Robin Williams: the filmography of the actor and his best roles. What was the cause of Robin Williams' death?

On August 11, 2013, hundreds of millions of people were upset by the sad news: Robin Williams hanged himself.

The man who made laughs, who inspired ... Quotations from his monologues used by journalists, politicians, ordinary people. The world-famous American comedian and dramatic actor was able to make even the furniture laugh! Not only America considered it "their own": on "foggy Albion" he was also a frequent visitor.

The best roles

The actor enriched the world cinema with an unforgettable comedy image, sharpened to the mentality of the American and West European viewers. Really talented embodied the main roles of Robin Williams:

• Sailor Popeye from the film of the same name by Robert Altman;
• Writer Garp in the film directed by George Roy "The World by Harp";
• Presenter of the radio station Adrian Kronauer ("Good morning, Vietnam!", Directed by Barry Levinson) ;
• Teacher Kitting from the film "Society of Dead Poets," directed by Peter Weir;
• Dr. Sayer Malcolm from the movie Penny Marshall "Awakening";
• Vagabond Perry ("The King of the Fisherman," drama by Terry Giliam);
• Adult Peter Pan - lawyer Peter Banning ("Captain Hook" directed by Steven Spielberg);
• Daniel Hillard, reincarnated as Mrs. Doubtfire ("Mrs. Doubtfire," a comedy directed by Chris Columbus);
• Absorbed by the game Alan Parrish from the tape "Jumanji" directed by Joe Johnston;
• Wax Theodore Roosevelt from "Night at the Museum" (1, 2, 3) directed by Sean Levy;
• Robot NDR-314, taking the form of a man Andrew Martin (Chris Columbus's film "Bicentennial Man");
• Sorcerer Maxwell Wales from the melodrama of Kirsten Sheridan "August Rush";
• Eccentric grandfather Mitch from the comedy Tristra Shapiro "This is a pancake, Christmas miracle."

Investigation of suicide

His death, bathed in the love of admirers, was at first glance illogical.

On the eve of a couple of days before the death of the 63-year-old actor discussed with a friend plans for the future. On the morning of the same fateful day, while in another bedroom, he dialed the phone of his wife Susan Schneider and asked to buy newspapers and magazines.

Did not even remotely reminiscent of the classic type of suicide Robin Williams! How did this person die and, most importantly, why? However, a few days later the mournful picture of the incident became known to the public.

The wife of the deceased, Susan Schneider, reported details that coincided with the observations of his friends and acquaintances. The death of actor Robin Williams took place under the influence of a drug that causes side fear and depression. He took it, fighting with the initial stage of Parkinson's disease. However, in the final analysis, Williams committed this act consciously. Although he was not a coward. The actor knew and felt that he was gradually losing his mind. The "parade" of symptoms began dramatically, from the fall of 2013. It faded before our eyes. Doctors talked about emergency hospitalization.

Childhood

He could be called a man who made himself. Williams was born on July 21, 1951 in Chicago (Illinois), in the family of businessman Robert Fitzgerald Williams and former model Laurie McClarin Smith, the great-granddaughter of the governor of the state. The future actor had two older stepbrothers.

The family moved often, and Williams succeeded schools: in Gorton, Detroit, Larkspur. He studied well, was a class president, was engaged in football and wrestling. However, classmates remembered him for the ability to laugh.

Williams chose his own profession

Robbie's parents, fortunately, were workaholic. Therefore, Robin Williams chose his own way of life, according to his abilities. His biography is therefore a description of a person's life, constantly looking for new realizations of his talent, developing, self-fulfilling.

The father was not happy with the choice of his son, considering the welder's profession the best start for a future career. In college, where in addition to this work specialty, Williams also had acting lessons, he was eagerly interested in only the second aspect of his education. Studying in college, he first played a role in the musical "Oliver." Jimmy Dunn, the first teacher of acting, Robin, spoke of him as "about no boundaries on the stage" and "able to play any role."

However, the father, who left early, apparently believed that his son would be a welder ...

Rejected classical acting education

Deciding to become an actor, Robin Williams in 1973 entered the prestigious Juilliard Theater School (New York), where in the same flow with him were William Hurt and Christopher Reeve. However, after studying only two courses, he threw it in 1976, and motivated.

Why did Robbie do this? Academic principles of comic art, he learned in his childhood, endlessly trying before friends and family lessons of hypocrisy, "stolen" them from leading comedians: Peter Sellers, Lenny Bruce, Mike Nichols, Jonathan Winters. The young man, having got to Juilliard, was imbued with a sense of deja vu: the teachers tried to convey to him the skills that he already possessed.

