Robin Williams dead at 63

SAN FRANCISCO — Robin Williams, the Academy Award winner and comic supernova whose explosions of pop culture riffs and impressions dazzled audiences for decades and made him a gleamy-eyed laureate for the Information Age, died Monday in an apparent suicide. He was 63.

Williams was pronounced dead at his home in California on Monday, according to the sheriff’s office in Marin County, north of San Francisco. The sheriff’s office said a preliminary investigation shows the cause of death to be a suicide due to asphyxia.

“This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken,” said Williams’ wife, Susan Schneider. “On behalf of Robin’s family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin’s death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions,”

Williams had been battling severe depression recently, said Mara Buxbaum, his press representative.

From his breakthrough in the late 1970s as the alien in the hit TV show “Mork and Mindy,” through his standup act and such films as “Good Morning, Vietnam,” the short, barrel-chested Williams ranted and shouted as if just sprung from solitary confinement. Loud, fast, manic, he parodied everyone from John Wayne to Keith Richards, impersonating a Russian immigrant as easily as a pack of Nazi attack dogs.

He was a riot in drag in “Mrs. Doubtfire,” or as a cartoon genie in “Aladdin.” He won his Academy Award in a rare, but equally intense dramatic role, as a teacher in the 1997 film “Good Will Hunting.”

He was no less on fire in interviews. During a 1989 chat with The Associated Press, he could barely stay seated in his hotel room, or even mention the film he was supposed to promote, as he free-associated about comedy and the cosmos.

“There’s an Ice Age coming,” he said. “But the good news is there’ll be daiquiris for everyone and the Ice Capades will be everywhere. The lobster will keep for at least 100 years, that’s the good news. The Swanson dinners will last a whole millennium. The bad news is the house will basically be in Arkansas.”

Though he was a rare Las Vegas performer — and only then in arena concerts — Williams forged a community bond with Las Vegas through his repeated participation in Andre Agassi’s annual Grand Slam for Children. The annual benefit concerts raised money for Agassi’s charter school and the Boys & Girls Club of Las Vegas.

Williams was one of the initial celebrities to give name cachet to the benefit concerts which launched in 1995. He participated in at least eight of the Agassi benefits. In the pre-show auction, donors would typically bid more than $100,000 to have dinner with him.

“At that point you just feel like, `What kind of lap dance can I do?’ ” Williams told the Review-Journal in 2004.

“It is astonishing, but we’ve never had anyone come away going, `Thanks for nothing!’ We’ve actually had repeat (bidders),” he added. “I guess as they say in the city, `You’re go-o-o-d. ’ ”

Of his ongoing friendship with Agassi, Williams said in 2004, “He’s such a good guy, unless you’re playing against him, then he turns samurai.”

Agassi released a statement Monday: “Stefanie and I are saddened at the loss of our friend Robin Williams. He was one of the kindest, most generous people we have ever known. Our prayers are with his family and closest friends during this very sad and difficult time. Today the world has lost a beautiful soul.”

As Agassi’s foundation built momentum in the 2000s, Williams explained, “I’m kind of on the benefit SWAT team all around the country, and (other events) are kind of backing off and he’s going forward.”

In the early years of the benefit, the evening’s stars gathered for an afternoon press conference typically dominated by Williams’ comedy. In the somber aftermath of the 2001 terrorist attacks, he told reporters “The need right now is just to keep doing what we must do. We don’t give up on (what the foundation does).”

Then, when informed that he wasn’t close enough to his microphone to be heard, Williams vaulted over the table to embrace reporters and shout in an evangelical rant, “It’s time to hang together!”

He also performed in “Comic Relief,” a benefit for the victims of New Orleans storm damage, in November 2006 at Caesars Palace. Williams performed at least four ticketed arena concerts at the MGM Grand Garden in the early 2000s and again in 2007 and 2008. “I went back out because (stuff) happened,” he explained in 2004. “A lot in the world went on, and there’s a lot to talk about, and to not talk about it would be insane.”

Born in Chicago in 1951, Williams would remember himself as a shy kid who got some early laughs from his mother — by mimicking his grandmother. He opened up more in high school when he joined the drama club and he was accepted into the Juilliard Academy, where he had several classes in which he and Christopher Reeve were the only students and John Houseman was the teacher.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Mike Weatherford contributed to this report.