Robin Williams once named the “best live comedy performance” of all time
Comedy and acting have always gone hand in hand, with many cinematic superstars having started doing stand-up. However, few mastered both to quite the same level as Robin Williams, who became a legend of both stage and screen.
Singled out as a generational talent in the making when he exploded onto the San Francisco scene in the mid-1970s, Williams’ boundlessly energetic and madcap performances won him plenty of attention and admirers before he gained nationwide prominence on the popular sitcom Mork & Mindy.
It wasn’t long before the silver screen beckoned, and while his first starring role in a feature didn’t quite go according to plan when 1980’s Popeye was greeted with a shrug of apathy, he was simply too talented not to make it to the upper reaches of the A-list.
With an Academy Award win from four nominations and six Golden Globes from a dozen nods for his on-camera efforts, Williams was a phenomenal actor who was just as good at headlining a broad comedic caper as he was getting serious for an understated dramatic performance.
On the comedic side of the equation, he won a Primetime Emmy for ‘Outstanding Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program’ and three Grammys for ‘Best Comedy Album’, so he was just as heavily rewarded for his stand-up as he was for his cinema exploits.
Williams was, without a doubt, one of the greatest and most influential comedians in history. However, there was only one performer on his mind when it came to settling upon the single greatest live performance ever given by any stand-up, and it hailed from another trailblazing and game-changing comic.
In a conversation with Edward Norton for Interview, Williams stated that “the best live comedy performance is Richard Pryor: Live in Concert,” the 1979 classic that made history as the first full-length feature to be released in cinemas that was comprised entirely of a stand-up routine.
Williams was hardly alone, either, with fellow Pryor superfan Eddie Murphy also branding it “the single greatest stand-up performance ever captured on film”. The former referred to the groundbreaking performance piece as “pain and joy together incarnate,” as well as the less eloquent “big spliff lit in the night”.
The pair shared a strong mutual respect and admiration for each other that blossomed into a long-standing friendship. Pryor first encountered Williams in the early 1970s when he headed out to the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard to work on new material, where he first crossed paths with the freewheeling upstart who had charisma and presence for days.
Regardless of how close they were, though, Williams was hardly touting an unpopular opinion when he celebrated Richard Pryor: Live in Concert as the top dog. The United States Library of Congress was also in agreement after the film was enshrined by the National Film Registry in 2021.
