by Dave Itzkoff
“The guy just showed up, wearing the brown suit and the beret”: Author interview with Andy Goldberg.
“I remember being very attracted to Robin’s energy”: Author interview with Wendy Cutler.
“ROBIN WILLIAMS, born in Chicago”: Off the Wall program, undated. Provided by Wendy Cutler.
“I’m not saying it was malicious or intentional or anything like that”: Author interview with Andy Goldberg.
“He was eating a tuna sandwich on whole wheat, and I was starving”: Author interview with Jamie Masada.
an overstuffed grab bag of outrageous voices and exaggerated characters: Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge, p. 163.
“I only had one conversation with Andy where he wasn’t talking to me as a character”: WTF with Marc Maron, April 26, 2010.
“he had the ability to incorporate that as if they’d rehearsed it”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
When Robin got his chance to audition for the Comedy Store: Knoedelseder, I’m Dying Up Here, p. 91.
“We were just guys who stood behind the microphone and told jokes”: Author interview with David Letterman.
the Comedy Store Players, the club’s in-house ensemble: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
“The rules of improvisation were sacrosanct”: Author interview with Jim Staahl.
Valerie would often sit in the crowd: Author interviews with Valerie Velardi and Wendy Cutler.
“It was like an audience for the pope”: Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge, p. 59.
“You could see the entire audience going, What?”: WTF with Marc Maron, April 26, 2010.
“Coke would get him going”: Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge, p. 59.
Cocaine had already gained acceptance: Ann Crittenden and Michael Ruby, “Cocaine: The Champagne of Drugs,” New York Times Magazine, September 1, 1974.
“Some guy just walked up to him with a spoon”: Author interview with Bob Davis.
“They give it to you for free”: Collins, “Robin Williams.”
a tight-knit community of stand-ups and industry figures: Knoedelseder, I’m Dying Up Here, p. 129.
a sweeping party circuit—to Canter’s Deli on Fairfax: Ibid., p. 52.
Freddie Prinze, the dazzling young comic … put a loaded .32-caliber pistol to his head: Jon Nordheimer, “Freddie Prinze, 22, Dies After Shooting,” New York Times, January 30, 1977; and Theo Wilson, “Prinze Dies as Nurse Cries ‘Hang On,’” New York Sunday News, January 30, 1977.
he had been keeping himself steady by taking quaaludes: Knoedelseder, I’m Dying Up Here, p. 81
a jury would later rule that it had been an accident: United Press International, “Freddie Prinze Death Ruled an Accident,” January 20, 1983.
“He wanted to be with his friends”: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
“One of my friends was going out with him”: Author interview with Wendy Asher. Her maiden name was Worth.
after their amicable breakup, she began dating Robin: Knoedelseder, I’m Dying Up Here, p. 73.
“I had never been so pursued”: Browne, “Robin Williams.”
“You had to have a lot going for you, to just get in there”: Author interview with Joel Blum.
“I saw the way this dude was dressed”: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
the singer-songwriter Melissa Manchester: Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge, p. 162. The couple divorced in 1980.
“no matter what situation was thrown at him, he never got lost”: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
“They wanted a strapping six-footer”: Phil Berger, “The Business of Comedy,” New York Times Magazine, June 9, 1985.
Rollins, Joffe, Morra & Brezner was all but a guarantee of prosperity and fame: Ibid.; Robert D. McFadden, “Jack Rollins Dies at 100; Managed Comedy Greats Like Woody Allen,” New York Times, June 18, 2015; Dennis Hevesi, “Charles H. Joffe, Movie Producer, Is Dead at 78,” New York Times, July 15, 2008; Billy Crystal, Still Foolin’ ’Em: Where I’ve Been, Where I’m Going, and Where the Hell Are My Keys? (New York: Henry Holt, 2013), pp. 56–57; Karen Heller, “The King of Comedy,” Philadelphia Inquirer, May 29, 1988; and author interviews with Robert Klein and Stu Smiley.
