Robin
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a backdrop of “chrome-and-plaster palm glitz”: Dave Hirshey, “In Person, It’s Robin Williams (Not Mork),” New York Daily News, April 13, 1979.
“It wasn’t a work of improvisational genius”: Author interview with Joshua Raoul Brody.
“his audience would need a scholastic aptitude test”: Hirshey, “In Person, It’s Robin Williams (Not Mork).”
“anyone as funny as Robin Williams can also create the impression of being so nice”: Janet Maslin, “Cabaret: Robin Williams, Life-Size,” New York Times, April 13, 1979.
“Mom, meet Andy Warhol”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
Robin and Warhol went shopping at thrift stores: Author interview with Brian Seff.
“this complete throng that was hanging around Robin”: Ibid.
“It was part, ‘Isn’t that fantastic?’”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
“It’s like the Big Bang”: Author interview with Sonya Sones.
Robin’s first album, titled Reality … What a Concept: Robin Williams, Reality … What a Concept, Casablanca Record and FilmWorks, 1979.
“Robin Williams is like a butterfly in harness”: “Picks and Pans Review: Reality … What a Concept,” People, August 20, 1979.
Robin’s album was in the Billboard Top 10: RIAA Certified Records, Billboard, September 15, 1979.
Bennett Tramer extended his congratulations to Robin’s publicist: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
CHAPTER 6. MORK BLOWS HIS CORK
“Of course the place goes crazy”: Author interview with Rich Shydner.
wearing his rainbow suspenders: Armstrong, “Living with Mork.”
atop a gossipy column called The Insider: “Shazbat! Did Milton Berle Come from Ork?” The Insider (column), Los Angeles 24, no. 3 (March 1979).
this story was carried to the East Coast: Liz Smith, column, New York Daily News, March 2, 1979.
the Chicago Tribune weighed in with a lengthy feature story: Larry Kart, “Shazbat! Williams’ Act No Joke with Comics,” Chicago Tribune, April 22, 1979.
“There’s no truth in it”: Armstrong, “Living with Mork.”
“When you’re a success, it’s the same old charge”: Ibid.
“Robin would see something and he’d appreciate it”: Author interview with Jim Staahl.
“Robin could take a premise or a joke”: Author interview with Richard Lewis.
“Something would be in his head, and then it was like, pop”: Author interview with Jim Staahl.
“It was rush-hour traffic, so it was a slow cab”: Author interview with Joshua Raoul Brody.
“If you hang out in comedy clubs, when I was doing it”: WTF with Marc Maron, April 26, 2010.
“He had an addictive personality”: Author interview with Jamie Masada.
“Valerie is my inspiration”: Freeman, “Way Out.”
“He was young, and it’s a strange thing”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
“Pretty well, I think. She lives in Louisiana now”: “Robin Williams: ‘Mork’ Dumbfounds with Inventive Wit and Nannu, Nannu…”
“He’s saying it like it’s a hardship”: Author interview with Brian Seff.
“Robin was like a giant puppy”: Author interview with Jim Staahl.
“Lou Reed lookalikes named Hercules and Raquel”: Taylor Negron, “My Name Is Julio: I’m So Bad, I Should Be in Detention,” Lowbrow Reader, no. 9 (2014).
“People were forever looking for stories and angles”: Author interview with Jim Staahl.
preparing for a legal separation: Jack Martin, “Mork’s Wife Ready to Call Lawyer over an Earthling,” New York Post, July 27, 1979.
Robin and Valerie at Studio 54: “Loving Couples Do Their Own Thing,” New York Daily News, August 10, 1979.
When Robin appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
a story that asked, “Has MORK blown his cork?”: Armstrong, “Living with Mork.”
“I just loved that man to pieces”: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
a doubling of his salary, to $30,000 an episode: Jack Martin, “Mork Casts His Spell on ABC—Asks Double Pay,” New York Post, May 16, 1979.
roughly $3 million over the life of the show: Dave Hirshey, “The Spinach-Eater from Ork,” New York Daily News Sunday Magazine, December 7, 1980.
“the network felt that the older people were dead weight”: Author interview with Dale McRaven.
Carroll O’Connor, who later prevailed over Robin at the Emmy Awards: Associated Press, “Guest Stars Big Winners on Television Emmy Awards,” Carbondale (IL) Southern Illinoisan, September 10, 1979.
