Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams (born July 21, 1951) is a multi-award-winning American actor and comedian who was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Marin County, California. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Willia

Robin McLaurin Williams (born July 21, 1951) is a multi-award-winning American actor and comedian who was born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan and Marin County, California. His father, Robert Fitzgerald Williams, of English, Welsh, and Irish descent, was a senior executive at Ford in charge of the Midwest area, and his mother Laurie was a New Orleans-born former model of French descent.

He first achieved notice for his stand-up routines in San Francisco. After studying at Claremont McKenna College (then called Claremont Men's College) with the Strut and Fret theatre group in Claremont, California and at Juilliard Drama School, he was cast by Garry Marshall as the alien Mork in a guest star part in Happy Days that was so popular it led to his own television series, Mork and Mindy, which ran from 1978 to 1982. The majority of his acting career has been for cinema, although he has made some memorable performances on stage as well (notably as Estragon in a production of Waiting for Godot).