“The talent is endless; the discipline is nil”: Harmetz, “Robin Williams: Comedy for a Narcissistic Time.”
“I knew he could pirouette on a needle”: Author interview with Stu Smiley.
“Robin is a neophyte”: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
“I wasn’t aspiring to anything”: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
CHAPTER 4. MY FAVORITE ORKAN
“you could hear, in the audience, ‘Huh-HAAH!’”: Author interview with Jay Leno.
“he was hilarious, and the audience was going nuts”: Author interview with Howard Papush.
“If he got a call for a birthday party, he would do it”: Author interview with Stu Smiley.
Can I Do It … Til I Need Glasses?: Directed I. Robert Levy, 1977. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC0_xHp1nmw.
“Is it true, Mrs. Frisbee, that last summer”: Ibid. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO2vpff0rFk.
“I became absolutely enamored of this young man”: Author interview with George Schlatter.
a new incarnation of Laugh-In: Robin Williams Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University (hereafter, RWC), box 4, folder 16. See also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KDX7g0xXP4, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lq20Y4VUQxM, and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO6_XgpiyFM.
“the only way is to be the funny boy”: Jesse Kornbluth, “Robin Williams’s Change of Life,” New York, November 22, 1993.
“Robin said, ‘I’m so excited I could drop a log!’”: Author interview with George Schlatter.
“I was afraid they’d want to fire me”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
“The one word you’ll need is no”: Bill Zehme, “Robin Williams: The Rolling Stone Interview,” Rolling Stone, February 25, 1988.
“I want all my friends from the Comedy Store”: Author interview with John Moffitt.
sketches … that satirized issues of race and bigotry: The Richard Pryor Show, season 1, episode 1, September 13, 1977. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IoHxBmstE-I.
mistakenly refer to him as “Robert Williams”: RWC, box 6, folder 1.
a trial similar to the one depicted in To Kill a Mockingbird: The Richard Pryor Show, season 1, episode 2, September 20, 1977. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stZc9bjVJ7o.
passengers on a lifeboat from the Titanic: The Richard Pryor Show, season 1, episode 4, October 4, 1977. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Vdmhz6OQmA.
NBC made him eliminate the opening sketch: David S. Silverman, You Can’t Air That: Four Cases of Controversy and Censorship in American Television Programming (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2007), p. 93.
“there was drama going on every five minutes”: Author interview with Sandra Bernhard.
“NBC just betrayed him and all of us”: Author interview with John Moffitt.
Robin began with a few familiar jokes: Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ8nAw4SSpk. His punch line refers to racist remarks uttered by Earl Butz, Nixon’s secretary of agriculture, who resigned soon after his remarks were made public.
“he went into it with so much hope”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
Laugh-In, which had debuted on NBC: “Picks and Pans Review: Laugh-In,” People, September 5, 1977.
The Great American Laugh-Off: October 20, 1977. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JoH75rraLo.
shown on October 20: Vincent Terrace, Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs, 1936–2012 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013).
Eight Is Enough: “The Return of Auntie V,” November 30, 1977. Archived at http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x4utpuk. See also https://www.facebook.com/EightIsEnoughTvShow/photos/a.50693910
6036388.1073741828.506933536036945/757650534298576/?type=3&theater.
Sorority ’62: “Pilot,” January 1978. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16B9jWgmOWw. See also Vincent Terrace, Encyclopedia of Television Pilots, 1937–2012 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2013).
“I would sound almost English or Scottish”: Zoglin, Comedy at the Edge, p. 164.
Robin told him that he was originally from Edinburgh: Author interview with Stu Smiley.
Robin was “an Edinburgh, Scotland native”: Jay Sharbutt, “Robin Williams Lives Show Biz Dream,” Associated Press, June 4, 1977.
“‘Let’s get Fonzie an alien’”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
a friendly humanoid alien named Mork, from the planet Ork: Happy Days, “My Favorite Orkan,” February 28, 1978.
“We got this script that was horrid. Horrible”: Home & Family interview, November 19, 2014.