“That screwed up the gist of the show”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
scripts veered into sexualized territory: Mork & Mindy, season 2, episodes 11–13, “Mork vs. the Necrotons” and “Hold That Mork,” November 18 and 25, 1979.
“Shows like those changed us during the second year”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
“an invasion of privacy” and “misleading advertising”: Marilyn Beck, column, New York Daily News, October 31, 1979.
a court later ruled that any banners or ads: “Robin Williams Wins Modification of ‘Odious’ Copy,” Variety, November 7, 1979.
“To be funny in print is a real hard thing”: Eskow, “Robin Williams: Full Tilt Bozo.”
Robin would play multiple characters, like Peter Sellers in Dr. Strangelove: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
its original star, Dustin Hoffman, dropped out: Guy Flatley, “Producer Sets Hoffman’s Sail for ‘Popeye,’” New York Times, October 14, 1977; Liz Smith, column, New York Daily News, December 18, 1978.
Popeye: Jerry McCulley, “It Is What It Is (And That’s All That It Is),” Popeye—Deluxe Edition: Music from the Motion Picture, liner notes, Varese Sarabande Records, 2017.
“‘there’s no story here’”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
“I thought, this is it, this is my Superman”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
Robin was paid a salary of $500,000: Armstrong, “Living with Mork.”
“Imagine San Quentin on Valium”: Ibid.
“Altman loved organized chaos”: Author interview with Jules Feiffer.
“nuttin’ on board t’eat but carroks”: Jules Feiffer, Popeye, final draft (dated August 11, 1980). Archived at RWC, box 3, folder 10.
“I thought I had written this as a Popeye and Olive Oyl romance”: Author interview with Jules Feiffer.
“Bob said I could ad lib the mumbles”: Goodman, “Robin Williams Gets a Tall Order in Popeye.”
“I was deeply gloomy and drinking just a little bit”: Author interview with Jules Feiffer.
“I wanted it to be his announcement of self”: Ibid.
“That was literally where they pulled the plug”: Author interview with Robin Williams.
the Grammy Award he had won in absentia: “List of Grammy Winners,” Nashville Tennessean, February 28, 1980.
“He’s a simple man”: Hirshey, “The Spinach-Eater from Ork.”
the film’s gala premiere: Tom Hritz, People (column), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 9, 1980.
“People didn’t know what to make of it”: Author interview with Bennett Tramer.
“a thoroughly charming, immensely appealing mess”: Vincent Canby, “A Singing, Dancing, Feifferish Kind of ‘Popeye,’” New York Times, December 12, 1980.
“an apparent big-budget bomb”: Gene Siskel, “First-Rate Fairy Tale for Adults,” Chicago Tribune, December 12, 1980.
it sold nearly $50 million in tickets: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=popeye.htm.
“a nice fairy tale with a loving spirit to it”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
John Lennon was shot and killed: Les Ledbetter, “John Lennon of Beatles Is Killed; Suspect Held in Shooting at Dakota,” New York Times, December 9, 1980.
“There wa
s some paranoia”: Author interview with Brian Seff.
Robin worked through some of these feelings: Mork & Mindy, season 3, episode 14, “Mork Meets Robin Williams,” February 14, 1981.
CHAPTER 7. BUNGALOW 3
“A god at twenty-seven, a washout at twenty-eight”: Jack Hicks, “Octopus Cakes, Sushi, Live Mud Eel and Beer-Crazed Antelopes,” TV Guide, May 3, 1980.
“Quite funny people were being booed off”: Author interview with Eric Idle.
“I haven’t laughed this hard in years”: Author interviews with Bennett Tramer and Eric Idle.
“It was just a simple, effortless thing”: Author interview with Eric Idle.
Robin made a spur-of-the-moment trip to Toronto: Martin Short, I Must Say: My Life as a Humble Comedy Legend (New York: Harper, 2014).
a precipitous tumble in its third season: Noel Holston, “Happy Days Again for ‘Mork and Mindy’?” Orlando Sentinel, June 25, 1981.
“The third year was groping”: Author interview with Garry Marshall.
Mork proposed to Mindy: Mork & Mindy, “Limited Engagement” and “The Wedding,” October 8 and 15, 1981.
Mork gave birth, through his navel: Mork & Mindy, “Three the Hard Way” and “Mama Mork, Papa Mindy,” October 29 and November 5, 1981.
playing Mindy’s uncle Dave: Mork & Mindy, “Mork and the Family Reunion,” April 9, 1981.
