Robin Williams (1951-2014), the prodigiously gifted comedian, actor, and improv artist, shocked everyone when he committed suicide. In this revelatory biography of the beloved performer, Itzkoff, culture reporter for The New York Times, shows that Williams was as complex and elusive as he was brilliant. Drawing on archives and especially one extensive interviews with hundreds of people who knew Williams, Itzkoff traces Williams’s life from his rise as a comedian in the mid-1970s when he led San Francisco’s comedy renaissance, to his TV breakthrough with Mork & Mindy, and his wide-ranging film career, including his Academy Award-winning role in Good Will Hunting. Itzkhoff also traces the sources of Williams’s art, which included a deep self-doubt, depression, and addiction, and he looks at the final, unbearable toll of the Lewy body dementia Williams suffered at the end of his life.
