Robin Williams' Friends Remember the Comedy Legend 10 Years After His Death: 'He Was an Experience' (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Robin Williams.Photo:Vera Anderson/WireImage

Vera Anderson/WireImage

Robin Williams’s friends and collaborators are remembering the legendary comedian 10 years after his death.

“I had fun with Robin Williams because he intellectually was more informed, had more history, more knowledge, more vocabulary than anybody,” producer George Schlatter tells PEOPLE. Schlatter was one of the first people to put Williams on television, booking him for the showLaugh Induring the series’revivalon NBC in 1977.

“A discussion with Robin was exciting because you never knew where it was gonna go because he had so much information. That brain was so full of information,” Schlatter adds. “He was more than a performer. He was an experience.”

As the 94-year-old producer says, every performer they paired Williams with on camera “held Robin in awe” due to his incredible wit and vast intelligence.

Zachary Pym Williams, Robin Williams and Susan Schneider.Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Kevin Mazur/WireImage

“Frankly, I’m not too sure there was ever an off-stage Robin,” Schlatter says when asked what Williams was like when he was not performing. “That mind was working all the time.”

Comedian and actorPauly Shorealso knew Williams from his earliest days performing atThe Comedy Storein Los Angeles, which Shore’s parents co-founded in 1972. “The guy was special,“Shore, 56, tells PEOPLE, as he recalled watching Williams perform during his childhood. “They definitely broke the mold when they made him. Just look at old footage — even anyone can testify to that he was just unique, and his improv skills mixed in with the standup was just another level.”

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Robin Williams, circa 1999.Harry Langdon/Getty

Harry Langdon/Getty

Williams' career took off in the 1980s when he costarred in the ABC sitcomMork & Mindyas an alien from the planet Ork. He made his film debut in 1980’sPopeye, which led him toward an acting career that saw him take on 100 onscreen roles over the next three decades until his death. Williams also starred in beloved films likeMrs. Doubtfire,The Birdcage, Hookand theNight at the Museumfilms, among others.

Scott Weinger, the actor who voiced the title character in Disney’s 1992 animated classicAladdin, tells PEOPLE that he revered Williams' work for years before the pair first met, when he was 15, to begin work on the movie.

Robin Williams on Sept. 25, 2013.Robin Marchant/Getty

Robin Marchant/Getty

Williams' death shocked the entire entertainment industry in 2014. “It really was one of those celebrity deaths where it really felt that the world had changed in some fundamental way,” Weinger says. But as Schlatter, the man who helped give Williams one of his first big breaks in show business, says, Williams was more than a comedian.

“Robin was not just a friend and not just an employee — he was an adventure and he was a major part of my life,” Schlatter tells PEOPLE. " I cherish the times I spent with Robin Williams.”

source: people.com