The “comedy Buddha” Robin Williams called “the reason I became a comedian”
For many people in the entertainment business, there is often one person who most inspired them to become the glittering ray of Hollywood sunshine they are today.
In an industry that tests every ounce of your being to the fullest, it is often necessary to maintain hope by aspiring towards the career of one of your heroes, remaining as a symbol of perseverance, resilience, and how if you keep at it for long enough, you too can reach the same sparkly heights as they did.
Whether it be the countless young women who now feel that directing is a viable career path after seeing Greta Gerwig do it, to Emma Stone and her eternal love for Gilda Radner, there are many people climbing the Hollywood ladder in the hope that they will one day have a career as glowing as those who inspired it.
But comparison often wreaks the most havoc in our careers, with the idea that we should be achieving anything within a particular time frame or reaching milestones at the same time that somebody else did, only making us feel worse about ourselves. But for a strange minority of people, it is this kind of thinking that only fuels them in their journey to the top, with Robin Williams describing the one comedian who most influenced his decision to pursue the same career path and the genius jokes that always stuck with him.
Robin Williams is often described as being a master of comedy, with a deft ability to plumb the darkest depths of humanity while also being able to lift our spirits and entertain through a single joke, look or impression. Whether it be through Mork and Mindy, Mrs Doubtfire or Good Will Hunting, nearly every mood or ailment could be matched or healed through watching one of his films, with a cure-all tone across his filmography that everyone can enjoy.
However, while this natural affinity for comedy seems to be something that he was born with, with the actor striving for laughs from the very beginning as he performed stand-up in dingy San Francisco bars, Williams described one comedian who was the blueprint for everything he did, describing Jonathan Winters as the “comedy Buddha”.
Winters is the kind of comedian who defined a generation’s idea of entertainment, with a career that seemed to span every corner of the industry as he wrote, laughed and acted his way to becoming a household name. He became something of a triple threat after winning nearly every award under the sun, but became most famous for his work on The Steve Allen Show, The Garry Moore Show, and It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
While his career path looked very different to Williams’, he remained an eternal source of inspiration, with Williams declaratively saying, “Jonathan Winters is the reason I became a comedian”. You might set out to imitate your heroes, but sometimes imitation isn’t the best form of flattery. Williams might have been inspired by Winters, but he found his way through chartering his own ship and creating his own path.
