Free Robin Williams - When the Laughter Stops 1951-2014 by Emily Herbert

working in a bar for long. The couple moved to Los Angeles, where he continued to work the comedy-club circuit, in 1977 performing at the Comedy Club, an appearance that changed his life. The television producer George Schlatter, a highly experienced and successful business pro, was in the audience. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Webster Groves, Missouri, as a teenager Schlatter sang at the St Louis Municipal Opera, where his mother, a violinist, also performed. He went on to Pepperdine University in Los Angeles before joining MCA Records as an agent; after a few years he became the general manager of Ciro’s Nightclub on the Sunset Strip.
    It was while at Ciro’s that he saw Dan Rowan and Dick Martin performing; coincidentally, he also started producing variety shows and specials for television. And it didn’t take long for him to realise the two should mix. In 1967 he produced something that was meant to be a one-off special:
Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In
(the title was a reference to the various sit-ins and love-ins happening in fashionable society at the time). It was so successful that a regular series was commissioned, running from 1968 to 1973, and replacing
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
on Mondaynights at 8pm. Based on vaudeville, with a sprinkling of satire (the satire boom was then in full swing), there were gags, sketches and a great deal more. It was the first show to feature music videos on television and it was also, among much else, responsible for launching the career of actress Goldie Hawn.
    The show had been one of the huge successes in television history and Schlatter was thinking about reviving it, so he was on the lookout for new talent. And boy, did he find it that night. ‘He [Williams] extended the mic over the audience and said, “I’m fishing for assholes,”’ Schlatter recalled. He was also looking to revive the
Laugh-In
show and so he booked Robin to appear on the NBC special
The Great American Laugh-Off
in late 1977. Schlatter was impressed, as so many were, by Williams’ breadth of knowledge: ‘He’s one of the most well-educated comedians we’ve ever had,’ Schlatter told
Variety
. ‘Part of that came from the wealth of knowledge and expertise he developed at Juilliard.’
    Robin was supposed to have a five-minute slot but this was extended to fifteen. And he was the unqualified success of the show: from the moment he first appeared, shaking hands with a bemused lady and squealing, ‘She touched me like she knows me! I’m selling my clothes and going to Heaven!’ it was evident a rarefied talent had arrived. The cast were required to open something that resembled stable doors, poke their heads out and introduce themselves: in Robin’s case, the relevant door was actually in the floor butwhen he bobbed up to say his name, even in that instant alone, he exuded an extraordinary energy. Williams was also responsible for the one quote from the show to make it onto the IMDb website: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, tonight I’m here to talk to you about the very serious problem of schizophrenia. – No he doesn’t! – SHUT UP, LET HIM SPEAK!’ He was the undisputed star of the evening, a major new talent now appearing on national TV.
    Comedienne and TV host Joan Rivers met him during the making of the show but she was not quite so won over as everyone else. She felt that, in some ways, he was still auditioning – so determined to be noticed that he simply never stopped. ‘You know how it is: You’re struggling, you want to be noticed, and the only way is to be the funny boy,’ she told
New York Magazine
in 1993. ‘We took a picture together – and he never stopped mugging. You wanted to tie him down and say, “Stop.”’
    Everyone else, however, was totally won over. But Robin had been working up to this point for some years now. He had been honing his act in stand-up and his dedication at rehearsals was equal to his ability to improvise – far more preparation went into the