After Dinner Speakers: Robin Williams, Nigel Barlow, James Rubin

A manic prankster and lovable loose cannon, Robin Williams became a star in the 1970s TV series Mork and Mindy. He played Mork from Ork, a sweetly nutty space alien learning about life on Earth. Williams moved quickly into films, often playing wise comic oddballs in heartfelt dramas. He was Oscar-nominated for Good Morning, Vietnam (1987), Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Fisher King (1991) before finally winning an Academy Award as the sympathetic psychologist who befriends Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting (1997). In a more comic vein he played a wacky genie in the Disney animated feature Aladdin, the strongarmed title sailor in 1980's Popeye (with Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl), a cross-dressing dad in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993, with Sally Field) and a grown-up Peter Pan in the 1991 Steven Spielberg movie Hook. Wiliams has maintained a stand-up comedy career, and joined Billy Crystal and Whoopi Goldberg as co-host of the popular Comic Relief benefit shows.