The Night Listener

ROBIN WILLIAMS: His early triumphs as a stand-up comic and a comic actor were fueled by Robin Williams' quicksilver wit and boundless energy. But Williams would later admit that his rapid rise to popularity with TV's "Mork & Mindy" came at a cost in his addiction to alcohol and... more cocaine during its 1978-1982 network run. "Cocaine for me was a place to hide," he told People in 1988. "Most people get hyper on coke. It slowed me down." Paradoxically, Williams noted, he used the drug to get "quiet times" amid the hectic pressures of his schedule and his frenetic social life. But six months before the birth of son Zachary in 1983, he quit drugs and drink cold turkey, compelled both by his wife's pregnancy and the death of John Belushi from a drug overdose hours after Williams had shared a line of coke with him. Williams didn't wait for the tabloids when he found himself again dabbling in alcohol earlier this year: On Aug. 9, he issued a statement that he had entered an alcohol treatment program "to deal with this for his own well-being and the well-being of his family." His outlook is upbeat, and he's completing a high-profile year that's included screen appearances in the "The Night Listener," "RV," "Man of the Year" and the animated "Happy Feet."

(Image: Armando Gallo/Retna Ltd.)