John Byner or Dom DeLuise, both of whom passed: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
Jerry Paris, the episode’s director, had reached out to Jonathan Winters: Harmetz, “Robin Williams: Comedy for a Narcissistic Time.”
Roger Rees, an alumnus of the Royal Shakespeare Company: Natalie Finn and Baker Machado, “How Robin Williams Became Mork from Ork: That Happy Days Episode Was Supposed to Be the ‘Biggest Piece of S—t,’” E! News, August 13, 2014.
“I can’t do this role. He’s not a real person”: Harmetz, “Robin Williams: Comedy for a Narcissistic Time.”
Marshall visited the set and asked his cast: “Does anyone know a funny Martian?”: Williams, Home & Family interview.
Al Molinaro … proposed Robin as a candidate: Margalit Fox, “Al Molinaro, Diner Owner on ‘Happy Days,’ Dies at 96,” New York Times, October 30, 2015.
“He stands on a street corner, does a lot of voices and impressions”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
Robin encountered the comedian Richard Lewis coming out: Robin Williams, Larry King Live, July 3, 2007.
“He didn’t say, ‘Hi, you play golf?’”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
a script that he had marked up with brief notes: RWC, box 4, folder 11.
“the Happy Days actors were very secure”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
“if the show was successful, we have a job”: Author interview with Henry Winkler.
“I’m not deaf and I’m not blind”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
it was as popular as Happy Days had been all season: Associated Press, “ABC Keeps Nielsen’s Lead,” Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, March 8, 1978.
he’d pitched many outlandish characters: RWC, box 8, folder 20.
“after they look through all the pilots, they say, ‘We got nothing!’”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
“We felt it would be a mistake to put him on television at that point”: Browne, “Robin Williams.”
Robin, in his innocence, screamed excitedly: Author interview with Howard Storm.
Sister Terri, a failed TV pilot: Lee Goldberg, Unsold Television Pilots, 1955–1989 (Calabasas, CA: Adventures in Television, 2015).
“Whatever you said to them, you sold it”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
“a comedy about a being from the planet Ork”: Richard F. Shepard, “ABC’s Fall TV Schedule to Retain 84% of Present Prime-Time Shows,” New York Times, May 2, 1978.
“when my agent reads me what this show’s about, I was pi-issed”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
“Oh ho ho—he was so brilliant”: Ibid.
“He had signed an all-purposes contract with George Schlatter”: Author interview with Stu Smiley.
“The deal he was under with George Schlatter was very onerous”: Author interview with Cyndi McHale.
Schlatter disputes that he did anything to stand in Robin’s way: Author interview with George Schlatter.
this four-hour show, held at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium: Jack McDonough, “Martin Musters Talent Muscle in S.F. Boarding House Benefit,” Billboard, June 10, 1978.
“John was hilarious, but Robin was fearless”: Author interview with Billy Crystal.
“It was like two elks spraying musk”: Amy Longsdorf, “Perfect Foils,” Allentown (PA) Morning Call, May 9, 1997.
“It was electric, and we all just sat there”: Author interview with Billy Crystal.
In his twenty-minute set: Audio recording provided by Tom Lapinski.
“The audience knew him from performing in the clubs there”: Author interview with Billy Crystal.
“It was just like, of course we were going to be together”: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
“Hey, what’s happening with your career?”: Don Stitt, Facebook post, August 11, 2014. Archived at https://www.facebook.com/notes/don-stitt/a-friend-from-san-francisco/10152635137766683/.
Robin and Valerie were married in an outdoor ceremony: Author interview with Valerie Velardi; photograph provided by Zak Williams.
Rick and Ruby … performed at the reception: Author interviews with Brian Seff, Monica Ganas, and Joshua Raoul Brody.
“He had both of them very strongly implanted in him”: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
Robin went to Los Angeles in July: RWC, box 12, folder 7.
a strange alien salutation: “Nanu, nanu”: The spelling of this and other Orkan phrases that Mork speaks throughout the course of the series tends to be inconsistent from screenplay to screenplay; the Mork & Mindy pilot script renders it as “na-no, na-no.” However, I have chosen “Nanu, nanu” because I like it better.
