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Robin Williams

Robin Williams (July 21, 1951 – August 11, 2014) was an American actor and comedian. Williams came to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams performed in many feature films between 1980 and 2013. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1997 film Good Will Hunting. He has also won two Emmy Awards, four Golden Globes, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and five Grammy Awards.

A Chicago native, Williams studied at Claremont McKenna College (then called Claremont Men's College. Williams left Claremont and attained a full scholarship to the esteemed Juilliard School, where he was briefly classmates with Christopher Reeve.

Williams and his former wife, Marsha, founded the Windfall Foundation, a philanthropic organization to raise money for many different charities. Williams devotes much of his energy to charity work, including the Comic Relief fundraising efforts.

In his later years, Williams spoke publicly about his battle with substance abuse. In 2006, he sought treatment for alcoholism after 20 years of sobriety. On August 11, 2014, Williams was found unconscious and pronounced dead at his home in Tiburon, California.

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  • Category: Actors
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