Alien character, conflict with Disney and friendship with Superman: facts about actor Robin Williams that many people don't know

**Robin Williams: Alien Image, Disney Controversy, and Superman Friendship — Little Information About the Actor**

Uzbek viewers know Robin Williams primarily as a film actor. However, his popularity in the United States began with his role as Mork, an alien from the planet Orc, in the fifth season, episode 22 of the television series “Happy Days.” As it turned out, Williams was urgently called to replace another actor who had refused the role because the script was too empty.

Williams almost completely improvised his role and performed it so skillfully that this part, which was initially considered ordinary, was unexpectedly highly appreciated by the audience. Four days after the episode aired, the studio management that produced the series signed the actor to a contract to play the main role in the sitcom “Mork and Mindy,” a continuation of the original project. This new show lasted a total of 4 seasons and Robin Williams became a real star of American television. Since he constantly improvised on the set, the scriptwriters eventually stopped writing him lines and simply left blank spaces in the script.

**Friendship with Superman and Helping Colleagues**

The actor Christopher Reeve, known for his role as “Superman”, was Robin Williams’s best friend. Their friendship began when they shared a room at the Juilliard School and lasted until Reeve’s death in 2004. Reeve noted in his memoirs that it was Williams who encouraged him to have the will to live and fight after a serious injury.

In 1995, Reeve fell from a horse, broke his spine and was completely paralyzed. While he was in the hospital, Williams sneaked into the hospital, dressed in a scrubs and posing as a doctor, and burst into his friend's room. Williams demanded that the patient be immediately prepared for examination, and this joke brought a smile to Reeve's face for the first time since the tragedy.

Robin Williams helped not only Christopher Reeve, but also other colleagues. For example, he wrote a special letter to the school of Lisa Jacob, a young actress with whom he starred in the film "Mrs. Doubtfire" and who was expelled from school for working on the set. And since he knew that working on the film "Schindler's List" was mentally difficult, he regularly called director Steven Spielberg and gave him 15-minute stand-up shows. He also helped young actor Ethan Hawke, who was just starting his career, find a good agent. However, during the filming of Dead Poets Society, Hawkeye Williams believed that he was deliberately making him laugh in order to distract him from the role of Todd Anderson.

**Dispute with Disney**

Robin Williams once had a serious disagreement with one of the largest giants of the film world - Disney. When he was offered to voice the character of Genie in the classic full-length cartoon "Aladdin" filmed in 1992, Williams agreed to a fee of only $ 75,000. However, in return, he stipulated that his name and image would not be used in marketing campaigns.

After the studio did not keep its promise, Williams flatly refused to voice the second part of the cartoon - "The Return of Jafar". This role was played by Dan Castellaneta, known for voicing Homer Simpson. Later, after the departure of the head of the company Jeffrey Katzenberg, his successor Joe Roth publicly apologized to Williams, and in the cartoon "Aladdin and the King of Pirates" the character of the Genie spoke in Williams' voice again.

After this controversy, the working style of animation studios changed. Until the release of "Aladdin", the characters of the cartoon were mainly voiced by specially trained dubbing actors, but since the 90s, famous movie stars have been actively involved in this process, and this trend has continued to this day.