Mike Nichols
Birth : 1931-11-06, Berlin, Germany
Death : 2014-11-19
History
Mike Nichols (born Mikhail Igor Peschkowsky; November 6, 1931 – November 19, 2014) was an American film and theatre director, producer, actor and comedian. He was noted for his ability to work across a range of genres and an aptitude for getting the best out of actors regardless of their acting experience. Nichols began his career in the 1950s with the comedy improvisational troupe, The Compass Players, predecessor of The Second City, in Chicago. He then teamed up with his improv partner, Elaine May, to form the comedy duo Nichols and May. Their live improv acts were a hit on Broadway resulting in three albums, with their debut album winning a Grammy Award.
After Nichols and May disbanded their act in 1961, Nichols began directing plays. He soon earned a reputation as a skilled Broadway director with a flair for creating innovative productions and the ability to elicit polished performances from actors. His debut Broadway play was Neil Simon's Barefoot in the Park in 1963, with Robert Redford and Elizabeth Ashley. He next directed Luv in 1964 and in 1965 directed another Neil Simon play, The Odd Couple. Nichols received a Tony Award for each of those plays. Nearly five decades later, he won his sixth Tony Award as best director with a revival of Death of a Salesman in 2012. During his career, he directed or produced over twenty-five Broadway plays.
In 1966, Warner Brothers invited Nichols to direct his first film, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The groundbreaking and acclaimed film led critics to declare Nichols the "new Orson Welles". The film garnered 13 Academy Award nominations, winning five. It was also a box office hit and became the number 1 film of 1966. His next film was The Graduate in 1967, starring then unknown actor Dustin Hoffman, alongside Anne Bancroft and Katharine Ross. The film was another critical and financial success, becoming the highest-grossing film of 1967 and receiving seven Academy Award nominations, winning Nichols the Academy Award for Best Directing. Among the other films he directed were Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), Working Girl (1988), Wolf (1994), The Birdcage (1996), Closer (2004), and Charlie Wilson's War (2007).
Along with an Academy Award, Nichols won a Grammy Award (the first for a comedian born outside the United States), four Emmy Awards and nine Tony Awards. He was also a three-time BAFTA Award winner. His other honors included the Lincoln Center Gala Tribute in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2003 and the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2010. His films garnered a total of 42 Academy Award nominations and seven wins.
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Self (archive footage)
One of the greatest playwrights of the 20th century, Arthur Miller created such celebrated works as Death of a Salesman and The Crucible, which continue to move audiences around the world today. He also made headlines for being targeted by the House Un-American Activities Committee at the height of the McCarthy Era and entering into a tumultuous marriage with Hollywood icon Marilyn Monroe. Told from the unique perspective of his daughter, filmmaker Rebecca Miller, Arthur Miller: Writer is an illuminating portrait that combines interviews spanning decades and a wealth of personal archival material, and provides new insights into Miller’s life as an artist and exploring his character in all its complexity.
With charm and wit, Nichols discusses his life and 50-year career as a performer and director.
Himself
This intimate portrait of director, producer, and improvisational comedy icon Mike Nichols shows his final and historic interviews filmed just months before his death. Director Douglas McGrath documents Nichols’s early life, as he opens up to his friend, director Jack O’Brien, about the storied beginnings of his career.
A candid portrait of writer/director Nora Ephron, directed by her son, journalist Jacob Bernstein.
Executive Producer
Since its inception in Venezuela in 1976, the El Sistema youth orchestra program has transformed the lives of disadvantaged children worldwide by putting musical instruments in their hands and encouraging them through the mysterious power of music. Following the lives of three participants in the Philadelphia and New York programs, Jamie Berstein’s impassioned film introduces Raven, a young violinist with natural talent, yet an overshadowing ego; Zebadiah, who needs the confidence to defeat his social awkwardness; and Mohammed, a trombonist whose falling grades threaten his ability to stay in the program.