He went the other way, because he knew that he needed: to become a magnet for the audience, to sharpen his ability to comic impromptu to perfection. Later he will say that in every artist there must be a "drop of madness", and that it should be cherished as the apple of the eye. It was her, the catalyst of inspiration, that could extinguish the academicism of classical education, turning the creative personality into a "typical Juilliard product".

Artist of the stand

The actor was already then his own creative style. Conquered the audience blurring the boundaries between insanity and genius Robin Williams.

Photo actor soon appeared on the club posters. William began to develop his talent, becoming an artist of the stand-up genre. For this, the artist moved with his family to San Francisco, where he performed at Holy City Club. But the City of St. Francis was not his city. Williams' talent demanded great shakes. His life in San Francisco comedian later compared with living in Switzerland during a nuclear war.

Not surprisingly, he was soon enticed by the Los Angeles clubs Comedy Club, The Roxy, The Improve. There, life was beating the key.

Loyalty to drugs

It was during this period that the artist began to regularly take drugs, and then defeated this pernicious hobby. How did this happen? To his credit, before the performance, he never took them. Always quite enough own drive.

Williams told of himself that his talent "turns on" includes the situation if he has more than one listener, and as soon as the first laughter appears, it triples forces and "drags upward." Laughter at the audience was caused by the very appearance on stage of the "absolutely convincing" Robin with the "eternal crooked smile and strabismus."

But after the speech, he took a combination of vodka and cocaine to "maintain energy at the proper level".

Achieving the top in the standup genre

He was invited to the performances of British clubs, among them the famous The comedy store. It would seem that the goal has been achieved: it has been successful, the comedian Robin Williams is famous throughout the world. His photos were not only on posters, but also in newspaper magazine articles. But the crown of the comic's career was an invitation to the Richard Prior's Show.

This is the dream of any comedian. Participate in this show for the humorist is equivalent to the success of the football club that went to the Champions League. That there is only a phrase to which he recommends the audience a public person (a well-known inveterate smoker): "He would even bite his uncle ..." This was a new bright talent, which he craved to get a movie.

Powerful start of film career

The first series "Happy Days", in which he starred as Williams in the role of the alien Mark, became a bomb in the mass media. It was a resounding success: on March 12, 1979, Robin Williams was portrayed on the cover of America's main news magazine Time. His filmography began triumphantly. Enterprising dealers placed a photo of the artist on their goods, and his figure was "stuffed" with chocolate eggs.

Resonant also became a feature film, which soon starred Robin - "Sailor Popeye." The budget of the film was $ 20 million, for his filming on about. Malta built a whole village, preserved as a tourist attraction to this day.

Thanks to the talent of Williams, who portrayed a charismatic sailor, a zealous spinach lover, the film earned $ 60 million. By the way, the replicated quote "this is checkmate" from there.

Popularity. Drugs. Recovery

A successful actor in the 80s becomes the face of the HBO television channel, starring in the super popular TV show "The Evening with R. Williams", "Alien to Conventions," "Live at the Metropolitan Opera." They enjoyed tremendous popularity, they were watched all over America, tickets for these actions were sold out in half an hour. In 1982, the successful movie "The World by Harp" was triumphantly rolled out.

During this period, the actor's dependence on drugs increased, but he had real friends-fans, and first of all the owner of the bike shop Tony Tom. He "transplanted from drugs to a bicycle" a famous comedian. Robin Williams, an actor, was saved to them for peace. The filmography of the actor in the future is gaining momentum: "Club Paradise", "Good Morning, Vietnam!", "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen."

Williams is a dramatic actor

In the actor there is a metamorphosis. Williams begins to captivate the viewer not only as a kinomikik, but also as an actor dramatic.

On the screen comes one of the most beloved for all time Americans, the film "Society of the Dead Poets." The spectators are getting shivers from the words of his hero, the teacher John Kitting, showing the old black-and-white photos of school graduates to his current students: "Look, they have the same haircuts as you. Right? They have an excess of hormones, like yours. They feel that they are invulnerable, just like you. They believe that great accomplishments are intended for them, like many of you. Hope shines in their eyes, like yours ... But now these boys are a fertilizer for tulips. But if you listen attentively, you will hear their whisper addressed to you, they bless you with parting words: Carpe Diem, catch the moment, boys, make your life extraordinary. "

Paradoxes: Robin Williams and "Oscar"

Beginning with the above-described film (1989), the tragicomic situation begins, scoffed by the Americans for ten years: their favorite actor is nominated for an Oscar each year, which he received only in 1998. And then for the role of the second plan, Professor Sean Maguire, who teaches in college.

