Trivia

One week after Christopher Reeve's tragic horse-riding accident, Williams 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 and did a bunch of wacky antics. After he took off his mask, Reeve stated, "That was the first time I'd laughed since the accident!".

He was frequently called up by Steven Spielberg when he was filming Schindler's List (1993). He would put him on speaker phone so he could tell jokes to the cast and crew to cheer them up. He used his character in Aladdin (1992) most of the time.

When he auditioned for the role of Mork from Ork on Happy Days (1974), producer Garry Marshall told him to sit down. Williams immediately sat on his head on the chair. Marshall hired him, saying that he was the only alien who auditioned.

He was a very overweight child. As a result, nobody would play with him. He started talking in different voices to entertain himself.

He studied at The Juilliard School with actor Christopher Reeve. The two remained good friends until Reeve's death in 2004.

During the course of recording the voice of Genie in Aladdin (1992), Robin improvised so much they had almost 16 hours of material. He also ad-libbed so many of his lines that the movie's script was turned down for a Best Adapted Screenplay Academy Award nomination.

He was voted "Most Humorous" and "Least likely to succeed" in school.

After having won the Academy Award for Good Will Hunting (1997), he sent Peer Augustinski (who was his standard German dubbing voice) a little Oscar replica with a note: "Thank you for making me famous in Germany.".

In 1997 he was voted funniest man alive by Entertainment Weekly.

When his Inside the Actors Studio (1994) interview was being taped, a man in the audience had to be hospitalized after acquiring a hernia from laughing so hard.

He co-owned the Rubicon Restaurant in San Francisco with Robert De Niro and fellow Bay area resident Francis Ford Coppola.

During the making of Mork & Mindy (1978), he departed from the scripts and ad-libbed so many times and so well that the producers stopped 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 he could improvise.

Upon his death, his wife, Susan Schneider, said, "This morning I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin's death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.".

Early in his career he told a reporter that he was born in Scotland. His original press releases indeed listed Scotland as his place of birth. He admitted that he was "under the influence" at the time he said this. He was really born in Chicago.

During the restaurant scene in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) when her false teeth fell into a wine glass, the cast didn't know Williams would do that, and their reactions on film were genuine, mirroring the shock of the crew.

He considered Jonathan Winters and Richard Pryor his comedic idols.

He was voted the 50th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

As a comic book lover, Williams happily accepted an offer to play The Joker in Batman (1989) after Jack Nicholson was hesitant to take on the part. Upon hearing that Williams had committed to the part, Nicholson immediately signed on, and Warner Bros. let the former go. Williams was so upset about being used as leverage to get Nicholson on board that he refused to do movies for Warner Bros. for years afterwards, until the studio had apologized to him.

In 2004 he dedicated his winning the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globe Awards to his good friend Christopher Reeve.

He was a huge fan of Doctor Who (1963) and Star Trek (1966).

He accepted the offer to voice the Genie in Aladdin (1992) as he wanted to be part of the animation tradition. Fearing that his contribution would be exploited commercially, he accepted a minimum salary on the conditions that his voice would not be used in the film's merchandise, nor would the Genie be overused in the film's advertising. When both conditions were broken by Disney's chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg, Williams refused to work with Disney again. He was therefore absent as the Genie's voice in The Return of Jafar (1994) or the Aladdin (1994) TV show. After Katzenberg was fired and the new CEO Joe Roth publicly apologized to him, he changed his mind and returned to do Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996).

He studied acting briefly at The Juilliard School 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.

He was a huge fan of the "Legend of Zelda" series since the first game appeared in 1986, and even named his daughter Zelda, after the eponymous character. Both Robin and Zelda appeared in a commercial for The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (2011).

He became extremely close with Lisa Jakub and Mara Wilson who played his daughters in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) and stayed in touch with them over the years. Mara described him as a source of great comfort after the death of her mother.

He was invited to the party Steve Martin was throwing that turned out to be his wedding.

He helped pay for his friend Christopher Reeve's physical therapy and other medical expenses after Reeve's horse-riding accident.

Asked by James Lipton about what he would like God to say when he arrived in heaven, Williams answered that "There is a seat in the front" in the concert of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Elvis Presley.