Mindy helps Mork argue his way out of a legal hearing: Mork & Mindy, season 1, episode 1, “Pilot,” September 14, 1978.
“Look, if you do the show, do whatever you want to do”: Author interview with Dale McRaven.
“I was frightened to death”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“nothing less than uproarious” and “a prime contender for best new comedy of the season”: Lee Margulies, “Previewing the New Season,” Los Angeles Times, September 14, 1978.
“this season’s most innovative comedy”: Austin Siegemund-Broka and Michael Sugerman, “Read the Hollywood Reporter’s 1978 Review of Robin Williams in ‘Mork & Mindy,’” Hollywood Reporter, August 13, 2014.
Robin “soon may be known as the funniest man on television”: William A. Henry 3d, “4 New Shows Worth a Peek,” Boston Globe, September 10, 1978.
People magazine published a modest feature on Robin: People, Outlook (column), September 11, 1978.
the network flew Valerie and him to New Orleans: Author interviews with Valerie Velardi and Bennett Tramer.
It was watched in 19.7 million homes: Associated Press, “ABC Off & Running with Season & Ratings,” Nashville Tennessean, September 20, 1978.
CHAPTER 5. THE ROBIN WILLIAMS SHOW
A fledgling comic with ruffled hair: “The Robin Williams Show: Sixty Characters in Search of a Maniac.”
the same modest apartment: Freeman, “Way Out.”
glided around the Paramount campus: Harmetz, “Robin Williams: Comedy for a Narcissistic Time.”
“It was a good show because we were so unlimited”: Author interview with Dale McRaven.
he described one of the guests as a hide-and-seek champion: RWC, box 5, folder 12.
“It was about this cheerful little man doing very simple things”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
One day it might be Henry Winkler: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
“chosen for their abilities to respond to his improvisations”: Ansen, “Funny Man.”
“It was the greatest acting class I’d ever had”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
“We could be in the middle of doing a take”: Ibid.
“It’s about one-third of each show”: “Robin Williams: ‘Mork’ Dumbfounds with Inventive Wit and Nannu, Nannu…,” Newark (NJ) Sunday Star-Ledger, February 4, 1979.
“would jump from seat to seat”
: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“Listen, Robin, I know there are two of you”: Ibid.
“All sitcoms do changes”: Author interview with Dale McRaven.
“the writers sent down a blank script”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
“He goosed her with the cane”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“she would be there, continuing the scene”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
“I had the grossest things done to me”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
the only publications that had not yet featured him: Author interview with Joshua Raoul Brody.
an eight-room, $200,000 house in Topanga Canyon: Lois Armstrong, “Living with Mork,” People, October 29, 1979.
Told by his landlord that he had witnessed the theft: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
“Everybody in the stands ran to right field”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“It was really a happening place”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
a television special: Robin Williams: Live at the Roxy, October 27, 1978.
“Are there any Hells Angels here tonight?”: As seen, for example, in Robin’s set from the 1977 HBO special The Second Annual Home Box Office Young Comedians Show. Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEiADVI06G0.
a posse of Hells Angels: Author interview with Stu Smiley.
“Please bring some toys and improvise”: RWC, box 8, folder 20.
his first comedy album with Casablanca Records: Liz Smith, column, New York Daily News, December 18, 1978.
“Normally, he wouldn’t have needed me”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
a bootleg recording of Jonathan Winters: Archived at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5zlnqv-ka4.
“When I said I had a collection, he really freaked out”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
Robin won a Golden Globe Award: Lee Grant, “Golden Globe Show Staged,” Los Angeles Times, January 29, 1979.
Mork & Mindy was hitting number one: Associated Press, “110 Million People Saw ‘Roots II,’” Santa Cruz (CA) Sentinel, March 2, 1979.
Robin would take home about $35,000: Earl Wilson, Last Night with Earl Wilson (column), New York Post, March 5, 1979.