Mike Nichols

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deadline.com/2014/11/mike-nichols-dead-1201290137/

Oscar & Tony Winning Director Mike Nichols Dead At 83

Legendary film and theater director, writer and producer Mike Nichols has passed away. An Oscar winner for 1967′s seminal The Graduate, he also was nominated for such films as Working Girl, Silkwood and Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? For his stage work, he amassed 10 Tony Awards including as director for such plays as Barefoot In The Park, The Odd Couple, The Prisoner Of Second Avenue and Death Of A Salesman; and as producer of Annie and The Real Thing.

“William Goldman said there were two great American film directors—Elia Kazan and Mike Nichols,” said Broadway producer Emanuel Azenberg, who co-produced Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing with Nichols, who also staged ythe play’s Tony-winning Broadway edition with Glenn Close and Jeremy Irons. “I think that’s true. He was a giant who could convince people to be better than they were.”

Nichols died suddenly late Wednesday night at 83 and his passing was announced on Thursday morning by ABC News President James Goldston. Nichols was married to ABC News Anchor Diane Sawyer. Goldston said this morning, “He was a true visionary, winning the highest honors in the arts for his work as a director, writer, producer and comic and was one of a tiny few to win the EGOT — an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony in his lifetime. No one was more passionate about his craft than Mike… Mike and Diane were married for 26 years. He leaves behind three children — Daisy, Max and Jenny — and four wonderful grandchildren… The family will hold a small, private service this week, and a memorial will be held at a later date.”

Nichols’ last film as director was 2007′s Charlie Wilson’s War with Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman. In 2012, he staged a Tony-winning revival of Death Of A Salesman with Hoffman as Willy Loman. At the time of his death, he was working on an adaptation of Terrence McNally’s Tony-winning play about Maria Callas, Masterclass, for HBO.

Steven Spielberg weighed in on Nichols’ passing this morning with the following statement to Deadline:

“Mike was a friend, a muse, a mentor, one of America’s all time greatest film and stage directors, and one of the most generous people I have ever known. For me, The Graduate was life altering — both as an experience at the movies as well as a master class about how to stage a scene. Mike had a brilliant cinematic eye and uncanny hearing for keeping scenes ironic and real. Actors never gave him less than their personal best — and then Mike would get from them even more. And in a room full of people, Mike was always the center of gravity. This is a seismic loss.”

Nichols was born in Germany in 1931 and moved to the U.S. with his family at age seven. He pursued theater while attending the University of Chicago in the early 1950s. Although he was studying medicine, his true calling was comedy. He met Elaine May in Chicago and the pair formed a legendary comedy duo, winning a Grammy in 1962 for Best Comedy Album.

In 1964, he directed Barefoot In The Park on Broadway, and followed that up with The Odd Couple in 1965. His first film as director was Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? in 1966 which won five Oscars including Best Actress for Elizabeth Taylor. He followed that up the next year with The Graduate, putting Dustin Hoffman on the map and earning seven Oscar nominations. Nichols won his first Oscar for directing the film. In the early 70s, he helmed Carnal Knowledge and in the 80s made a string of now classic movies that includes Silkwood, Heartburn and Working Girl. He produced 1993′s Best Picture nominee The Remains Of The Day, and in 1996 transferred The Birdcage to film with Robin Williams and Nathan Lane starring. His 1998 Primary Colors opened the Cannes Film Festival that year.

His TV credits include exec producing classic 1970s drama series Family and directing and exec producing HBO drama Angels In America.

The list of actors with whom Nichols worked on stage and screen is a who’s who of Hollywood, past and present. They include (in no particular order) Julie Christie, Lillian Gish, George C Scott, Richard Dreyfuss, Morgan Freeman, Steve Martin, Robin Williams, Meryl Streep, Dustin Hoffman, Jack Nicholson, Emma Thompson, John Travolta, Kathy Bates, Natalie Portman, Christopher Walken, John Goodman, Kevin Kline, Harrison Ford, Julia Roberts, Ron Silver, Anne Bancroft, Candice Bergen, Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

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variety.com/2014/film/news/mike-nichols-graduate-director-dead-at-83-1201360933/

Mike Nichols, ‘Graduate’ Director, Dead At 83

Mike Nichols, the award-winning director of Broadway and movies, has died suddenly at the age of 83, according to information released by ABC News. Nichols was the husband of ABC News anchor Diane Sawyer.