Himself
Notoriously press and camera-shy, David Geffen reveals himself for the first time in this unflinching portrait of a complex and compelling man. His far-reaching influence - as an agent and manager, record industry mogul, Hollywood and Broadway producer, and billionaire philanthropist - has helped shape American popular culture for the past four decades. This documentary offers a rare insight into the world of the man responsible for launching the early successes of Joni Mitchell, Tom Cruise, and Guns N’ Roses; co-founded DreamWorks; produced Cats and Dreamgirls; and is one of the largest contributors to the fight against AIDS. (SBS AU) Geffen narrates his unorthodox rise from working class Brooklyn boy to billionaire entertainment power broker in extensive interviews. American Masters explores the highs and the lows in Geffen’s professional and personal life through more than 50 new interviews with his friends, colleagues and clients, as well as other media luminaries. (PBS)
Executive Producer
In the wake of their friends' marriages and eventual offspring, longtime pals Julie and Jason decide to have a child together without becoming a couple. By becoming "time-share" parents, they reason, they can experience the joys of parenthood without significantly curbing their personal freedom. However, when Julie and Jason both become involved with others, they discover that they secretly harbor romantic feelings for each other.
Thanks
The Fantastic Mr. Fox bored with his current life, plans a heist against the three local farmers. The farmers, tired of sharing their chickens with the sly fox, seek revenge against him and his family.
Director
The true story of Texas congressman Charlie Wilson's covert dealings in Afghanistan, where his efforts to assist rebels in their war with the Soviets had some unforeseen and long-reaching effects.
Documenting the days and weeks preceding Boy George's appearance in a New York courtroom in June 2006 for cocaine possession and his subsequent sentencing to 5 days community service as a street cleaner by order of the US justice department.
Self
Filmmaker Freida Lee Mock explores the life and work of playwright Tony Kushner. Starting in 2001, when Kushner was mounting the production of his play Homebody/Kabul and running through 2004, as he worked on John Kerry's presidential campaign, got married to Mark Harris, worked with Maurice Sendak, and opened the Broadway musical Caroline, or Change.
Producer
Two couples disintegrate when they begin destructive adulterous affairs with each other.
Director
Two couples disintegrate when they begin destructive adulterous affairs with each other.
Interviewee
Twenty-three years after the release of the original Beatles mockumentary, 'The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash', famous artists, actors and musicians speak out on how The Rutles influenced them.
Himself
The filmmakers and lead actors of The Remains of the Day (1993) discuss how they came to make the film, and the subtle power of its execution.
Executive Producer
A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
Teleplay
A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
Director
A renowned professor is forced to reassess her life when she is diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer.
Producer
A highly-evolved planet, whose denizens feel no emotion and reproduce by cloning, plans to take over Earth from the inside by sending an operative, fashioned with a humming, mechanical penis, to impregnate an earthling and stay until the birth. The alien, Harold Anderson, goes to Phoenix as a banker and sets to work finding a mate. His approaches to women are inept, and the humming phallus doesn't help, but on the advice of a banking colleague, he cruises an AA meeting, meets Susan, and somehow convinces her to marry. The clock starts to tick: will she conceive, have a baby, and lose Harold (and the child) to his planet before he discovers emotion and starts to care?
Director
A highly-evolved planet, whose denizens feel no emotion and reproduce by cloning, plans to take over Earth from the inside by sending an operative, fashioned with a humming, mechanical penis, to impregnate an earthling and stay until the birth. The alien, Harold Anderson, goes to Phoenix as a banker and sets to work finding a mate. His approaches to women are inept, and the humming phallus doesn't help, but on the advice of a banking colleague, he cruises an AA meeting, meets Susan, and somehow convinces her to marry. The clock starts to tick: will she conceive, have a baby, and lose Harold (and the child) to his planet before he discovers emotion and starts to care?
Producer
In this adaptation of the best-selling roman à clef about Bill Clinton's 1992 run for the White House, the young and gifted Henry Burton is tapped to oversee the presidential campaign of Governor Jack Stanton. Burton is pulled into the politician's colorful world and looks on as Stanton -- who has a wandering eye that could be his downfall -- contends with his ambitious wife, Susan, and an outspoken adviser, Richard Jemmons.
