Actor Robin Williams Dead in Suspected Suicide

Robin Williams, the comic and actor known for his fast delivery and improvisational humor, died at age 63 of suspected suicide.
He was pronounced dead yesterday at his home in Tiburon, California, according to a statement from the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, which listed asphyxia as the probable cause of death. Williams had been battling severe depression, according to a statement from his publicist, Mara Buxbaum.
Williams started as a stand-up comic and gained fame with the 1970s TV comedy “Mork & Mindy.” On film, he won an Academy Award for his supporting role as the therapist in the 1997 release “Good Will Hunting.” He was also nominated three times for Oscars for leading roles, for 1987’s “Good Morning, Vietnam” and later in “Dead Poets Society” and “The Fisher King.” He provided the voice of the wacky genie in the 1992 Walt Disney Co. animated feature “Aladdin.”
“This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings,” Williams’s widow, Susan Schneider, said in a statement. “I am utterly heartbroken.”
It was Williams’s ABC TV role as an alien who came to study Earth that launched his Hollywood career. He garnered a dozen Golden Globe nominations and won six times, including for playing Mork, from the planet Ork.