No cause of death was given.

Nichols is one of few people to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony — achieving so-called EGOT status. He is perhaps best known for his first two feature helming efforts — the caustic “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” in 1966 and 1967’s satirical “The Graduate.” But before ever stepping behind the camera, he was already part of a successful comedy duo with Elaine May and had helmed a string of hit stage shows.

Nichols’ background in improvisational, satirical comedy informed many of his films, which often started out as comedies and ended up as acerbic ruminations on American relationships.

As a feature helmer, Nichols was known for coaxing remarkable performances out of sometimes unlikely thesps such as singer Cher, who earned her first Oscar nom for her supporting role in Nichols’ “Silkwood” (1983). He directed 16 different actors to Oscar-nommed performances, including Elizabeth Taylor, Dustin Hoffman, Richard Burton and Meryl Streep (twice). He once famously said: “I love to take actors to a place where they open a vein. That’s the job. The key is that I make it safe for them to open the vein.”

In the early ’50s, he attended the U. of Chicago, where he joined improv group the Compass Players, the precursor to Second City, and met May. They became a successful comedy duo, appearing in nightclubs and on television before taking their act to Broadway in 1960 with “An Evening With Mike Nichols and Elaine May.”

Nichols’ Grammy, for comedy performance, came in 1961 for the original cast recording of that Broadway show. Their second comedy album, “Mike Nichols and Elaine May Examine Doctors,” was also nommed for a Grammy.

Nichols and May parted ways in 1962, and Nichols shifted to helming theater productions, winning eight directing Tonys over the course of his career.

It was in the theater that Nichols found another collaborator in playwright Neil Simon. In the course of his career, Nichols helmed five Simon plays: “Barefoot in the Park” (1963), starring Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley; “The Odd Couple” (1965), with Walter Matthau and Art Carney; 1968’s “Plaza Suite,” starring George C. Scott and Maureen Stapleton; “The Prisoner of Second Avenue” (1971), with Peter Falk and Lee Grant; and “Fools,” Simon’s 1981 romantic comedy set in the Ukraine. Nichols won helming Tonys for all but “Fools.”

After his stage successes with “Barefoot” and “Odd Couple,” Nichols got his start directing features when Taylor wanted him to helm “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” in 1966. The film earned 13 Academy Award nominations, including a directing bid for Nichols and acting noms for the four stars. Taylor picked up the actress trophy, and Sandy Dennis won for supporting actress. Though Nichols didn’t win an Academy Award, the pic’s other Oscars and the critical acclaim pegged the tyro film helmer as a talent to watch.

He won his only directing Oscar the next year for his second film, “The Graduate,” which received six other Oscar noms, quickly raising him to the ranks of top directors. After the success of “The Graduate,” which became a touchstone for the 1960s generation with its phrase “Plastics, I tell you, plastics,” he became the first director to be paid $1 million for directing a movie, 1970’s “Catch-22.” That film failed to catch on with auds, as did his next, “Carnal Knowledge” (1971), although it holds up well as a study of sexual revolution mores.

The director became choosier with projects after helming “Day of the Dolphin” (1973), which didn’t do well at the box office or with critics, and “The Fortune” (1975), which had moderate success. The New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael suggested in her review of “Dolphin” that if the best subject that Nichols and screenwriter Buck Henry could think of was talking dolphins, they should quit making movies altogether. However, Variety’s review of the film said: “The story climax strains belief, but Nichols is one of a handful of directors who can get away with occasional improbability.”

Except for helming concert film “Gilda Live,” starring comedian Gilda Radner, in 1980, Nichols stayed away from filmmaking for several years, focusing instead on the stage: He produced the Tony-winning tuner “Annie” in 1977 and directed several plays.

He returned to films in 1983 with the critically praised “Silkwood,” which earned five Oscar noms, including one for his direction and acting bids for Meryl Streep and Cher. He followed with “Heartburn” in 1986 (again starring Streep), and two movies in 1988: the adaptation of Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” and “Working Girl,” which earned six Academy Award nominations, including another bid for Nichols as director.