Director
In this adaptation of the best-selling roman à clef about Bill Clinton's 1992 run for the White House, the young and gifted Henry Burton is tapped to oversee the presidential campaign of Governor Jack Stanton. Burton is pulled into the politician's colorful world and looks on as Stanton -- who has a wandering eye that could be his downfall -- contends with his ambitious wife, Susan, and an outspoken adviser, Richard Jemmons.
Producer
Jack and Judy are husband and wife, and Howard is Judy's father. They live in some fictional undemocratic and repressive country, and tell us a story about their lives, mostly from Jack's point of view.
Jack
Jack and Judy are husband and wife, and Howard is Judy's father. They live in some fictional undemocratic and repressive country, and tell us a story about their lives, mostly from Jack's point of view.
Self (archive footage)
A documentary made for the PBS program American Masters about the comedy team Nichols and May.
Producer
A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen companion agree to put up a false straight front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancé's conservative moralistic parents.
Director
A gay cabaret owner and his drag queen companion agree to put up a false straight front so that their son can introduce them to his fiancé's conservative moralistic parents.
Self
Richard Avedon was one of the great geniuses of 20th century photography, famous for his fashion photography done for the likes of Vogue, Versace, and Armani, and equally famous for his black and white portraits of American people, both famous and unknown.
Director
Aging publisher Will Randall is at the end of his rope when a younger co-worker snatches his job out from under his nose. But after being bitten by a wolf, Will suddenly finds himself full of youthful vigor. As he struggles to regain his position, he becomes enthralled with Laura Alden, his former boss's daughter. And, as increasingly animal-like urges begin to overwhelm him, Randall worries that he may be turning into the creature that bit him.
Producer
A rule bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.
Producer
Respected lawyer, Henry Turner survives a convenience-store shooting only to find he has lost his memory, and has serious speech and mobility issues. After also losing his job—where he no longer 'fits in'—his loving wife and daughter give him all their love and support.
Director
Respected lawyer, Henry Turner survives a convenience-store shooting only to find he has lost his memory, and has serious speech and mobility issues. After also losing his job—where he no longer 'fits in'—his loving wife and daughter give him all their love and support.
Producer
Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.
Director
Substance-addicted Hollywood actress, Suzanne Vale is on the skids. After a spell at a detox centre her film company insists as a condition of continuing to employ her that she live with her mother, herself once a star and now a champion drinker. Such a set-up is bad news for Suzanne who has struggled for years to get out of her mother's shadow, and who still treats her like a child. Despite these and other problems, Suzanne begins to see the funny side of her situation, and also realises that not only do daughters have mothers—mothers do too.
Director
Tess McGill is an ambitious secretary with a unique approach for climbing the ladder to success. When her classy, but villainous boss breaks a leg skiing, Tess takes over her office, her apartment and even her wardrobe. She creates a deal with a handsome investment banker that will either take her to the top, or finish her off for good.
Self
Tony Palmer's award-winning feature-length documentary profile of Richard Burton.
Director
Eugene, an aspiring writer from Brooklyn, is drafted into the US Army during the final months of World War II. For his basic training, the Army sends him to Camp Shelby in Mississippi, where toil, bad food, and antisemitic jibes await. Eugene takes refuge in his sense of humor and in his diary, but they won't protect him in a battle of wills with an unstable drill sergeant.
Producer
Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy.
Director
Rachel is a food writer at a New York magazine who meets Washington columnist Mark at a wedding and ends up falling in love with him despite her reservations about marriage. They buy a house, have a daughter, and Rachel thinks they are living happily ever after until she discovers that Mark is having an affair while she is waddling around with a second pregnancy.
Executive Producer
Four losers borrow money from gangsters to bet on a "sure thing", but lose. The gangsters go after them to get their money.
Self
Celebrities are interviewed about the social and working lives of Bugs, Daffy, Porky and the rest of the Looney Tunes.
Production Supervisor
Whoopi Goldberg in her original one-woman show.
Stage Director
Whoopi Goldberg in her original one-woman show.
Producer
The story of Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant who was purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing blatant worker safety violations at the plant.
Director
The story of Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant who was purposefully contaminated, psychologically tortured and possibly murdered to prevent her from exposing blatant worker safety violations at the plant.
