A Spark of Madness

Kirk Baird

Friday, April 26, 2002 | 9:48 a.m.

As Hollywood tales go, this one sounds about as real as the next:

Robin Williams was an up-and-coming comic working the San Francisco and Los Angeles club circuits. He made an impression on audiences and fellow comics alike with his boundless energy and unfiltered improvisational style.

As he worked to make a name for himself, Williams heard about an audition for the role of Mork, an alien scheduled to make a one-time appearance on "Happy Days" as a foe of Richie Cunningham, Fonzie and the rest of the gang.

Williams, who had studied theater at the prestigious Juilliard School in New York, auditioned with countless other actors for the role of Mork for "Happy Days" creator Gary Marshall.

When it was his time to shine, Williams walked into the room and Marshall told him to sit down. Williams then turned around, placed his head in the chair and his rear end in the air. Marshall sat silent for a moment, then announced he had found his alien.

Williams was cast as Mork for the two-part "Happy Days" episode, a role that proved so popular it spawned "Mork and Mindy," which ran four seasons on ABC, from Sept. 1978 to June 1982.

Mork was the country's introduction to the manic mind of Williams. And with the comic-turned-actor again taking his stand-up routine on the road, this marks the first time in 16 years audiences nationwide can again step into the comedian's zany world.

Williams performs tonight at MGM Grand Garden Arena.

The tale of how Williams got his big break on "Happy Days" has made the rounds for years. Of course, its veracity will probably ultimately be determined by a "True Hollywood Story" episode on the E! channel.

Williams' contemporaries don't doubt the story for a moment.

"It sounds like Robin," said comic-magician Amazing Johnathan, who has his own show at Golden Nugget.

He should know. Johnathan and Williams began their comedy careers at the same time the mid-'70s and same place: the Holy City Zoo comedy club in San Francisco.

Johnathan still remembers sitting at a bar with former "Saturday Night Live" star Dana Carvey, who also developed his comedy act in San Francisco, when Williams burst into the joint to proudly show his newly signed contract for "Mork and Mindy."

" Look at this! I'm making five grand a week!' " Johnathan recalls Williams telling them. "Which, at that time, nobody could believe he was making five grand for Mork and Mindy.' "

Considering how successful the show became and the merchandise it spawned, such as lunch boxes, trading cards and even Mork's trademark rainbow suspenders, as it turned out, paying Williams $5,000 a week was a steal for the network. After the series debuted, Williams became an overnight star with his "Na-nu, na-nu" refrain (which meant "goodbye" in Ork-speak) and penchant for doing the outlandish on the show: sitting upside down in the chair, drinking through his finger and wearing clothes backward.

No matter how big a TV success he became, however, Williams never forgot where he started, and happily fit in a quick stand-up routine when he could.

"Even at the top of his game, he'd come in (the club) at 2 in the morning and do a show for 15 people," Johnathan said. "He just loved to perform."

Which goes a long way in explaining this tour.

Over the years Williams the comedian has morphed into Williams the Oscar-winning film actor. He has been nominated four times, and won a Best Supporting Actor award for 1997's "Good Will Hunting."

As Williams has moved even further into dramatic fare on the big screen, such as the May 24 release "Insomnia," in which he plays a killer, his comedy performances have been increasingly limited.

Occasionally, there is a talk-show appearance and stand-up with pals Billy Crystal and Whoopie Goldberg on the "Comic Relief" fund-raisers.

But now Williams, who is 50 -- "an age when you realize your prostate is bigger than your ego," as he recently told Time magazine -- is hitting the comedy road again.

It is little wonder, then, that the actor again wants to do stand-up.

"I think that he is truly a comedian at heart and I think he loves to make people laugh, and you can only make so many people laugh in a club or theater," said comedian Robert Schimmel from his home in Los Angeles. Schimmel, a frequent Las Vegas performer, is appearing today and Saturday at Monte Carlo's Lance Burton Theatre.

"There are some guys who do comedy who are just using stand-up to end up where they want to go. Then there are comedians who do comedy strictly for the comedy and really could give a (expletive) if they get a sitcom," Schimmel said. "Then there are comedians like Robin, who wind up with everything -- the sitcom, the movies -- and then come back and do standup. And that's (gutsy).

"Steve (Martin) crossed over like Robin did from stand-up to movie star, but you never see Steve doing stand-up. There are a lot of people like that; they get so big, they feel like the audience expectation is so gigantic, they'll never be able to live up to it doing standup anymore."

But, Schimmel said, Williams will live up to the hype that Las Vegas audiences expect.

"The difference is when it comes to living up to people's expectations, we're (other comedians) on the high school track team and (Williams is) on the Olympics. If and when he scores ... that's going to be a show people aren't going to forget for a long time and it's going to set a precedent for other comedians."

Can Williams still make audiences laugh as a stand-up comic?

Reviews have been mixed, with Time magazine saying, "Robin Williams' improv is still an amazing high-wire act," while Bill White, a critic at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said, "Although the 50-year-old comic took some amusing turns through recent events, much of his material was dated and stale."

Budd Friedman, founder of the Improv clubs, and the man who helped give Williams his break into the business, recently saw the comedian test out some of his new material at Harrah's Lake Tahoe.

He said during that show, Williams was in peak form.

"(Williams is) much more sure of himself. He still takes chances, though, which is remarkable for a guy in his position." Friedman said recently from his office in Los Angeles.

And now Friedman laughs at what other comics said about Williams at the beginning of his career.

"People always said, 'Why are you putting him (onstage), he's got no act,' " he said. "He does make it look so easy."