Nichols worked steadily in films during the 1990s, starting with another Streep starrer, “Postcards From the Edge” (1990), followed by “Regarding Henry” (1991); “Wolf” (1994); Robin Williams starrer “The Birdcage,” an English-lingo redo of French laffer “La Cage aux Folles” (1996); and 1998’s political dramedy “Primary Colors.” Both “Birdcage” and “Primary Colors” reunited Nichols with his former partner Elaine May, who adapted the pics for the screen.

After helming box office disappointment “What Planet Are You From?” (2000), a sci-fi comedy starring Annette Bening and Garry Shandling, Nichols turned his attention to big projects for the smallscreen.

In 2001, Nichols helmed HBO’s adaptation of the Margaret Edson play “Wit” starring Emma Thompson. He and Thompson had collaborated on writing the adaptation. The project earned Nichols his first Emmys, one for directing and one as exec producer of the telepic, which won as the year’s best made-for-TV movie.

He followed “Wit” in 2003 with another HBO project, “Angels in America,” the miniseries based on Tony Kushner’s epic play. In 2004, the mini broke the record for the most Emmys awarded to a program in a single year, winning 11 out of the 21 awards for which it was nominated. Nichols picked up another helming trophy in the haul. (That record was later broken by HBO’s “John Adams” in 2008.) In its review, Variety wrote: “Just as there was no real precedent for the achievement ‘Angels in America’ represented in the legitimate theater, so are there few film adaptations of stage works comparable to what Mike Nichols has done with Tony Kushner’s two-part epic. Fully capturing the grandeur, extravagance, urgency, poetry and humor of the produced play, the savvy veteran director has brought out an elemental dimension of emotional melodrama that makes the piece compulsive screen fare without subtracting one bit from its status as great theater.”

Nichols returned to the bigscreen in 2004 with yet another play adaptation, “Closer,” then jumped back to the stage to helm the Monty Python tuner “Spamalot,” picking up another helming Tony along the way.

Nichols’ last feature was political drama “Charlie Wilson’s War,” starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Oscar nominee Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Throughout his life, Nichols had a few acting roles in a few short films and plays, including a stint with May in a 1980 production of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, Conn.

In 2008, while helming Clifford Odets’ “Country Girl” on Broadway, Nichols underwent bypass surgery.

He returned to Broadway in 2012, directing a revival of “Death of a Salesman” starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. The play won the Tony for best revival, and Nichols collected yet another directing Tony.

He directed Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz in a Broadway revival of Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal” in late 2013.

Michael Igor Peschkowsky was born in Berlin. He fled Germany to the U.S. with his family in 1939 and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1944. He is a cousin of famed physicist Albert Einstein on his mother’s side.

Nichols was honored by the Directors Guild of America with a lifetime achievement laurel in 2000, was awarded the National Endowment for the Arts National medal in 2001 and received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003. In 2010, he received AFI’s life achievement award.

“This is a seismic loss,” director and producer Steven Spielberg said in a statement. “Mike was a friend, a muse, a mentor, one of America’s all time greatest film and stage directors, and one of the most generous people I have ever known. For me, The Graduate was life altering—both as an experience at the movies as well as a master class about how to stage a scene. Mike had a brilliant cinematic eye and uncanny hearing for keeping scenes ironic and real. Actors never gave him less than their personal best—and then Mike would get from them even more. And in a room full of people, Mike was always the center of gravity.”

Nichols had recently been involved in a new project for HBO to adapt “Master Class,” Terrence McNally’s Tony Award-winning play about opera legend Maria Callas. The project reunited him with Streep, one of his most frequent collaborators. She once said of Mike, “no explanation of our world could be complete and no account or image of it so rich, if we didn’t have you,” in hailing him as one of the essential artists of our time, according to a statement from James Goldston, president of ABC News.

Nichols is survived by fourth wife Sawyer, to whom he had been married since 1988; a son; and two daughters.

(Pat Saperstein and Brian Steinberg contributed to this report.)