Stage Director
Set in an old folks home, senior citizen Weller Martin (Hume Cronyn) has the disease of Old Age, meets an old woman named Fonsia Dorsey (Jessica Tandy) who's diabetic. They both discuss issues such as society, the hospitals, money, families, and the folks home where they live, over a game of Gin Rummy. Fonsia has never played before so Weller teachers her. Instantly she goes on a winning streak, making it very hard for Weller not to lose his temper. But he does. Both put out an excellent performance with a lot of swearing!
Director
A filmed version of the Broadway show starring comedienne Gilda Radner, complete with the characters she made famous on the TV show "Saturday Night Live."
Producer
Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder.
Director
Two bumbling hustlers in the 1920s attempt to gain the fortune of an heiress. Nothing will stop them, not even murder.
Director
Dr. Jake Terrell, who has been training a pair of dolphins for many years, has had a breakthrough. He has taught his dolphins to speak and understand English, although they do have a limited vocabulary. When the dolphins are stolen, he discovers they're to be used in an assassination attempt. Now he is in a race to discover who is the target, and where the dolphins are, before the attempt is carried out.
Producer
The concurrent sexual lives of best friends Jonathan and Sandy are presented, those lives which are affected by the sexual mores of the time and their own temperament, especially in relation to the respective women who end up in their lives.
Director
The concurrent sexual lives of best friends Jonathan and Sandy are presented, those lives which are affected by the sexual mores of the time and their own temperament, especially in relation to the respective women who end up in their lives.
Director
A bombardier in World War II tries desperately to escape the insanity of the war. However, sometimes insanity is the only sane way to cope with a crazy situation.
Self (archive footage)
Constructed from a wealth of archival footage, the documentary follows Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. from 1955 to 1968, in his rise from regional activist to world-renowned leader of the Civil Rights movement. Rare footage of King's speeches, protests, and arrests are interspersed with scenes of other high-profile supporters and opponents of the cause, punctuated by heartfelt testimonials by some of Hollywood's biggest stars.
Director
Benjamin, a recent college graduate very worried about his future, finds himself in a love triangle with an older woman and her daughter.
Man
A Bach recording plays in a New York apartment, while off-screen a man and a woman in bed together for the first time engage in pseudo-intellectual conversation. Based on the Nichols and May sketch.
Writer
A Bach recording plays in a New York apartment, while off-screen a man and a woman in bed together for the first time engage in pseudo-intellectual conversation. Based on the Nichols and May sketch.
Director
A history professor and his wife entertain a young couple who are new to the university's faculty. As the drinks flow, secrets come to light, and the middle-aged couple unload onto their guests the full force of the bitterness, dysfunction, and animosity that defines their marriage.
Writer
Julie and Carol at Carnegie Hall is an American musical comedy television showcase starring Julie Andrews and Carol Burnett, broadcast on CBS on June 11, 1962. The special was produced by Bob Banner and directed by Joe Hamilton. Banner came up with the idea in the Fall of 1961. Burnett was then a regular on The Garry Moore Show and Andrews had appeared as a guest twice, performing the song "Big D" from the musical The Most Happy Fella in the first appearance; and in the show's 1961 Christmas special, she did a number with Burnett and fellow guest Gwen Verdon plus an early performance of "My Favorite Things" (three years before she performed it as Maria while filming The Sound of Music). Mike Nichols wrote the script and co-wrote the song "You're So London" with Ken Welch. Writing began in February 1962 and the stars rehearsed for two weeks before the March 5 taping
Self
The Fabulous Fifties, CBS, combines style, humor, and imagination. It was rich in touches of quality showmanship and equally rich in the memories of a decade which it revived. In recognition, the Peabody Television Award for entertainment is presented to The Fabulous Fifties, with a special word of praise for producer Leland Hayward and the top talent which appeared in this memorable entertainment special*. *The two-hour special featured comic takes and commentary about the previous decade by, among others, Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews, Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Dick Van Dyke, Shelley Berman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, Jackie Gleason, Eric Severeid and Henry Fonda.
