Robin Williams (first row, third from left) with his fifth grade class at Gorton School in 1961.
Robin Williams (1951-2014).
Robin Williams (first row, third from left) in sixth grade at Gorton School, 1962.
Robin Williams (top, center) in 7th grade at Deer Path School, 1963. Some classmates identified. Image source: I Remember Lake Forest When... Facebook page.
Star on Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Oscar-winning actor and legendary comedian Robin Williams was born in Chicago and spent formative years in Lake Forest, where he attended Gorton School and Deer Path School in the early 1960s.
For a time, the family lived on Washington Road (in the 1963 LF/LB telephone directory they were listed at 460 N. Washington). His father was a Ford Motor Company executive. When he was promoted and transferred to Detroit in 1963, Robin, then 12 years old, moved with his family.
Childhood friends recall him fondly as good natured, quick with a joke, and carrying on two-way conversations with himself using a variety of voices that later became part of his professional routines. Williams died in 2014 at age 63 when, tragically, he took his own life.