Actor and Comedian Robin Williams Found Dead at 63 of Apparent Suicide
Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams was found dead on Monday from an apparent suicide at his home in Northern California, Marin County Sheriff’s Office said. He was 63.
The sheriff’s coroner’s division said it suspects the death was a suicide due to asphyxia, but the cause of death is still under investigation.
“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,” Williams’s wife Susan Schneider said in a statement.
Williams, who won an Academy Award for his role as a fatherly therapist in 1997’s “Good Will Hunting,” had been suffering from severe depression recently, his publicist Mara Buxbaum said.
Williams, who introduced his frenetic style on late 1970s TV series “Mork & Mindy” and had struggled with addiction in the past, had entered a Minnesota rehabilitation center last month to help him maintain sobriety.
His representatives at the time said Williams was not using drugs or alcohol but had gone to the center to “fine-tune and focus” his sobriety after working a longer-than-usual schedule.
Though he grew up Episcopalian in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, the comedian had an affinity for Jews which came through in many of his roles.
In March, Williams even tweeted a photo of himself wearing a yarmulke, on the set of “The Crazy Ones.”
Too late for a career change? Rabbi Robin? #CrazyOnes #zachmitzvah pic.twitter.com/9ByhcQz5tG
— Robin Williams (@robinwilliams) February 28, 2014
Thanks, everyone! #CrazyOnes #zachmitzvah pic.twitter.com/AGUXND97Gq
— Robin Williams (@robinwilliams) February 28, 2014
The Marin County Sheriff’s office said it received an emergency call about noon local time on Monday, saying that Williams was unconscious and not breathing at his home near Tiburon, north of San Francisco.
Fellow comedic actor Steve Martin said in a tweet: “I could not be more stunned by the loss of Robin Williams, mensch, great talent, acting partner, genuine soul.”
I could not be more stunned by the loss of Robin Williams, mensch, great talent, acting partner, genuine soul.
— Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) August 11, 2014
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO