Known for his preternatural performance agility, lightning-fast impressions and malleable voice, Robin Williams was a versatile actor beloved by several generations.

Fun-loving as he seemed, he also was a deeply disciplined actor ever in search of challenge and complicated roles.

Those fans and the Hollywood community were in mourning Monday after the Oscar-winning actor/comic was found dead in his Northern California home, a possible suicide, according to investigators. He was 63.

Baby boomers first became acquainted with him in 1978 as Mork, TV's lovable clownish alien in rainbow-colored suspenders on the Mork & Mindy sitcom.

Williams started out doing improvisational stand-up comedy in the late '70, and those witty reflexes, honed early, made him singular in his comic brilliance. Yet it was his prodigious intelligence, ferocious intensity and charismatic, maniacal and razor-sharp wit — which sometimes seemed to tread on the edge of sanity — that allowed him to reach into the heart of a character in his varied and impressive dramatic roles. [Link]