of doing voice over work for a cartoon on Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), played a small role in the TV animated short A Wish for Wings That Work (1991) (TV), and has done narration for different rides and attractions at Disney World. He has also done the voice for the character “Dr. Know” in the movie “A.I. Artificial Intelligence”, which is in itself not a animated movie.
• He appeared on an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition that aired on January 30, 2006. Via a live video link to the De’Aeth family whose house and animal rescue shelter were being made over, he encouraged their son Cory, a budding comedian, and gave the family’s shelter a recreational vehicle used in the R.V. movie. 
• He’s an only child
• On January 6, 2006 he performed live at Consumer Electronics Show during Google keynote.
• Robin Williams has recently made peace with the Walt Disney Company and in 2009 agreed to be inducted into the Disney hall of fame, designated as a Disney Legend.
• Robin Williams was accused of stealing material from other comics to the extent that David Brenner claims that he confronted Williams personally and threatened him with bodily harm if he heard Williams utter another one of his jokes.
• Williams was hospitalized in March 2009 due to heart problems. He postponed his one-man tour in order to undergo surgery to replace his aortic valve.The surgery was successfully completed on March 13, 2009, at the Cleveland Clinic.

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