“‘What a pretty little girl you are’”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“I don’t think Jonathan had been doing much”: Author interview with Dale McRaven.
“the chance to play alongside Babe Ruth”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
he was also a tragic, wounded figure: Scott Marks, “Dig a Hole: Jonathan Winters,” San Diego Reader, April 12, 2013; and Carmel Dagan, “Comedian Jonathan Winters Dead at 87,” Variety, April 12, 2013.
“Humor is the mistress of sorrow”: Dennis McLellan, “Jonathan Winters Dies at 87; Comic Genius of Improvisation,” Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2013.
“a quality that forces us, when in doubt, to lash out”: Vernon Scott, “Pixilated Pair Are Masters of Improvisation,” United Press International, December 8, 1981.
“He and Jonathan Winters are walking down the street”: Author interview with Henry Winkler.
his long-awaited debut on The Tonight Show: The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, October 14, 1981.
“someone once gave me a Valium”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
“come to do the Comedy Store, and then go to the Improv”: WTF with Marc Maron, April 26, 2010.
“I did cocaine so I wouldn’t have to talk to anybody”: Zehme, “Robin Williams: The Rolling Stone Interview.”
“He was running like a mad man”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
“He hadn’t slept all night”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“people would say, ‘Oh, pardon me. Refried shit?’”: Wadler, “Robin Williams Heads for the Hills.”
“after one night of partying, he was late”: Author interview with Jim Staahl.
“He was so good that he could just phone it in”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“He was addicted to performing”: Author interview with Dale McRaven.
Valerie’s public feuds: E.g., “Mrs. Mork Mixes It Up in Disco,” Page Six (column), New York Post, November 6, 1981.
“We’d have to say, ‘Get her out of here’”: Author interview with Howard Storm.
“We got hit hard by the drugs and the women”: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
a horrible incident in which he’d badly burned himself: Joan Acocella, “Richard Pryor, Flame-Thrower,” New Yorker, March 4, 2015.
a ranch on a 640-acre plot: Author interview with Valerie Velardi.
“rose-smelling, deep-breathing, waterfall country”: Salley Rayl, “So Long Mork,” People, September 13, 1982.
“Look, that’s a flower, asshole”: Wadler, “Robin Williams Heads for the Hills.”
“if Dante were James Brown”: Zehme, “Robin Williams: The Rolling Stone Interview.”
got their drugs from some of the same people: Bob Woodward, Wired: The Short Life & Fast Times of John Belushi (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1984), pp. 295 and 343–44.
who had died of a heart attack after falling ill: Lembeck played the part of Ovits, Mearth’s Orkan schoolmate, in the episodes “P.S. 2001” (December 17, 1980) and “Pajama Game II” (January 7, 1982).
“They’re fifty feet tall and I’m only five foot eight”: Woodward, Wired, p. 296.
he watched Belushi observe Winters: Rayl, “So Long Mork.”
they made vague plans to see each other again soon: Woodward, Wired, p. 296.
Belushi was staying in Bungalow 3 at the Chateau Marmont: Ibid., pp. 397–98.
Robin himself denied this: Andrew Epstein, “Williams: At Home on the Ranch,” Los Angeles Times, July 25, 1982.
he made the drive alone to his home in Topanga Canyon: Woodward, Wired, pp. 397–98.
In his sleep, he died of an overdose: Ibid., pp. 399–400; Robert D. McFadden, “John Belushi, Manic Comic of TV and Films, Dies,” New York Times, March 6, 1982; “Belushi’s Death Attributed to Heroin and Cocaine,” New York Times, March 11, 1982; and Lynn Elber, “Gone 25 Years, Belushi’s Impact Still Felt,” Associated Press, March 6, 2007.
“Wow, I was with Belushi last night, and boy”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
“a powerful personality and a powerful physical being, too”: Collins, “Robin Williams.”
he seemed “to be running, if not as intense a circle”: Woodward, Wired, p. 419.
“that was pretty much the bottom rung”: Collins, “Robin Williams.”
a reported fee of $15,000: Michael Small, “The Investigation Centers on a Burnt-Out Case, Cathy ‘Silverbag’ Smith,” People, July 19, 1982.
a feature story published that summer: Larry Haley and Tony Brenna, “World Exclusive Interview: ‘I Killed John Belushi,’” National Enquirer, June 29, 1982.