Enjoyed playing pen and paper board games and played monthly with a group of close friends in San Francisco.

Williams and Robert De Niro were the last stars to see John Belushi alive, albeit on separate visits to Bungalow #3 of the Chateau Marmont Hotel in Los Angeles on the day Belushi died of a drug overdose in March 1982.

Chris Columbus was amazed how far Williams took his performance in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993). First, he would play each scene as scripted two to three times and then was allowed to improvise. Columbus allowed him to do a lot of improv because that was where the film's funniest material came from; Scenes were shot from 15-22 times because Williams wasn't satisfied until he had the scene worked out of his system. Columbus admitted he never knew where Williams was going to take the character next.

An autopsy revealed he suffered from Lewy Body Dementia, a neurodegenerative disorder with a rapid onset, which has a higher prevalence in men and occurring after the age of 50. It is often mistaken for Parkinson's or Alzheimer's disease. Symptoms can include difficulty with alertness, hallucinations, slowing of movement, difficulty walking (ataxia or dystaxia), and rigidity. Restlessness during sleep and mood changes like depression are also common in Lewy Body Dementia.

He became a vegetarian following his open heart surgery.

He enjoyed cycling and occasionally trained with Lance Armstrong.

On the night of his death it was announced to the UK on the BBC News Channel., BBC Three had just broadcast Family Guy Viewer Mail #2 (2012), where Peter Griffin wishes that everyone was Robin Williams, is then struck by lightning and gets the power that everyone he touches turns into Robin Williams.

He reached a unique milestone by having two of his films reach the $100-million mark in the US exactly the same week: Jumanji (1995) and The Birdcage (1996). (1996)

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. Sadly, Williams himself would also commit suicide fifteen years later.

Most of his dialogue in Aladdin (1992) was ad-libbed.

His remains were cremated after his death and his ashes were scattered along the San Francisco Bay Area.

He was one of the few celebrities to have a segment on Sesame Street (1969) that did not have any puppets or actors playing "Sesame Street" regular characters.

He has appeared in three films that have been nominated for the Best Picture Oscar: Dead Poets Society (1989), Awakenings (1990) and Good Will Hunting (1997).

From August 16-18, 2014, Disney honored him by airing Aladdin (1992) on their three children's channels (Disney Channel on Saturday, Disney XD on Sunday, and Disney Junior on Sunday evening and Monday morning), twice on each channel. At the end of the movie, just before the credits, they put up an image that read, "In Memory of Robin Williams, who made us laugh." using Eric Goldberg's (the movie's animator) tribute to him as a backdrop.

He married for the third time to Susan Schneider, a graphic designer, on October 23, 2011, at Meadowood Resort in St. Helena, California, among friends and family.

He had played the same character (Mork) in three different series: Happy Days (1974), Mork & Mindy (1978) and Out of the Blue (1979).

He recovered at the Cleveland (OH) Clinic after successful open-heart surgery on March 13, 2009, to replace his aortic valve.

A statement was released by his wife Susan Schneider after his death in which she said that Robin's sobriety was intact and that he was brave as he struggled with his own battles of depression, anxiety as well as early stages of Parkinson's Disease, which he was not yet ready to share publicly.

Though he was highly regarded for his ability to perform numerous different voices, he only lent his voice to six animated features: FernGully: The Last Rainforest (1992), Aladdin (1992), Aladdin and the King of Thieves (1996), Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2006) and Happy Feet Two (2011). However, he did voice-over work for a cartoon on Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), played a small role in the animated short A Wish for Wings That Work (1991), and had done narration for different rides and attractions at Disney World. He has also done the voice for the character "Doctor Know" in the movie A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), which was not an animated movie.

In 2003, he won Grammy Award for Best Spoken Comedy Album for "Robin Williams - Live 2002".

He was fond of going to comedy clubs and taking pictures with the club owners to be displayed on the walls, which made the clubs more popular and encouraged aspiring stand-ups to audition there.

He did interviews as the title character in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) to promote the film, and sometimes played the interviewer also.

He was an active supporter of the Democratic Party and had been outspoken about his opposition to the war in Iraq. However, he became the most consistent entertainer of U.S. troops since the war began, leading some to dub him the new Bob Hope.