Robin Williams paid tribute to Jonathan Winters at the 65th Primetime Emmys on Sunday night.

Winters had been nominated for the Emmys twice in his career. Winters was nominated for guest actor in a comedy series in 2003 for his role as Q.T. Marlens in Life with Bonnie for ABC. He finally won an award in 1991 in the category of outstanding supporting actor in a comedy series  for his role as Gunny Davis in Davis Rules.

Winters died of natural causes on Apr. 11 at the age of 87. In 1999, Winters was also awarded with the Mark Twain Prize for Humor.

"Jonathan Winters was my idol," Williams said on stage. "It was comedy at the speed of light and I was hooked," he added, speaking of Winters' qualities as a comedian. Williams rattled out various impressions of people from different ethnicities, doing different accents, to illustrate Winters' talent for playing foreigners and mimicking people.

"The beauty about jonathan was that he was a big kid and the world was his playground," he said before the memoriam clip for Winters was played.

Winters played characters on The Steve Allen Show, The Garry Moore Show, The Wacky World of Jonathan Winters, Mork and Mindy, Hee Haw, and It's a Mad Mad Mad World. He also voiced Grandpa Smurf on The Smurfs and Papa Smurf in The Smurfs (2011), Winters' final feature film was The Smurfs 2 (2013)

Watch Robin Williams pay his tribute to Winters at the Emmys:

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