Although, for the sake of justice, it is worth noting that, before that, there were roles, thanks to the performance of which not once could be awarded a landmark figurine Robin Williams.

His filmography during this period was decorated:

• A cult film, "Mrs. Doubtfire," which came in a hundred of the highest-grossing American films;
• Bright, unusual, with nothing like a tape "Toys";
• The philosophical film "The Fisher King", where the mad vagabond reaches spiritual heights;
• The film "Father's Day" and "Where Dreams Lead", which were for him, on the eve of losing his father, a difficult test.

The shooting of the last two films aroused the forgotten emotions of the actor, which captures spectators with a game with a break, at the level of frustration.

The public met all these works of the actor favorably. In them, the unfading humor of the lyceum was actual. How many men, who do not carry cars of the executive class, was encouraged by the phrase of Mrs. Doubtfire: "According to rumors, men acquire steep super-auto as compensation for small genitals. But it does not concern you! "

Crisis of creativity

However, in the future, the talent of an actor who has reached a mid-life crisis has changed the direction of his development. Since 1995, he, a man public, scooped megaenergy from the all-American audience, wanted to prove himself in the audience more chamber.

For connoisseurs of his talent was a revelation that perceived by everyone as an extrovert in practice was a recluse Robin Williams. His filmography is enriched with new films, where the movie heroes are inclined to self-contemplation, withdrawal into themselves: "Catch the moment," "Insomnia," "Secret agent."

The actor cheers up: "I experienced all my difficulties until I was 30 years old. And now I'm just pret! "But really experiencing the crisis of creativity, he begins to drink. Williams, in the opinion of critics, "having reached a point of inattention", then begins to restore itself step by step again.

a swan song

In 2006, Williams undergoes a steady-state course of treatment for alcohol dependence. Directors again invite him to the films in the main roles: "Psychoanalyst", "So-so vacation", "The best dad."

Perhaps the last film, a comedy clever and subtle, can be called the swan song of the great actor. He played the genius teacher Lance Clayton, the long-suffering parent of a dead teenager, a misanthropic boy, sexually preoccupied, unbalanced.

In the same film, through the mouth of his character, he uttered his own phrase about the fact that most of all he is afraid of dying alone. However, another quote was made here that suicide is the final solution to the temporary problems.

Unfortunately, Robbie Williams did not remember her when, dressed in a black T-shirt and black jeans, on August 11, 2014, clutching one end of the strap between the cabinet door and the door frame and wrapping the other around her neck, repeated Kyle Clayton's suicide from "The Best Dad ". No alcohol or drugs were found in his blood. There were two caffeine-containing prescription drugs and two types of antidepressants. In the last year, the actor suffered from depression.

A man with a capital letter

People in the US and Europe were crying. After all, the person who did the world is kind and better. He made people laugh, he made people cry. He generously and freely gave his enormous talent to every spectator.

His huge heart was manifested not only in the movies, and on the stage. He actively participated in the program to support the homeless, speaking at a hearing in Congress. He personally sponsored a children's hospital. He supported many patients, and once Robin rented a plane to meet a girl who contracted an aggressive and rare type of cancer.

Thousands and thousands of people carried flowers, a huge number of which formed improvised memorials near the star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the house where Robin Williams lived. The death of the actor aroused the condolences of politicians, businessmen, cultural figures. All agreed in one thing: the soul was genuine.

Conclusion

An amazing creative fruitfulness was shown by actor Robin Williams. His filmography in 300 paintings - a Guinness record. The famous actor Mel Gibson called it a standard in art. Williams was amazingly creative. This actor was given the opportunity to "replay" both directors and script writers. He was more than an actor, simultaneously corresponding to the status of co-director and co-author. The anthology of modern cinema forever included paintings "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Jumanji," "The Society of Dead Poets."

The characters of Williams were loved. He undoubtedly had his own style. His characters demonstrated the blurring of the boundaries between genius and insanity. He was able to force the viewer through the meekness of his hero to see dignity even in the fallen. Williams at various times received a great number of acting prizes, among which the Oscar, 2 Emmy prizes, 4 Globus awards, 2 movie actor guild awards, and 5 Grammy awards.

An original eternal monument was created by the author of the computer game "Warcraft", introducing the image of Robin Williams as a secondary character.