The late Robin Williams was one of the most beloved actors in Hollywood, and his Mork & Mindy co-star Pam Dawber, 66, claims that his likability allowed him to get away with things that would be considered total sexual harassment today. In a new biography by New York Times journalist Dave Itzkoff titled Robin which the Daily Mail obtained excerpts from, Pam alleges how he would grab her boobs and grope her, but that “it was the Seventies” and she didn’t hold it against him.
“I had the grossest things done to me – by him. And I never took offense. I mean I was flashed, humped, bumped, grabbed. I think he probably did it to a lot of people…but it was so much fun,” she told Itzkoff for the book, which is due out in May. “Somehow he had that magic. If you put it on paper you would be appalled. But somehow he had this guileless little thing that he would do – those sparkly eyes. He’d look at you, really playful, like a puppy, all of a sudden. And then he’d grab your t*ts and then run away. And somehow he could get away with it. It was the Seventies, after all.”
The ABC sit-com about an alien from the planet Ork and his roommate turned wife ran from 1978-1982 and propelled Williams to stardom. Pam had nothing but fond memories of working with Robin, telling the author that they became so close she was like a big sister to him. She described Robin as “such a nice person” with a “gigantic heart,” and added “I really loved Robin and Robin really loved me. We just clicked,”
The show’s producer Garry Marshall confirmed Robin’s wild on-set antics to the author, alleging that “He would take all his clothes off, he would be standing there totally naked and she was trying to act. His aim in life was to make Pam Dawber blush.” Mork & Mindy‘s director Howard Storm also corroborated Pam’s claims that he got handsy with her. “He’d be doing a paragraph and in the middle of it he would just turn and grab her a**. Or grab a breast. And we’d start again. I’d say, ‘Robin, there’s nothing in the script that says you grab Pam’s a**.’ And he’d say: ‘Oh, ok.'” But just like Pam, Howard said it wasn’t done in a mean or perverted way. “There was nothing lascivious about it, in his mind. It was just Robin being Robin, and he thought it would be funny. He could get away with murder,” the director revealed.
The Oscar winning actor committed suicide by hanging in 2014 at the age of 63, so he’s unable to respond to the allegations made by his former colleagues.