“It was a huge wake-up call”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
more unwanted attention from the tabloids: “‘Mork’ Testifies Before Belushi Jury,” New York Daily News, September 30, 1982.
“I was there for ten minutes and split”: Collins, “Robin Williams.”
“maybe the old mad energy is gone”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
Mork & Mindy had been pulled from ABC’s schedule: David Hatfield, “‘Mork & Mindy’ Reeling from Ratings Pummeling,” Tucson, Arizona Daily Star, February 1, 1982.
pursued by a malevolent Neptunian named Kalnik: Mork & Mindy, season 4, “Gotta Run,” parts 1–3, May 6, 13, and 20, 1982.
a larger, last-ditch plan to persuade ABC: Mork & Mindy video presentation dated April 12, 1982; RWC, box 5, folder 17.
ABC canceled Mork & Mindy after four seasons: Mike Hughes, “ABC Wields Big Ax,” Lansing (MI) State Journal, May 6, 1982.
“I think they tried to call me the day before”: Wadler, “Robin Williams Heads for the Hills.”
“I was dressed as a frog. It hit me hard”: Glen Wilson, “A Conversation Between Ed Norton & Robin Williams,” Interview, April 2002.
“The end of that show wasn’t unexpected”: Kornbluth, “Robin Williams’s Change of Life.”
the plum opportunity to play Hamlet for Joseph Papp: Marilyn Beck, Robin Williams: I’m Mellowing with Age (column), San Bernardino County (CA) Sun, July 10, 1983.
Star of the Family, a blue-collar comedy: David Bianculli, “The Stars in Her Eyes Are for Real,” Akron (OH) Beacon Journal, September 26, 1982.
“Robin was hurt to the quick over that”: Author interview with Pam Dawber.
“I was just being an all-around fuckup”: Wadler, “Robin Williams Heads for the Hills.”
“you can guide people; you can make yourself interesting enough”: Ibid.
“Enough. Enough. Enough”: Author interview with Val
erie Velardi.
CHAPTER 8. MR. HAPPY
On the sunny lawn of a suburban New York home: The World According to Garp, directed by George Roy Hill, 1982.
“One really good thing about this film”: Rayl, “So Long Mork.”
Steinberg, a former publicist: Author interview with David Steinberg. Not to be confused with the comedian, actor, and director of the same name.
At the top of the hierarchy, in Roman numerals: RWC, box 8, file 12.
by the time he played the Royal Oak Music Theater: John Smyntek, “Who Said Robin’s Overworked?” Detroit Free Press, May 21, 1982.
the tale of T. S. Garp, an aspiring writer: Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, “‘The World According to Garp’ by John Irving,” Books of the Times (column), New York Times, April 13, 1978.
he read the book while making Popeye: Bob Thomas, “Robin Williams: ‘Garp’ Role a Departure for Zany Comic,” Associated Press, August 1, 1982.
“It was like going from Marvel Comics to Tolstoy”: Rayl, “So Long Mork.”
“I’d seen him in Popeye and didn’t understand a word he said”: William Wolf, “Mork Meets Garp,” New York, August 31, 1981.
“I thought, okay, you’ve made your point”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
“Oh, looky, our baby has a beard”: Rayl, “So Long Mork.”
who was paid $300,000 to make Garp: Wadler, “Robin Williams Heads for the Hills.”
“seventeen lights and fifteen guys and a big boom mike”: Ibid.
He even shaved his arms: Marilyn Beck, It’ll Be “Laverne Minus Shirley,” This Fall (column), Santa Fe New Mexican, August 4, 1982.
“Garp was like an oil drilling”: Linderman, “Playboy Interview: Robin Williams.”
“an appropriate choice for the sometimes bewildered Garp”: Betsy Light, “‘Garp’ Looks Better as a Book,” Indianapolis Star, August 1, 1982.
“the rubbery nature of Robin Williams’ face”: Jack Mathews, “Robin Doesn’t Belong in Garp’s World,” Detroit Free Press, July 23, 1982.
Glenn Close would receive an Oscar nomination: Associated Press, “Oscar Nominations,” Asbury Park (NJ) Press, February 18, 1983. Dustin Hoffman, who instead made Tootsie, received a nomination for Best Actor.
they had “waited this long to have a baby”: Associated Press, “A Child for Robin Williams,” Carbondale (IL) Southern Illinoisan, September 26, 1982.